Tag Archives: legislation

We Need Not Add to the Sum of Human Injustice

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The Washington Post reports that soon after 9/11, President Bush established secret CIA prisons in foreign countries, and authorized agents there to rescind the human rights of captured suspected terrorists, and to subject them to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. I remember when many Americans thought Soviet-style KGB undercover skullduggery and thuggery sufficient proof that the Russians were “the bad guys….”

 

The 21st century is a risky time for everyone; however, not all nations are targets of international terrorism. The safest countries today aren’t those brandishing the biggest sticks, but rather those courageously upholding impeccable international reputations for humility, fairness and diplomacy.

 

Secret government agencies can turn on their own citizenry; power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We wouldn’t need a judiciary if it were always obvious who the bad guys are. Courts are instituted to protect presumed innocents—even suspected terrorists caught in the act, even our own “strange” citizens who may seem guilty—until their guilt is proven by a court of law. If any individual is excepted from due process, if any person can be held above or below the law, then we have no rule of law.

 

We can’t prevent more 9/11’s, save our soldiers, or keep our grandchildren safe, as long as we keep adding to the number of our envious, frightened, angry enemies. It is up to American citizens to risk peace, not war; to risk caring, not fear; to risk generosity, not hate. We can elect proven statesmen to lead our country, and together offer to citizens of all nations the high moral ground of a sound spiritual and ethical example.

 

Our most powerful “weapon” is our national reputation. As long as the U.S. is seen as a rich, selfish country careless of human welfare and disrespectful of international opinion, no stirring words, no proud history, and certainly no amount of spending on intelligence and defense can protect us from our multiplying enemies.

 

Along with the rest of our fellow-earthlings, Americans risk suffering terrible injustices during this best and worst of all possible centuries. However, we need never choose to add to the sum of human injustice.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harsh or Happy Realities?

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I’ve accepted that I’m going to keep on making mistakes forever. The rest of the world will too. So my life will always be challenging, and the world will often be chaotic.

 

On the other hand, I’ve also come to realize that in any present moment I can always choose to see myself, others, and the world through spiritual eyes–peaceful, accepting eyes–and this small choice will change both my own reality and any reality “out there” in happy and often unknowable ways.

 

What does it mean, to see the world through spiritual eyes? It means to look for and see only the good. It means to let go of past mistakes, ours and everyone else’s, as well as future fears, and instead, focus, here and now, on the good that is right before us.

 

There’s a spiritual trick to all this, though. Whenever we react negatively toward ourselves and others—as we all often do, almost continuously, in fact, because we’re well-trained judgment machines—whenever we’re feeling judgmental and resistant, we can ask our favorite higher power to help us see that person or situation differently. If we’ll look, listen, and wait for our answer, we’ll soon see with new eyes, new sight.

 

Using this approach, I create every day, for myself and for others, a different, better reality than I could create alone.

 

As more and more people realize that acceptance of whatever and whoever we see is our primary work in this world, we can all relax. Instead of mirroring a fearful collective craziness, we’ll reflect the higher eternal truths and realities we all recognize during transcendent moments, when we know without question the love of God and the beauty and unity of his creation—however differently we explain such truth.

 

So, does seeing with new eyes mean we should we all fall into denial? Avoid looking at the bad stuff in our lives, and give up on changing or improving it? No. Asking for help in seeing things differently allows us to look more closely at all that is frightening and difficult in our lives—and this time, with acceptance and forgiveness. God will transform all of it into something useful and good.

 

Life will always bring up an endless stream of personal judgments and resistances begging for transformation. Although we’ve all made mistakes, none are so dark they can’t be made light if we so choose. All our relationships can be changed, all our sadness, our hard lessons turned to good purpose and peace.

 

Each of us is powerful far beyond anything we now believe. We’ve already shown ourselves powerful enough to project a whole world—a terrible one. And to see ourselves as hopeless cases. And everyone else as no better than we. Usually worse.

 

If we want something to be true, even if it’s some cruel reality we’ve settled on as the only kind we can rationally and honestly imagine, then soon enough we’ll find the evidence necessary to reinforce even such a sad belief system. We’ll no doubt react indignantly and angrily to the fearful world we’ve surrounded ourselves with, but we’ll continue to look for, reinforce, and initiate evidence for it, until eventually we make for ourselves not only a personal state of near-insanity, but a planetary madhouse as well.

