ILL WILL

I'm with John Lewis. I plan to boycott the Tr*mp inaugural. Not in the flesh, of course, but at least on television. I'll not watch it. I'm in agreement with the Congressman that the Tr*mp presidency is not legitimate. There are just too many indications that the election was not "free and fair." There is, just this morning, this story in the New York Times. In itself, perhaps, it would not be troublesome; but replicated likely many times by mischief-makers on the Internet both here and abroad, it suggests that fake news stories played a big part in the eventual result. Then there's the Russian intervention, by now beyond doubt.

Most disturbing to me is the part played by sheer ill will in the election. The Tr*mp team and the "President-elect" himself--sadly, this is likely the last time I'm able to use that term--whipped up so much hatred, not only directed against his opponent in the national election but also against the media, his rivals on the Republican side, indeed against anyone who dared oppose, or even criticize him. Throughout, he encouraged his supporters to indulge the worst of their primal instincts, and managed to generate a swelling flood of ill will on both sides--those who opposed as well as those who supported him. The anger and mistrust is everywhere.

Since his election, Tr*mp has done nothing to stanch that flood. No olive branch to those who disagree with him, despite numerous opportunities. Instead, he seems to have gone out of his way to engage in impetuous and petty acts of spite. Where he could easily have engendered some goodwill from opponents, he has--perhaps thoughtlessly, perhaps intentionally--provoked them further with his words and actions. He does not make it easy for any of us to modify our opinion of him, to "give him the chance" his acolytes have been pleading for, let alone to like him. He seems to enjoy the act of being ill will personified.

But we emulate him at grave cost to ourselves. My meditation group met for a sit last night, and I opened up the session with the invitation to join me in taking a close look at the ill will this man has provoked in our own minds. It will serve us better now if we manage to develop strategies to convert that feeling--no matter how righteous!--into its opposite: goodwill. To return ill will for ill will is to participate precisely in what we deplore. Which does not mean capitulating, condoning, or excusing. It does not mean suspending judgment. It does not mean sitting by and allowing ourselves to be steamrollered by untruths and injustice. It means rather to avoid being sucked into the vortex of ill will that Tr*mp has created. It may feel uncomfortable, even wrong, but it will not hurt us to send compassion out to one who shows so little of it. And who knows, it might rub off on him. It will certainly be better for our own peace of mind, which is something worth preserving.

114

So the 114th United States Congress was sworn in yesterday, with Republican majorities in both houses.

Call me a pessimist, but given the predominance of Republicans in state houses, the recent history of gerrymandering, and the current role of money in election politics, I see little possibility of change in the foreseeable future.  We'll have a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and likely a Democratic President.  The presidency represents, as I see it, the last tangible shred of democracy--and even the presidential election is compromised by money, of course, and by the absurdly anachronistic tradition of the Electoral College.

And let's not even mention the Supreme Court…

Aaaargh!  Call this an elegy for a once-promising political system, before it was hijacked by greed, self-interest, and a mindless belief in the infallibility of the market economy.

OKAY. NOW GET REAL

(A Note to Republicans)

Okay, now get real.
Get real about the grave problems this country needs to address.
Get real in recognizing you have been one of them.
Get real in acknowledging that Obama is not the tyrant you have made him out to be.
Get real in working with him rather than against him.
Get real in owning your part in the plight of the poor and the underprivileged.
Get real in accepting the reality of social security, and of all those programs you have disparaged as "entitlements."
Get real in accepting that basic affordable care is both workable and necessary for millions of your fellow citizens.
Get real in the recognition that our national obsession with gun ownership is detrimental to the health and well-being of thousands of our children.
Get real and find sensible ways to regulate the excesses of the financial industry.
Get real and address the deplorable state of education in this country, particularly among those where it is most needed and most poorly supplied.
Get real and assure that no child in America goes to bed hungry.
Get real about science.
Get real about the reality of climate change and the urgent need to address it, to protect the Earth for our children and our grandchildren.
Get real about the decaying infrastructure, that threatens business as well as individual Americans.
Get real about privacy.
Get real about those who languish without evidence or trial in the dungeons of Guantanamo.
And while you're at it, get real about Cuba.
And get real about the many thousands wrongly held in our own prisons.
And with the death penalty.
Get real about military power, its costs and its limitations.
Get real about the limits of American power in a radically chaining world.
Get real about how your actions are perceived in the rest of the world.
And so much more.
Just get, real, okay?  It's all we ask.

MEANWHILE...

... back at the Cafe Zinc.  Lunch time.  Ellie and I share an egg salad sandwich.  At the next table--have I told this story before?  I have not, but it sounds familiar--two women of respectable age, one of them with a distinctly British accent.  Irresistible!  Of course we embark on a conversation.  She's an even older immigrant than I, having left the old country with her GI husband in 1956.  (I crossed the pond in 1962, and have returned since only for visits.)  We enjoyed a friendly chat, with the growing sense that we were like-minded folk and could share our views...

It was Ellie who started telling the story of our Russian friends, from a couple of days ago.  His rage.  His hatred of Obama.  Then our new friend said, "Well, of course I agree with what he said."  That there's no difference between Obama and Osama?  Well, she wouldn't go quite that far.  But is it not obvious that Obama hates Jews?  And hates white people?  Did she really believe that?  Of course.  Isn't it obvious?  Not to me.  What makes her think he hates Jews and white people?  It's what he says.  He makes no effort to disguise it.  Hmm.  I find it hard to believe that she hears such things in what Obama says.  Does she listen to him?  No, she's too disgusted to even listen to him.  She did listen to him at first, but not recently.  But he's an enemy of Israel...

And so on.  We should not be surprised.  We are, after all, in Orange County, California, one of the most conservative in the country.  Even so, this is Laguna Beach, a small enclave of liberal thinking, and it comes as a shock to hear people talking in this way.  I was writing just yesterday about unreason.   So I sat there trying to make some sense of it all while she went on, and failing miserably.