 

Instead of resigning ourselves to chaos and despair, however, we can use our awesome creative power to turn things around. We can courageously drop our defenses and barriers to caring. We can turn the insanities of this world into happier realities by using our awesome power to see and create a different, better world for all.

 

I could not have imagined how lovable my former “enemies” could become—all my crosses-to bear, even my own useless ugly self—until I chose to see each person and each situation differently, with eyes that let the past go, let mistakes go, overlooked shortcomings and fear, and saw only good.

 

To be sure, I often forget to choose to see differently, moment-to-moment–that’s where the “I’ll never get anything right” part comes in….  Yes, I’ll keep on making mistakes, and add to the drama and confusion instead of transforming it—and so will everyone else. God had his reasons for making humans fallible, but he also made us capable of learning and loving.

 

When I look on others with loving, spiritual eyes, I give them an amazing gift—the gift of seeing themselves completely differently—more loving, more beautiful and good than they ever realized. My accepting vision accurately reflects back to them the truth about their deepest nature, which is no less than the most thoughtful present anyone can ever give to another human being.

 

We all wish we could receive only such loving gifts from one another. We appreciate it so much when others give us the benefit of the doubt, choose to see us in our best light and as our best-possible selves. What other kind of help could encourage us so much to become the best people we can be?

 

The gift of seeing our own strengths and goodness is not one we can easily give ourselves. It takes another person choosing to see us lovingly, to see our own selves at our best. Most often, we only know our love and power when it is reflected in the appreciation that is shining in the eyes of another, in response to our own similar gifts to them.

 

What a delightful moment-to-moment reality this can be: whenever we choose, we can see the best in others, see ourselves lovingly reflected in their eyes, and offer one another a new reality, a chance to see ourselves anew. Genuine mutual admiration societies are happy places, just as relationships based on fearful judgments are hotbeds only for more fear and sadness.

 

On an eternal scale, seeing everything spiritually is what we’re here for. God created each of our lives, and this wonderful planet, this universe, as his great gift to us, for our delight, but also for his. Our mission, should we decide to accept it, is to love his gift—our world, ourselves, each other—in each moment of eternity, asking his help to see his creations freshly each moment, through accepting, spiritual eyes.

 

We do not live in a “same-for-everyone” reality that is somehow “out there”—No. Instead, each of us uniquely reflects what’s “in here”— whatever belief systems we’ve chosen to embrace about how the world works. Yet, although we each experience our individual realities differently, eternal spiritual reality doesn’t change. The ultimate truths about what lasts eternally—God’s goodness and love for his creation—are truly beyond our mere human brains’ explanatory abilities. But even if we can’t explain it, we can experience eternal truth whenever we choose to.

 

Spiritual realities aren’t intuitively obvious in most day-to-day lives. We’re so used to our familiar, if less-than-pleasant, mundane realities that we overlook other perspectives. We're like goldfish swimming around and around in our bowls. We don’t even notice the water we're in because it’s always just sort of been there. We’re unwilling to create waves in our already turbulent inner lives by considering a radically different worldview.

 

If we’ve concluded that we’re pretty much alone in a meaningless universe, in competition with everyone else, forced to fight for every inch until we die, we can find all the evidence we need to continue to reinforce that belief system in everything we do, in everyone we meet, in everything we learn. As necessary, we’ll project what we believe onto our experiences, and act in ways that fulfill our prophecies.

 

Life becomes more and more difficult, interspersed with peaceful moments of refuge and transcendence when we intuit a world that makes more sense. But we keep turning back to what we know, or to what we think we know. We hang on to our tough-guy philosophies “for dear life,” because, no matter how hopeful alternative views may appear, no matter how hard our present lives are, we’re—sort of—used to them already. Our cold approach to life feels familiar, and what is familiar feels safer than launching into an unfamiliar world of ideas and relationships, into uncertain territory that turns our whole way of looking at life upside-down.  

 

Even if we don’t have a lot in our lives right now, at least we have what we know. Or we sort of have what we think we know. Or at least, we don’t have what we don’t know…we think. And for that small shred of certainty, we’re willing to sacrifice all other possible alternative realities. Too exhausted and beaten down from upholding our chaotic, leaky thought systems to try anything new, we settle for “being right” about what we already think; we cling desperately to our little lifeboats of certainty in our personal storms.