Then I came home and found Chimmy's comment on my earlier entry, inviting me to take a look at the story of her friend Glennon's encounter.  "There is hope," she wrote.  (Or he--I have no way of knowing whether Chimmy is a he or a she.  Fun-loving, though, I'm guessing.)  So I followed the link and found myself reading this entry in a blog called Momastery.  I beg you to read it, start to finish, because Glennon provides the perfect model of a successful communication between left and right.  Where I simply goggled in disbelief, Glennon engaged.  Admittedly she had a little more time to do so, since she was on an airplane flight and her interlocutor was the angry man in the seat adjacent to hers.  But, as she tells the story, she managed to find the compassion to listen and get past the rhetoric to the basically good man behind it.  It's a marvelous story, and she tells it beautifully, without haste, allowing it to unfold and reveal an important truth without self-righteousness or rancor.

So I say bravo Glennon.  I aspire to your empathy and compassionate humanity.  I have yet to discover more about your charitable organization, Monkee See, Monkey Do, but I plan to do so.  And I have already added your website to my blogroll, and I trust that this entry may inspire a few others to check in.  And thanks to Chimmy for alerting me.  As she noted, with the evidence of such intelligence and good-heartedness, there is hope.

UNREASON

They seemed like a nice enough couple.  They had been sitting at the table next to us at the Cafe Zinc, the favorite outdoor hangout for good food at breakfast and lunch time in Laguna Beach--a couple in, say, late middle age, rather stocky, both of them, and speaking with a distinctively Russian accent.  About to leave, they stopped by at our table to admire George--a not unusual event, since George is a cute little dog who invariably manages to attract attention--and the man squatted down to pet him.

Which led, as it so often does, to the opening up of a friendly conversation.  We are always curious about people, where the come from, what they do, their families, and we soon discovered that they had escaped the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and had emigrated to Israel, where they spent the next sixteen years before crossing the Atlantic and settling, finally, in the United States.  We heard about their two sons--the first, born in the USSR, had spent his formative years in Israel.  The younger, born in Israel, was brought up largely in the US.  One of them, we heard, was a Republican, the other a Democrat.

Which led us, unfortunately, into politics.  That, too, started out calmly enough.  Until our new friend flew suddenly into an unprovoked and totally unpredictable rage.  What was the difference, he demanded to know, between Obama and Osama bin Laden?  Initially, foolishly, I thought that this was a joke, with some kind of witty answer.  But no.  The man was serious.  There was no difference between the two of them, he yelled, his face now scarlet and distorted with fury; none at all.  (I'm not exaggerating!)  This Barack Hussein Obama was an Arab, no different from the rest of them.  He was no friend of Israel... Between the Russian accent, now more pronounced than ever, and the rage, he soon became more and more incoherent, and it was only the tenor of his rant that was understandable, not its argument.

The man was coming, clearly, from a place of very deep emotion.  No rational argument could possibly have engaged or satisfied him.  We have heard that there are people--many of them--who harbor such thoughts and feelings, but we had never before encountered someone not only willing to admit to them, but utterly convinced of their incontrovertibility.  So there was really nothing we could say, except that we understood the depth of his emotion--but that we totally disagreed with him.  This, of course, did nothing to calm his rage.

But at least he had the good sense, after a while, to back away, to make some space between himself and us, and stood glowering a few feet from us while his wife took over and attempted, by way of an apology, to explain.  Something--I suspect a kind of protectiveness--had been unlocked in her and, once started, she was simply unable to stop.  By this time I had given up listening to what she was trying to say, and simply waited for the energy to run out.  And, when it didn't, and seemed not about to, and she kept running on and on, I found an excuse for Ellie and myself to hurry off from there and left her in mid-sentence.

It was a rather disconcerting experience.  Even knowing that such unreason plays a frighteningly large role in our political discourse, we usually find ourselves talking to those people who agree with us.  It's rare to find ourselves in conversation with the opposition.  We'd like to think that, if that happened, we would be able to find common ground and discuss our differences with calm and reason, that we could listen to arguments on the other side with an open mind and learn from them.  In this instance, that was clearly not the case.

I know that not every conservative believes as fervently as this man that there is no difference between President Obama and Osama bin Laden.  But the conversation did bring me to reflect on my perception that, in our current political debate, one side is reasonable, and the other is not.  I am distressed to hear the expression of similar unreason and barely concealed hatred from the lips of many Republicans these days--and not only the back-benchers and their vociferous support base, but from the Republican leadership.  No matter how hard I try to see things from their point of view, for the most part I am simply unable to do so.  Their words, their policies, their proposals for the most part fail the test of ordinary common sense.  If I learned anything from our experience at the Cafe Zinc, it is that sheer unreason has become a significant driving force in the affairs of the inhabitants of this planet, and that it threatens to destroy all possibility of discourse.

(After writing this piece, yesterday, ready for posting this morning, I happened to catch a few excerpts from both the Chuck Hagel hearings in Washington and the gun control debate.  Unreason, again, seemed to prevail.  The anger--and there is plenty of it in both situations--again seems to be coming from one direction only: from the right.  And again, the Obama hatred erupts in toxic outbursts.  His reelection is apparently a grievous insult to the righteous right, and he will not be forgiven for beating them.  Forgotten is the fact that he speaks and acts in the interests of the majority of voters in this country--and that he himself is a supremely reasonable man who argues cogently for what he believes.  What could be more infuriating than that?)

REPUBLICANS

I need to say it: I find it hard to understand "Republicans."

I'm sad to hear myself generalize in this way--indeed, I have long resisted saying it--but it's the plain, honest truth: I find it impossible to understand them.  I'm sure that the vast majority of them individually are good-hearted, hard-working, decent people.  It's when they become "Republicans" that the trouble starts.  Since Lyndon Johnson, for example, there have been only three Democratic presidents, and "Republicans" have done their utmost not only to obstruct their every initiative, but to personally destroy each one: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and now Barack Obama.  The venom with which these leaders have been treated and with which their very legitimacy has been challenged is simply beyond my understanding.  For sure, I myself have been guilty of lampooning their Republican counterparts; but I like to think that I have done so without hatred and without questioning their legitimacy.  (Here I must confess to an exception in the case of George W. Bush, whose original (s)election over Al Gore by the US Supreme Court I did consider a sham.)

But it's not just about the presidency.  There's a meanness of spirit that I find hard to understand.  The recent snide comments about Hillary Clinton's illness are but one example.  The eagerness to pile on in the attacks on Susan Rice another.  It manifests in the "Republican" attitude to the poor, the destitute, the unemployed, the hungry--all fellow Americans less fortunate than themselves.  That they were so willing, in the recent "fiscal cliff" fiasco, to deprive these people of their basic livelihood speaks, to my mind, to an incomprehensible lack of simple human compassion.  That their congressional leader, Eric Cantor, was so willing to scuttle the eventual, hard-won agreement on a compromise does not speak well of his concern for the country he was elected to serve.  That their Speaker, John Boehner, acted with such contempt to refuse either discussion or vote on the hurricane Sandy bill is emblematic, in my view, of the small minds and mean spirits of his colleagues.

Consider the spectacle of this past election.  The "Republican" candidates were vicious in the rhetoric they directed not only at Democrats but at each other.  They struggled to outdo each other in sheer vitriol and smug self-certitude.  They castigated whole segments of the American public and felt free to insult women with misogynistic glee.  Without embarrassment, they embraced the ignorance of those who deny overwhelming scientific evidence in favor of religious fervor, in order to appease a "base" of right-wing extremists.  They continue to heap contempt and scorn on the United Nations, and act as though no other country in the world is worthy of American consideration--let alone aid.

And don't tell me that it's the same on both sides, that it's politics as usual.  It's not.  Consider, for example, the clear evidence of our current President's generosity of spirit and readiness to compromise, to the point that he is willing to risk the wrath of his own party and expose himself to Republican attacks for his lack of leadership.

I'm sorry, it's not nice to generalize in this way; and the Buddhist principle of "right speech" requires us to moderate the way in which we speak of others.  It does not, however, forbid us from speaking the truth, and the truth is that these people have simply been behaving badly as human beings.  They value their rigid principles more than their humanity.  They are unkind in word and action, both.  As I say, I find it impossible to understand them.  I send them metta in the hope that a significant number of them will return to the spirit of reasonable compromise and the path of moderation and compassion.

Stand Up

Sorry, friends. It's my bleeding heart. Today, another jeremiad... There are times one has to say what's on one's mind.

Do you think there are enough among us willing to stand up, like those good people in Wisconsin, in the face of bully conservatism? I mean, enough to make a difference? Can America be saved? I really think it’s time to ask that question.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Hillary Clinton was right. She was widely mocked when she raised the specter, in 1998, of a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” but subsequent events and trends have only confirmed her suspicions. What we boast to the world as our “democracy” has been appropriated by the avatars of power and money. It is now being used exclusively to their advantage, and at the cost of the people of this country.

Okay, so call me a conspiracy theorist. I have always distrusted people who hide behind the accusatory “they,” but I’m going to use it because I am convinced that this “they” does in fact exist. They inhabit the boardrooms, the penthouse apartments and the country estates where excessive wealth prospers and multiplies with virtually no hindrance. They have disposed of everything that could once have regulated their insatiable appetites. They gobble up power wherever it exists like gourmands at the table, leaving none for others. They are the American oligarchs, unrecognized as such because they wear the camouflage of respectable conservatism, hiding in plain sight without fear of discovery.

The most effective weapon of this cabal is fear, and they have used it to suborn every institution and value. They have persuaded vast numbers of people that up is down and down is up, that right is wrong and wrong is right. They have bought our politicians and dictated our politics. They have co-opted those in political power to assure a “permanent majority” favorable to their purposes, in part by gerrymandering congressional districts, in part through the use of promotional and advertising dollars to disseminate half-truths and lies. The electoral system—indeed, the electorate itself—has become theirs to manipulate at will. Their efforts have created a Republican “base” that can be relied on to think, vote, act—and of course, consume—in accordance with their wishes. And their representatives engage in open-handed lobbying, exchanging munificence for votes.

They have succeeded in suborning the judicial system. The Supreme Court of the United States is now in their pocket, for possibly decades to come. It was their Supreme Court that assured the election of their minion, George W. Bush, in the 2000 election; it was their Supreme Court, in Citizens United, that further empowered them to manipulate elections with their money. It is to the Supreme Court they will appeal to overturn the hard-won health care bill that entitles a further 30 million less privileged Americans to access to affordable medical attention; and as I see it, given the Court’s track record of partisan decisions, there is a chance they will succeed.

They have undermined the power of the presidency. The people-oriented Carter was replaced by the business-oriented Reagan, whose powerful kitchen cabinet of business executives took advantage of his malleability to promote their own agenda of corporate advancement, along with the disempowerment of working Americans—and particularly the unions. When Clinton succeeded in becoming too successful and too popular they set out to destroy him, even though he had embraced a centrist agenda that alarmed his supporters to the left. Failing to achieve their purpose ideologically, they made it personal, resorting to a specious impeachment process to discredit him and weaken his political standing. Now, lacking any rational or personally scandalous basis on which to attack the elected President, they spread lies about Obama’s very identity and his religious affiliation—and with apparent success in some quarters: a recent poll shows that, contrary to all factual evidence, over 50 percent of Republicans believe the President to be a Muslim, and that he was not born in the United States. In this way, they seek to undermine the very legitimacy of the current presidency.

Clearly, they could not do this without the cooperation of the media. One of their more successful strategies has been to paint the media as “liberal,” even while assuring its steady movement, over thirty years, to the right. Even the “mainstream” media today, perhaps for fear of being denounced as biased, is constrained to give “equal time” to the most absurd and extreme of radical conservative views, as though their arguments had equal standing. And the extreme right wing media and talk radio hosts are given free rein to promote the lies and distortions that serve to misinform and inflame their public.

Worse, perhaps, than all this, because it runs so deep, has been the subtle co-option and reversal of those values that truly made this country “great”: a sense of fairness, justice, opportunity for all; a willingness to lend a hand to those in need or trouble; a respect for community and shared responsibility; a long, sometimes difficult struggle to assure equal rights for all its citizens. Success, these days, is too often a matter of ruthless competitiveness; it is judged by the pile of money a person can amass.

The clamor in Wisconsin, as I see it, is a revolt against all of this. It’s a plea for common cause, for respect and recognition for those who serve the greater community, a sense of mutual responsibility for the well-being and proper functioning of the social system in order to ensure that it works for all and not just for the favored few. I admire these people for their determination to stand up against the mindless march of radical conservatism.