 

Thinking our belief system the least-worst option, we “right”-eously keep choosing to see a chaotic world full of unacceptable players—ourselves included—as more predictable, reliable, more controllable than any as-yet unknown, different worldview might be. Somehow, someday—we hope—we’ll learn how to manage the mean world we’ve chosen. Someday, surely, we’ll get used to it, learn how to deal with it—once we’ve figured out the rules.

 

But there are no rules for a spiritually empty world, a loveless, meaningless void. Life sucks and then you die. As life’s difficulties multiply, it becomes ever more important to be right about the way we’ve always seen things, because as long as we can keep on pounding away at what we think we know, as long as we can keep on looking into the same dark corners for the cheese that isn’t there anymore, as long as we can keep piling up the evidence that says “I’m right”—only then will we feel we have some chance of muddling through at least until we die–which is all that anyone can do anyway, no matter how we look at things….

 

Yet, over the course of a lifetime . . . some people seem generally contented, happy, resilient, positive, cheerful, optimistic, while the rest of us become more and more miserable. Why is that?

 

Tough-minded pragmatic stoics have lots of plausible theories to explain this phenomenon, theories which fit semi-satisfactorily, if not cozily, into their unhappy belief systems.

 

But what if the differences in the lives of accepting people, and resistant, fearful people, arise in large part mostly from their different choices about what they want to see, about what reality they choose to create, in the world, in their relationships…?

 

We can all choose to undertake a completely new life-task, a purpose different than any we’ve chosen before. And that new choice of purpose will make all the difference. We can choose to see the world, ourselves, and others as acceptable and lovable, through spiritual eyes, asking for the help we need to see each moment’s challenges, one by one, differently.

 

Yes, we’ll keep on making stupid mistakes—forever—and everyone else will too. Because we’re human, we’ll often forget to ask for help, or forget to act on it. But seeing through visionary spiritual sight isn’t as difficult a change as you might think. God only requires from us a tiny bit of willingness. He will handle all the rest.

 

He’ll take each mistake we offer him, all our sad stuff, and transform it—all of it—into something useful and good. Someday, too, he’ll take the new improved world we’ve made, all the happier realities we’ve created, and work the same wonderful transformations with it. We can’t do everything that’s needed, powerful though we are, but we can do what we can do—our small parts—and leave the rest up to him.

 

When we choose to see through spiritual eyes, the whole world quite miraculously will become a happier, more peaceful place, both for ourselves and for everyone else. Each time we remember to ask to see whatever comes our way differently, we take the small necessary step to change both what's “in here” and “out there.” As we invite God to do his mysterious work, we change reality.

 

 

 

E.P. Harmon welcomes your comments!

epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

Of Mice-Like Men: Libby and Cheney

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My country—the richest, most powerful country in the history of this planet, is currently in the hands of men who conceive of life, power, and politics in the meanest, smallest, most fearful, vengeful way imaginable.

 

Consider this quote in yesterday’s Washington Post (Sunday, October 23rd), from an article about I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Dick Cheney:

 

“Libby greatly admires the work of Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and military historian who posits that warfare is an inevitable part of civilization, evil is a basic condition of humanity, and tyrants must be confronted by the harshest possible means. (In late 2002, a few months before the Iraq invasion, Cheney—also a Hanson devotee—invited the historian to the vice president’s mansion for a small dinner gathering that included Libby.)…Hanson’s stark perspective comports with Libby’s view on Iraq. He was among the administration’s fiercest proponents of the invasion, and his office prepared a 48-page document of intelligence on Iraq’s WMDs for Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations in February 2003. (Powell couldn’t confirm a lot of the data and wound up not using much of it.)”

 

Humanity's greatest courageous and visionary leaders have historically appealed to and built upon the best that humanity is capable of, instead of looking for or reacting to the worst. How did our great country get put in charge of tiny, scared, quaking little mice?

 

I’m sure Libby and Cheney love their country, mean well, and work hard from within their narrow, frightened versions of how the world works, but they are benighted, misinformed, misguided, and do not boldly make policy or decisions based on the highest ideals and values that hold us all together and make our fragile planet go 'round.

 

We all must suffer some injustice, but we don't have to add to its sum. We can risk peace, not war.

 

I can only hope our most democratic processes soon remove from positions of influence forever, Libby, Cheney and other leaders who govern as they do.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

Thanks, Eppy Harmon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lead Me On, Oh Great Commander in Chief. But Whither?