Anyone with half a brain and the ounce of good sense needed to apply it must know that the nation’s financial woes will not be solved by window-dressing budget cuts aimed at those who can least afford it. Nor by slicing away at vital necessities like education, justice and other public services, or international relations. This is the time, as Obama says, for an adult conversation about who we are and where we’re going. It has to be one in which people on all sides of the table are prepared to make significant sacrifices. Civil servants will certainly be among them. But it is absurd to declare in advance, as Republicans persist in doing, that spending cuts alone will be sufficient. Railing against taxes may appeal to popular sentiment, but it is not responsible argument. Unless thoughtful consideration of the revenue side of the equation becomes part of the discussion, we will get nowhere.

So how many of us are prepared to stand up to the would-be oligarchs and the right-wing bullies who are their willing, if unwitting tools? Are we ready to follow the example of Wisconsin, if necessary—and those brave protesters in the Mideast!—and take to the streets to demand the conversation that we need? I think of the missed opportunity of the Jon Stewart “Rally for Sanity” with regret. There, people did show up, in massive numbers. That we stood up and were—literally!—not counted, at least not accurately by the media, serves only to show us how much work is to be done. That we stood up and were fobbed off with a glib distortion of the reasons for which the vast majority of us came was even sadder. We came—I came—to show my anger and frustration at the continued domination of our political system by the wealthy few, and by the suppression of the voices of genuine humanitarian concern.

We have been meek and passive for too long. I say, with the Boss, Rise Up! Our city is in ruins…

Don't Ask...

... me what goes on inside the heads of those Republican senators. Their lockstep vote rejecting the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" can be understood only in terms of petty, revenge politics. With large majorities even of their own supporters backing the repeal, they once again chose the path of "No" to anything proposed by those whose vestigial hold on "power" they seek to grab. This decision clearly had nothing to do with the will of the American people, nothing to do with what's best for the country or even its military forces; it had nothing to do with simple common sense or reason. Spite, I think, would be a good word for their action.

That not one senator on the Republican side was willing to think for him- or herself (at least, alas, a couple of Democrats did!) speaks to a cynicism about their role which in turn reflects poorly on the responsibility with which they address the work they are elected to do. I can find no motive in their action other than the obsession with a defeat of the Democrats and return to power. Unless, of course, they imagine that undisguised homophobia will garner them the even more enthusiastic support of their extreme right-wing base.

I was surprised to hear the media response, that this should be read as a further political setback for Democrats. Admittedly, they lost the battle of Don't Ask, Don't Tell for now; but they may find themselves in a better position to win the war. Well, at least the current war--the November election. I tend to think--or hope, let's say--that this new act of political spite will turn into a defeat for Republicans. At some point, surely, they will overstep the bounds and alienate not only every voting moderate in the country but even the most reliable of their supporters. Such blatant and irrational partisanship is no way to move forward with the country's business.

Milk

I sat through Milk with the knowledge, of course, that this dedicated, charismatic leader would be killed before the movie ended, so there was some inner resistance to getting too attached to him. Still, the incredible performance by Sean Penn left me no choice: I was totally seduced by the man's infectious enthusiasm, his compassion and his joie de vivre, as much as by his dedication to the cause that came to consume his life. The film left no question about his historical contribution to the advancement of freedom in a country that had respected it, for many of its citizens, in name only. Alas, as the passage of Proposition 8 so recently reminded us, the truth of "Milk" is as alive today as it was at the time when its hero was triumphantly elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors: we Americans gladly pay lip service to ideals that, when required to practice of our humanity, we all too easily abandon.

The film, though. In part it's the story of a rocky, life-long love affair, interrupted by Milk's realization of his mission and his single-minded dedication to the cause of gay rights. In part it's the story of that movement itself, in its raucous pioneering days in San Francisco--a time when gay men and women said Enough and protested and marched their way to the first glimmerings of the victory that still, it seems, awaits them. In part it's the story of the conflict between two men, Milk and his fellow supervisor, Dan White, whose right-wing conservatism and neurotic homophobia set the two at odds and lead, eventually, to the infamous double murder of Milk and then-Mayor George Moscone.

All three stories converge in the character of Milk, and Sean Penn's powerful portrayal of the man's human strengths and weaknesses lends them compelling credibility. I realize that it's a bit of a cliche to say that a film is about "the triumph of the human spirit," but the well-worn cliche does capture something of the essence of "Milk." As a audience, we are captivated by the sheer force of this character and his beliefs. His death comes as no surprise, of course, at the end of the movie, but is no less affecting for the anticipation: there were audible sniffles in the theater all around me, and I was aware of the tears gathering in my own eyes. The solemly silent candle-light march of tens of thousands on City Hall that followed the announcement of his death was equally moving--and a vital demonstration that the spirit that was Harvey Milk lived on. And indeed lives on today. Would that he were no longer needed in our society.

I'm sitting a lot these days with that notion of service. Those who follow The Buddha Diaries will know how much it has been on my mind. Harvey Milk was by any standard a man of service, who made the most of the time he was given on this earth to create something of great and lasting value to his fellow human beings. I'm choosing to believe that our Barack Obama is a man of comparable dedication, and my hope for the coming year is that he will be able to inspire the same in the rest of us.

Frost/Nixon

I mistrusted Nixon from first sight. He just looked shifty. Something about the eyes, the bearing... I could never understand how the American electorate could have chosen him over McGovern. I could never understand how the man could have been trusted by enough voters to be re-elected for a second term. Come to think of it, I could also never understand how Reagan could have been elected, then re-elected. Not to mention the current, soon to be former occupant of the White House. I still can't het my head around the Reagan hagiography. It was the Reagan policies, far more than Nixon's, that brought us to our present plight.

All of which brings me to Frost/Nixon, the movie. It's one terrific piece of work, not least because it makes us believe in the power as well as the pathos of the only man ever to be compelled to resign from the American presidency. Frank Langella turns in a magnificent performance. At first sight, because of the physical differences, I had doubts that he could bring it off; I kept seeing the real Nixon--or my clear memory of his face--and making the comparison. But Langella moved me rapidly beyond that doubt and had me convinced by the intensity of suppressed emotion, the commanding rhetorical skill and, yes, the shiftiness he managed to convey. By the same token, Michael Sheen was a pitch-perfect David Frost, at once cocky and self-assured, dapper and glib, at times impish and narcissistic, yet proving eventually capable of serious concentration, matching wit and intellectual intensity with that of an old pro. I had seen Sheen previously in his excellent portrayal of British Prime Minister Tony Blair in The Queen, and was equally impressed. The supporting cast was also impeccable, especially Kevin Bacon as the steely, protective Nixon aide, Jack Brennan.

The success of the movie clearly, depended on the reconstruction of the famous interview, presented as a a battle in which the heavyweight Nixon, in the first two rounds, was able easily to toss the seeming lightweight Frost around the ring. His politician's skill in taking a question and turning it to his advantage left Frost gaping in amazement and grasping for something solid to hold on to. This Nixon managed to look, well presidential. Frost looked like the talk show host he was, out of his depth in challenging this titan. The turning point--brilliantly captured in the film and presumably based on the actual fact--was a late-night telephone call to Frost, in his Beverly Hills hotel suite, from a different Nixon, one softened up by a few too many shots of bourbon and ready to reveal his vulnerability--a sense of social insecurity, victimhood and self-pity. If we're to believe the story the director, Ron Howard, tells, Nixon later had no recollection of this call, but it gave Frost the edge for the third and last round of the interview.

The subject, here, was Watergate, and Frost came armed with information from the Oval Office tapes that left Nixon bereft of prevarications and confronted him with the unpalatable truth that had destroyed his presidency. Langella and Sheen play out this act with devastating drama, switching roles from victor to vanquished and vice versa. To watch this Nixon collapse into defeat and to be brought to admit to the historic consequences of his actions and his betrayal of the trust of the American people is to begin to understand the tragic complexity of the man and even to sympathize with his downfall. In a poingant final scene, we end up aching for the man we always thought to have despised.

It's a compelling story, superbly told. Despite the fact that we know the outcome in advance--if only for having seen so many teasers in the television ads--there's not a moment in the movie where the attention wanders for lack of suspense or visual interest, and the dialogue never loses its confrontational edge. And then, too, the history lesson is as valuable and relevant today as it was in its own time: the lies and deceptions to which we have been subjected in the interest of political advantage in the past few years have proved no less damaging to our national integrity that were Nixon's. "Frost/Nixon" comes as a reminder--as though we needed it--of the urgent need for a radical change in the way we do our business as a country. The kind of deception, obsessive secrecy and obfuscation that characterized the Nixon presidency have brought us once again to the brink of disaster. It's time for some transparency, honesty, and fearless truth-telling. I'm hoping that our soon-to-be President Obama will be up to the task of putting us back on track in the coming year.

Vengeance

Last week's dreadful events in Mumbai had me thinking, in a previous entry, about death. They also triggered some thoughts about vengeance. Thus far, India has been commendably restrained in its response--at least insofar as action is concerned. There have been the press reports about high officials laying the blame for the attack on Pakistan but, to my knowledge, no rattling of sabers or deployment of troops to the border as in that earlier incident, back in 1992-93, when terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament. The exchange of angry words is inevitable; the return of violence for violence is not, if reasonable minds prevail.

The desire for revenge is understandable. Humanity 101. You slap me in the face, my hand itches to hit you right back. The Mumbai incident, obviously, provoked memories of the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, and of the American response. Most of us, including my not-quite-completely Buddhist self, could not but feel that urge to respond to bloodshed with further bloodshed. The attack on the Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, whose support and training had enabled the 9/11 hijackers, seemed to me justified as an effort to protect ourselves from further harm.

In retrospect, though--and particularly in view of the current deteriorating situation in that unfortunate country--I question whether the American initiative was either practical or necessary. It has certainly proved ineffective in the long term. My sense is that the practical necessity for self-protection was so clouded by the spirit of revenge that intentions became unclear and confused, with the result that the real mission was left incomplete. The return of the Taliban today surely gains strength from that same spirit of revenge. The cycle is tragic and unending.

Insult to mind or body offers opportunity, however. I can respond in kind and give myself the momentary, illusory satisfaction of having repaid the offense; or I can swallow my pride and, in the words of that other great prophet, "turn the other cheek." In the latter case, I risk appearing weak in the eyes of the world, and of showing myself as a person to be taken advantage of--a risk not to be taken lightly in today's dangerous world. The risk, though, is perhaps even greater and more imminent if I choose the other path, returning violence for violence, satisfying my ego but opening myself to further retaliation.

I hope that India will seize the opportunity with a measured response and an invitation to continue along the path of peace. Under our current reckless leadership, we set the worst of examples. Had we responded soley with our attack on the Taliban and the terrorists they harbored, we might perhaps have stood justified in the eyes of the world. In following that up with the invasion of a country in no way related to the provocation, we lost our moral bearings as a country. An eye for an eye is poor policy for a great nation. Two eyes for one--and more--has proved an unmitigated disaster. Let's hope that India chooses a wider path than we did.

The Buddhist teaching is pretty clear: in exacting retribution, I am likely to do more harm to myself than to my enemy. As always, though, it is easier in the theory than in the practice. To follow the teaching requires some honest and fearless inner debate.

OBAMA!

Well, he did it! We did it. They did, Obama's extraordinary campaign staff and millions of those who, like my daughter, were inspired to work their hearts out to assure that stunning victory last night. Our neighborhood down here in Laguna Beach, in the heart of conservative Orange County, California, exploded at eight o'clock when the election was called by the chattering media. The sight of the Obama family on stage at the time of the acceptance speech was stirring beyond words. Most moving, perhaps, was the face of Jesse Jackson, tears streaming down, recalling all those years it took to make this happen.

The media commentary this morning--as did the gracious Bush speech outside the White House--made story of Obama's victory to be about race, extolling the fact that a black American could win the presidency and the proof it offered that America is the place of unlimited opportunity. While this is true, I think the historical shift if greater and more important than this interpretation allows. The paradigm shift has more to do with the evidence it offers of a deep cultural tectonic event; it's a repudiation of that mean side of the American character that has been manifest these past thirty years and more, the smallness that has promoted the whole me-first mentality that was reflected first, in my opinion, in the so-called tax revolt of the 1970s. It's a repudiation of Ronald Reagan as much as George W. Bush, of the trickle-down theory of economics that made a travesty of the American notion of fairness and opportunity. It's a repudiation of the politics of division that has pitted Republican against Democrat, right against left, liberal against conservative. It's Barack Obama's appeal that he has insisted throughout on transcending these divisions.