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My favorite new show, Commander in Chief, shows promise for extending West Wing’s visionary qualities, and then some. Too bad Commander also bodes equivalent stumbles along the same dark lines of its predecessor—too much emphasis upon the quick use of military force to resolve diplomatic crises.

 

Military force doesn’t solve problems, it creates them. Will Geena Davis, aka President Mackenzie, learn this while in office? Will Commander showcase the long list of options any nation has to throw at problems, other than the show and/or use of force? Will Commander de-emphasize testosterone-filled approaches, and demonstrate instead the range of strengths any leader, male or female, can find in more “feminine” approaches? The show's producers will be glad to know that I'm awaiting their answers in great suspense….

 

And what if Geena does experience a direct provocation by another government? Why not try really clever media coverage…. What if the American public insists on revenge and retaliation? Try education, forbearance, charity…. What if Americans die? Try rituals of national mourning for fallen martyrs, or any one of the other thousand approaches to diplomacy…. What if there’s a terrorist attack by a known force? Try investigations, and high-level meetings….

 

And keep on trying. Peace and democracy aren’t missions that can be accomplished. They’re missions that never end. You can’t end a war against an abstract noun. Besides, there will always be one more bomb-throwing terrorist to provide an excuse for one more retaliation. I hope Geena teaches us that sometimes you just have to endure a certain amount of injustice—but you almost never have to add to it.

 

What if a woman who is convicted of adultery is about to be buried to her neck in the sand and then stoned to death? Geena could have focused overwhelming international attention on that country’s leaders, and then shipped in thousands of well-paid, white-clad, unarmed international forces of young innocent collegiate pacifists, silent disapproving witnesses to evil deeds, all willing to die for their ideals—just as our current youthful military volunteers are willing to die for theirs.

 

What a moral message this would send! What culture could continue to kill unarmed, disapproving children while an international press looked on? Maybe the poor adulterer would die, but maybe no other adulterers would, the next time. Geena's point would be made, her lesson taught, her stance clarified, her insistence noted. Conversations would be started. Maybe minds would even be changed.

 

We don’t have to do away with our military forces. We can still use them to defend our country from those who would invade our shores or climb with their guns through our windows (I haven’t seen much of this lately, but it could happen…) We can still call up our national guard for times of natural catastrophes.

 

A new, improved Commander in Chief would have a few long-simmering unsolvable conflicts aggravatingly popping up throughout the show’s lifespan. We could watch these conflicts wend their ponderous and circuitous diplomatic ways through the series, in alarming fits and infuriating starts, week after week, year upon year—and each time, see Geena turn down the easy options of violence. We could grow to love the wisdom and expertise of her trusted diplomats, who have already spent half their lives preparing to tackle just such thorny problems, and who will spend the rest of their lives patiently addressing them, instead of mucking them up with ever more violence, leading, of course, to ever more hatred… and violence…and more hatred…and more violence.

 

I don’t want to see any more episodes in which Geena impresses me with fast, decisive, tough and completely hokey short-sighted violent “solutions” which only postpone and ultimately exacerbate the original problems (remember Iraq?) I want to see her impress me with her wisdom, vision, and forbearance. I want to see deliberate, consensus-building, thoughtful international answers bearing the weight of the whole world behind them.

 

I’d like to see well-written episodes dealing with moments of national hysteria over provocations, complete with their inexorable drumbeats in favor of retaliation, revenge and war, and then I want to see Geena demonstrate some of the myriad, no, infinite alternatives to loutish thuggery. Isn’t that what leadership is? Or is it really all about one's readiness to whip out one's six-guns and shoot ‘em up? I don’t think so. C’mon, TV producers, make my day….

 

I’d like to see Geena diplomatically rebuild a couple of really shaky international relationships, offer aid to one of our so-called enemies in their moment of need, implement fair trade rules for globalization…. I want to see her lead, and become even more visionary than she already is.

 

Some day, when Congress gets around to legislating a cabinet-level Department of Peace (H.R 3760 and S. 1756), I look forward to seeing the show belatedly renamed “Commander in Peace.”

 

Some day perhaps we’ll see Geena back again, a full-lipped, swivel-hipped Indian-style crone, still leading her tribe patiently and diplomatically past each new day's conflict toward the greater safety, prosperity and contentment that await us all on the other side.

 

 

 

What Went Down In the Miers Nomination, and What's Up Next in the Hearings?