The much-touted change is only partly about these things. But the relief that was tangible in the air last night was not just an American relief. You could almost feel the entire world taking a new breath. Obama's election is also about the realization that America must now take its place again in the community of nations, and that the world at large has much at stake in America's change of heart. I have heard it said that voting for the American President should not be restricted to Americans, since the choice affects the lives of people everywhere. There's truth to that. The world has become so small, so "flat"--to use NYTimes columnist Tom Friedman's term, that we can no longer hope to survive as a species if we cling to our old notion of a collection of competitive nation states. As a man whose very humanity is a complex blend of national and racial identity, Obama has the look of a person who transcends the old categories we must now discard.

I am convinced that the new President will make good on his promise to reach across the ideological divides. I hope that he will find a source of support in the new "old McCain" who made a reappearance last night in his gracious concession speech--a man of generosity and courage and dedication. I fully expect to see and hear more from him. I trust that the same is NOT true of the biggest mistake he made in the course of his campaign, the mistake that undermined the trust he had worked so hard to build in the American electorate. I refer, of course, to the Governor of Alaska, whose hysterical and pusillanimous campaign rhetoric did so much to discredit the ideology for which she stood.

Needless to say, we in this household are overjoyed to enjoy the prospect of a President Obama, and are prepared to do what we many need to do and make the sacrifices we may be called on to make in order to out this country back on track to fulfill its promise to itself and to the world.

Presidents

It's odd, isn't it, how things fall together? Last week, you may recall, it was birds. This week, it's presidents--and not just poor W., the unfortunate lamest of lame ducks, whose on-screen portrayal we watched a couple of days ago at our local theater and about whom I wrote only yesterday. And not just the two men vying, now finally in the last week of the campaign, for the job the current incumbent will soon thankfully vacate. No, it was also that we played, last night, our recording of the last two segments of the documentary portrait of LBJ on American Experience--the story of a great man destroyed by his fatal refusal to recognize the futility of his war in Vietnam. I was much moved--to tears, actually--at the end of the Johnson documentary, by the photographic record of a broken man, old at 64, with a long, silver mane of hair and a face deeply scored by the pain he made no secret of feeling about the ignominious end to what should have been a great presidency.

The single, inevitable parallel between Bush and Johnson is striking: both mired in unwinnable wars, each with a presidency and a legacy at stake, they are marked forever by the blood of American soldiers. I realized that I had entertained much the same thoughts and feelings about both of them, at one time and another. Back in the 1960s, I shared the disdain for Johnson that was commonly felt by those of us who opposed not only the war, but his conduct of it. In the 2000s, I have had that same feeling for Bush. I have been asking myself, since watching the documentary, whether I might be shedding tears for the memory of Bush many years from now (of course, I were still to be around to shed them!) as I did for Johnson's last night?

Perhaps. I'm honestly not sure. The difference, as I see it, is the difference between tragedy and pathos. The Bush story is one of pathos largely because of the protagonist's character: I see him--forgive the judgment--as a small man, petty, scrappy, belligerent, self-assured, unquestioning, self-congratulatory in his arrogance, incapable of recognizing or regretting his own errors of judgment. His actions have been preremptory, ill-considered, reactive rather than proactive. He has proved the hapless victim of circumstance, a period of history much bigger than himself. I feel sorry for him, but without admiration for that more-than-human struggle with destiny that characterizes the tragic hero.

If I see Johnson differently, it may well be because of the great conflict that befell him in the course of his presidency. Starting out as an unpromising and manipulative Texas politician who would sell his grandmother's soul for a vote, he grew after Dallas into a President who struggled to achieve great things: his record on civil rights and the Great Society, his introduction of Medicare and his declaration of the war on the (still unresolved) war on poverty--these are the solid foundation of his greatness. He may have achieved them through his old manipulative devices, but achieve them he did, and to the lasting benefit of this powerful nation. How dreadful, then, in the light of this dedication to the betterment of his country, was that fatal flaw that attached him to the Vietnam war, and to the obsession with coming out victorious in a fight that was lost before it started.

This, I would argue, was a truly tragic conflict in the heart and soul of a powerful man, upon whose fate the fate of millions of others rested. Watching the documentary evidence of his downfall, it's impossible not to see in his eyes, his face, his bearing, the slow erosion of a deeply conflicted human soul. Am I simply biased in failing to see the same in Bush? In Bush, I see a man who certainly has aged in the course of his presidency. In his face and bearing these days, I see a man who is tired beyond endurance, I see a man who has surrendered without being able to acknowledge the part he has played in his own downfall and who continues to hold others accountable for the results of his actions.

Am I twisting history by putting things in this literary light? Perhaps. Looking now at Barack Obama and John McCain, I see the same difference between smallness and potential greatness, the same small-mindedness that appeals to those concerned first and foremost with their own well-being and the greater vision that proposes the struggle for a better world for everyone. I know who I think would make the better president. I hope that, if elected, he will prove to share Johnson's passionate embrace of humanity--and that he will not be similarly hobbled by a futile war. My worst worry about Obama is his oft-stated commitment to an increased military presence in Afghanistan: let it not become for him what Vietnam became for Lyndon B. Johnson.

W., the Movie

(Please first click on this link to go to my nightmare scenario for the Electoral College, as posted on the Huffington Post. I'd appreciate your visit and your comment. Thanks!)

Yesterday, we went to see W.--the new film by Oliver Stone about the current tenant in our White House. Having seen Stone's earlier movies, I was expecting frankly something more tendentious in its political leaning. What I got was more of a character study, the portrait of a man constantly trying to make up for his wasted younger years with a fear of failure so intense that the ends up courting it. Dominated by a father whose standards he can never satisfy, hiding his inner insecurities with macho shows of bravado, Stone's W comes off as more pathetic and ineffectual than ill-intentioned, manipulated by others who use his malleability as the vehicle for their own nefarious needs, notably Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

Stone's movie effectively focuses on the story of the Iraq war--its boastful assumptions, its incompetent pursuit, its eventual descent into impenetrable chaos--as a kind of necessary projection of the Bush character. Aside from oblique references, and much to its credit, I think, it avoids the temptation to exploit the 9/11 disaster. I thought it succeeded very well in what it attempted, but felt uncomfortable about making a "story" out of the Bush debacle. It reduced the scope of the effects of his presidency to a character flaw--mythical in dimension, yes, but somehow intimate and personal in comparison to the vast damage his tenure in office has wrought in the real world. I wanted something bigger in its reach, in the light of this historical moment, perhaps more damning than this very humanly compassionate portrayal.

Sounds un-Buddhist, no? But for me, in this instance, it's not about the man; it's about the planet and the survival of all living species, including our own, which have been needlessly endangered by this one man's blind arrogance and presumption of divine approval. The damage is far more extensive and potentially catastrophic than the Iraq war, and I think for this reason that "W" gets off much too lightly in Stone's movie. He's human-scale. The fallout of his reign is global.

Funny McCain, Funny Obama

It was heart-warming to be reminded of the old John McCain at yesterday's Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. He was funny, charming, effusive, self-deprecating, and warmly generous to his opponent. After watching his hilarious performance, I had a moment of anxiety for Barack Obama, who was to follow McCain at the podium. Would he be able to relax his seriousness and self-discipline for long enough to be just funny? Would he risk losing political points for failing to come up to the standard McCain had set?

I need not have worried. Obama proved to be an entertaining stand-up comedian. He was relaxed, comfortable, ready to poke fun at his own overblown messianic image. His material was first rate, his timing and delivery flawless. He had Ellie and me in those proverbial stitches as we watched. And he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. What a wonderful release from the nastiness of the campaign. It was a pleasure to watch both of these men laughing out loud and with unfeigned delight, for a change, at each other's barbs.


This was one debate where it didn't matter who came out on top--and where both sides won.

(On the other hand... if you pause for long enough to analyze the press photograph above, does it not offer a distressingly regressive image of our current political and social institutions? I'm looking at the picture--ahem, excuse the pointed-headed aside--"deconstructively," with three solid rows of participants, all powerful, all wealthy--and all male!--all reveling in their own importance, chuckling comfortably in the knowledge of their own position of security. This image of unassailable temporal power protects, at its core, the medievally red-robed cardinal, the very symbol of--also male!--spiritual power. In all, a perfect and deeply disturbing evocation of the power base of Western civilization. I'm just happy to see that single, stand-out black face edging in on the company. While Hillary, we know from other pictures and television footage, is off somewhere at the periphery. The picture speaks more eloquently than words.)

Infant Mortality: A National Scandal

Okay, good. The debates are over. Obama won all three, no question. He won with poise, grace, calm, compassion, and an easily accessible resource of knowledge and understanding. He has done an incredible job thus far, with a finely calibrated campaign and a personal commitment that have never wavered. Now it's our turn. He won the debates. We need to see to it that he wins the election...

Speaking of compassion, I wonder if Governor Sarah Palin, that ardent defender of the rights of the unborn, and self-annointed supermom, took note of this report in yesterday's Washington Post about the infant mortality rate in the United States. This country, which she touts constantly as "the greatest in the world," is clearly not the greatest when it comes to giving birth to its babies. This most powerful and wealthiest country in the history of the world today ranks 29th among all nations in its record on infant mortality. 29th! In 2000, we ranked 27th. In 1960, 12th.

You'd think the governor would be out there shouting from the rooftops about this scandalous state of affairs. Well, no. So far as I know, not a peep. I suppose you could argue--albeit somewhat cynically--that abortion is a conscious choice, and therefore sinful, according to a particular religious belief; and that infant mortality, on the other hand, is no more than an unfortunate accident of nature. I myself would argue, though, that given the advanced state of our medical knowledge and the technology at our disposal, infant mortality is also a choice we make, as a society. In failing to provide our citizens with the health care they deserve--whether pre- or post-natal, or at the moment of birth--we are in fact choosing, I suspect in the large majority of cases, to allow those babies to die.

What moral universe do we live in, that we permit ourselves to make these scurrilous distinctions? How easy for the Governor to pick up on this report and make it an issue in her campaign! How great a service to her country and its people! I'm not holding my breath, however, for to draw attention to the problem would be to admit that, in this area at least, we are far from great; and that, to address it, we would need to make some serious improvements in our health care system and--I'm guessing here that, as with most other problems of this nature, it's the poor who bear the brunt of it--in making care available to the poor as well as to the wealthy.

So how about it, Governor? You'd pick up a pinch of much needed respect from voters if you were to champion such a cause, instead of simply bloviating about our supposed greatness. Drop the hot air. Talk about something that shows you really care.

Contraception

(But... before we start, I loved this picture on the front page of the NY Times:




It's actually the detail of a larger image, which features the "brain cells of a laboratory mouse glowing with multicolor fluorescent proteins." And I thought it was a painting!)

NOW...

I have been thinking about contraception since reading the Nicholas Kristof op-ed piece, also in yesterday's New York Times. It's a disgrace that our current administration, driven by its sadly literal-minded "pro-life" ideology, "is quietly cutting off birth control supplies to some of the world’s poorest women in Africa." "Thus," Kristof continues, "the paradox of a 'pro-life' administration adopting a policy whose result will be tens of thousands of additional abortions each year — along with more women dying in childbirth."

The moral issue, I agree with Kristof, is less to do with preventing birth than with causing death--and incidentally promoting the spread of disease and the persistence of poverty. Birth control, clearly, precedes conception, and therefore sidesteps all arguments about when human life begins--unless there are those who want to argue that it begins at the moment of that gleam in the eye that precedes the sexual act. Given the absurd notions of creationists, I suppose that those people might exist, but to allow them into this argument is to give them too much credit.

What are the objections, I wonder, to contraception? That it frustrates the laws of nature--and thus, perhaps, of God? That it encourages promiscuity? I'd hazard a guess that our consumer society, presumably with the blessing of our free market conservatives, does much more to promote sex among the young--and the not-so-young!--than the availability of condoms. And the teaching of abstinence in our own schools, here at home, has done little to prevent the advance of teenage pregnancy, so far as I can tell. The morally righteous folk who so fervently preach abstinence--think no further than the Governor of Alaska--look more than slightly foolish in the context of a world in which their fine advice and proscriptions are routinely ignored by the young.