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Bush’s advisors must have momentarily forgotten that their boy-king doesn’t read the newspapers; probably Bush overlooked how desperate right-wingers were to nominate their very own reactionary Supreme being. His advisors also apparently lost track of who it was that first inserted into Bush’s stump speeches all that stuff about nominating a Scalia/Thomas-lookalike. Bush aspired to highest office with hardly a clue about how to thoughtfully select a Supreme Court nominee. With little previous interest in the fine details of constitutional law, he lacked the legal sophistication to distinguish a Scalia from a William O. Douglas.

 

Upon gaining the presidency, however, Bush quickly turned to his small inner circle for the necessary crash courses on foreign policy (Rice) and law (Miers), just as he once turned to his boyhood hero, Cheney, for instruction on how to select a running mate. It’s very likely that, just as Bush learned everything he needed to know (we hope) about geo-strategy from Rice, he has Harriet Miers to thank for his insights into the workings of the Supreme Court.

 

So, based on recent evidence, what did Miers teach George W. Bush?

 

That selection of a Supreme Court justice is a uniquely personal presidential prerogative, as well as a weighty responsibility…

 

…And that someone with the very specific qualities of say, a John Roberts—someone not a partisan ideologue, who loves the law, who is well-trained, accomplished and respected, moderate in temperament and above reproach in his personal life—would be an admirable choice.

 

Miers would also have taught Bush that conservative presidents can reasonably appoint conservative justices, that litmus tests aren’t appropriate, that candidates don’t have to answer questions about their personal and political opinions, and that good justices set aside their own biases, and seek, with each new case, to determine the current law of the land.

 

Bush might also have learned from Miers that, for every thorny case before the Supreme Court, a reasonable legal argument could be made on either side, and that a wise justice resists radically changing accepted law, but rather leaves major legal shifts in direction up to elected lawmakers. If Bush took in the highlights of the Roberts’ proceedings, he no doubt enjoyed hearing distinguished colleagues from both parties echo and affirm his own newly-acquired legal convictions.

 

No minority candidate with anything like Roberts’ sterling qualities appeared on the shortlists, so Bush must have gratefully embraced the idea that Miers would be a good compromise—for the same reasons he believed Roberts to be a sound nominee. Bush probably thought he was cleverly cutting a Gordian knot in  nominating Miers—a woman who (he imagined) would distress no one. Bush’s advisors erroneously had assumed Bush had shortlisted Miers as a professional courtesy, and would not forget where his bread was buttered.

 

Yet Bush has always elevated his most-trusted teachers—Rice, Cheney, and now Miers—because each has taken advantage of their considerable opportunities not only to shape their belatedly conscientious pupil’s thinking, but to successfully persuade his eager blank-slate brain of the soundness of their ideas. Considering our president’s infamous youthful lack of intellectual curiosity and indifference to exploring alternative viewpoints, it’s doubtful he realizes even now that his newly-received pearls of wisdom may in fact be debatable matters of opinion, rather than revealed truth.

 

It’s curious that presidents can be elected with no rigorous public hearings at all (one cannot count elaborately orchestrated debates), yet these same presidents are the very ones given the heavy responsibility of wisely nominating lifetime Supreme Court justices who must jump through elaborate hoops to get themselves confirmed.

 

During the upcoming hearings, Democrats will pacify their constituencies by expressing grave concern over Miers’conservatism, when in truth they’ll be kissing the very ground beneath her feet in gratitude that they weren’t handed a Scalia/Thomas clone. Democrats may even, with some reason, harbor just the teensy-weensiest outside hope that Miers will turn out to be a malleable stealth centrist.

 

It’s both admirable and tragicomic that President Bush so often accidentally buys into the public storylines his cronies elaborately create as cover stories to paper over their less admirable ulterior motives. With respect to Iraq, for instance, Bush actually convinced himself for awhile that his war really was all about democracy, rather than oil, giving his polpals fits as he briefly tried to run the occupation with that primary goal in mind. Now he's gone and gummed up his Supreme Court nominations by equally stupidly buying into the foolish pretense that he was actually supposed to nominate a fair judge.

 

Bush used to submit more humbly to his advisors’ supposed expertise. These days, Bush is apparently contemplating the possibility that he may after all have some small capabilities and experience, and is, indeed, in fact, the president, entrustable tentatively with a few independent decisions. I hope Bush shrugs off all his discredited advisors soon; just as he once picked up several useful approaches from West Wing reruns, I hope during his lame-duck years, Geena Davis will rub some of her moxie off on him, and make him surprise us and himself by going with his gut, jumping right on in—sans old advisors—to do a few things for his fellow citizens, just because they’re the right thing to do.