And that's here at home. Who are we to be preaching the fringe values of the more repressive of our own religious fanatics to the poor in other countries? Who are we, indeed, to impose them by administrative fiat on countries where hunger, disease and poverty are rampant, and where population growth threatens the fabric and stability of whole nations--while their inhabitants themselves are asking for nothing better than education and material support to back it up?

(This is another excellent reason, by the way, to support Barack Obama, who opposes the Bush policies in this matter. John McCain has consistently supported them, and is even shockingly indifferent to the suffering they cause. Kristof writes, "when a reporter asked [McCain] this spring whether American aid should finance contraceptives to fight AIDS in Africa, he initially said, 'I haven’t thought about it,' and later added, 'You’ve stumped me.'” Really?

Since the actions of the Bush administration are based primarily in religious convictions, I spent some time yesterday searching through Buddhist sites to ascertain what teachings on the subject are available. They are sparse, and such as they are they dovetail neatly with broader teachings on sex: the central principle, for lay people at least, is not to abstain from sexual activity but to do no harm--either to oneself or others. The teachings call for skillfulness and awareness of consequences, not for abstention. Thus, "Contraception is accepted by Buddhists. According to Buddhist tenets, the life cycle of a sentient being begins when consciousness enters the womb, and traditionally this has been considered the moment of conception. Therefore, there is no objection to contraception which prevents conception without damaging sentient life."

This, like most Buddhist teachings, is profoundly sensible, compassionate toward humanity and its foibles, and practicable without harm. How very different from Christian teachings, ranging from Vatican Catholicism to Protestant Fundamentalism, whose harm in this regard is widespread and, in view of the rapidly expanding population of the planet, even potentially catastrophic! And how much more realistic and humane. Once more, I find good reason to go with the Buddha...

A Fistful of Bills

Remember my old friend Bill and his notion of Sacred Lifeboats? I was writing about him just a short while ago on The Buddha Diaries, and his conviction that the big boat is sinking, that we need to prepare ourselves for that catastrophe by building our own lifeboats now. By lifeboats, as I understand Bill's thinking, he means small, mutually supportive communities of like-minded people who share values and a commitment to the survival of the human species and the human spirit on this endangered planet.

I was thinking of this old friend Bill as I sat at lunch yesterday with another old friend Bill, Bill Megalos, a documentarian whose films on people of different cultures throughout the world will be familiar to those who watch public television, even though his name might not be. Bill has been traveling the world recently with Prof. Muhammad Yunus whose pioneering work in the field of micro-credit for "leveraging small loans into major social change for impoverished families" earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006; my friend has been privileged to meet numerous world leaders in the company of Yunus, and has developed a new direction of his own. These days, much of his energy goes into teaching, and his goal is to create workshops and schools, especially in poor and underdeveloped countries where control of the media has been restricted to the powerful. In passing on his technical skills and film-making experience to the less privileged, he hopes to empower them to bring change to their communities in ways similar to those effected by Prof. Yunus.

The past ten days are nothing, surely, if not a reinforcement of my first Bill's thinking. He is further along the line than I am--I who believe that we have not yet reached the tipping point, that we can still work to achieve the changes that we need. But the meltdown of the financial markets and its revelation of deep cracks not only in the world-wide credit system but more broadly of the magical thinking that goes into the free market system with its unconscionable exploitation of the planet's resources and a belief in endless "growth." In this context, my second Bill's actions are a positive and constructive move towards a future in which human beings of all classes and cultures are equally empowered to live their lives according to their own values and traditions, and not some version of a terrifyingly global "American dream."

I am encouraged that there are people in America who are thinking in these ways--and of course not only in America. Bill's (the second) good faith is manifest not only in his large scale thinking about global challenges, but in his small-scale actions: for years he has been devoting precious time from his weekends to the needs of the homeless in his home town of Santa Monica. His gift to them is a special one: he cuts their hair. This intensely personal act of compassionate, physical closeness has earned him the lasting affection of people on the streets, who receive too few such gestures in their often desperate lives.

As we finished our lunch and prepared to leave the diner where we had met, we caught a glimpse of another old friend Bill, this one Bill Clinton, being interviewed presumably in connection with the Clinton Global Initiative, set up to support precisely the kind of community action that we're talking about. Seeing the familiar face on the television screen, I couldn't help but have that momentary cringe, recalling the contrast between the Clinton administration's engagement in the world and our current petulant isolationism. I also remembered those FOBs--the friends of Bill--and reflected that I seem to have a collection of OFBs. Old friend Bills.

Which reminded me to make a call this morning about another OFB, to see whether I might go over this afternoon to sit with him a while. This Bill, a physician, a distinguished teacher, and a writer of many articles and books on the important topic of health care provision, is now himself suffering from the early stages of a debilitating disease. It has been too long since I stopped by...

The Many To the Few...

Our friend Nancy is an artist, who heads out from Los Angeles to the country each week for a sheep-herding lesson for her border collie, Jasper. This past weekend, she had him entered in a sheepdog trial--entry-level, as I understood, for the beginners--and was happy to report that he did well in his class. That means, of course, that she did well. Only one snag, she told us: at one point, just as the sheep were about to be herded into the pen, one of her ovine charges decided it was time to lie down and play possum. A moment's panic. All the rest of the flock were behaving according to plan, how to deal with this one recalcitrant beast? It could be a disaster, to have the dog go back to fetch the one and lose the rest of them.

"And then," said Nancy, "I kept hearing my teacher's voice saying, 'The many to the few. The many to the few...'" So that was the solution, to have Jasper bring the whole flock back to surround the one exceptionalist--who then stood up and went along meekly with the gang.

And as she told the story, I could not help but think how relevant it was to our political situation. With those hold-out independents lying there stubbornly in the grass, better for the all rest of us to go back there and work on them through a process of inclusion than to whistle and beckon them impatiently from afar, with the demand that they catch up with us.

Does that work? I thought it was a nice metaphor anyway. Or at least a very nice story.

(To interrupt myself...

... here's an extraordinary piece about the origins of the financial crisis, published in February 2008 on the op-ed page of the Washington Post and authored by then-Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer. This adds new insight into his swift demise--and into the power of the powers-that-be!)