 

Will Miers be able to handle the tricks and traps that crafty old senators will throw at her with the intention of engineering a nomination do-over? If she’s Supreme Court material, she'll prove herself no slouch by winning over the American public, despite Republican machinations. In fact, the only scenario I can see for the GOP pulling out this big bad ol' disaster to their diehard constituents' complete satisfaction, would be for them to take a contract out on a couple of the current court liberals. Their fates rest….

 

During the upcoming hearings, the GOP will be constrained from coming right out and saying what they really wanted to do, which was to put in place an ideologue whom they could trust to consistently seek out whatever constitutional pretexts were necessary to legally lead the country back to the stone age. They’ll be forced instead to mumble lip-service courtesies to Bush’s candidate, even while scheming to blow her out of the water and replace her with some right wing nut. Democratic senators will also be squirming as they assume the distasteful duty of backhandedly persuading everyone to confirm an avowedly conservative nominee.

 

I hope Miers gets a fighting chance during the hearings to have the American public eating out of her hand before Christmastime. I also hope she gets a new haircut. (I’m not being sexist. John Warner needs one too.)

How to Polish Up America's Image Abroad

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When I was a child, living in Tokyo after the war as part of the American occupation army, we took every opportunity to visit Japanese shrines, gardens, and teahouses, to learn to play Japanese games, sing their songs, speak their language, to watch traditional kabuki plays and join in national celebrations such as Boys Day, cherry-blossom viewing, and fireworks on New Year’s Eve.

 

Despite the fact that we were no doubt perceived as representatives of a conquering nation by everyday Japanese folk, who must have seen us as responsible for their currently grave economic depression, the destruction of their cities, and the humbling of their leaders, nevertheless, our family’s irrepressible enthusiasm, respect for and interest in Japanese culture was gradually reciprocated by our neighbors’ gentle curiosity about our own “odd” customs—our funny Indian-and-Pilgrim Thanksgiving celebrations, our ghost-and-scarecrow Halloweens, our mysteriously compulsive habit of singing off-key Christmas carols at the tops of our lungs all over our neighborhood at Christmastime….

 

America’s best chance for gaining international respect and understanding will be to increase our own respect and understanding for all other cultures—for their histories, values, traditions, customs, styles, religions, concerns and problems, and their political and economic approaches and ways of life—through more extensive teaching of all forms of acceptance at all levels of schooling—and through more Americans (perhaps our most  influential cultural leaders, such as Limbaugh, Robertson, and Cheney?) traveling to other countries, living with ordinary folk, listening, learning, asking questions, opening their hearts, and marching in solidarity with them at their own sad national commemorations of tragic losses stemming from political violence of all kinds, whether terrorism, assassinations, espionage, or war.

 

Furthermore, since we already direct a lot of tax money toward other countries (but always for U.S. goals) why don't we find out from global citizens (not governments) what's uniquely most important to their countries (projects, problems, goals…) and give generously toward those projects?

 

Only when we’re willing to polish up both our image and our reality as a country that is respectful, appreciative and generously supportive of the unique cultures, values and concerns of other nations, then (and only then) will we have some hope for an image abroad as an informed, compassionate nation worthy of the interest, compassion and support of others.

 

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Treat others as you want them to treat you. This golden rule is the only basis for any relationship—whether personal or international—that ever works.

Hurricane Katrina – A Convenient Scapegoat Arrives Just in Time to Rescue President Bush

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I’m frustrated. And not just by the tragedy that past political indifference has exacerbated in New Orleans, or by the obvious fact that the U.S. is as ill-prepared for serious trouble at home as it is anywhere else in the world, or even by the fact that–well before Katrina–the U.S. economy was, if not on the verge of disaster from gross mismanagement, then at best, going to hell in a hand basket.

 

I’m frustrated because I thought all of President Bush’s chickens were finally coming home to roost.

 

All that money his Republican cronies made off of 9/11 fears, all the profligate sums paid into their friendly war machine’s gaping, indiscriminate maw—on technology and bodyguards and spying and weapons and occupations and war and all the other security approaches that shore up every engine of war profitability and make us all less secure, all that expensive marching off to all corners of the earth to push people around and tell them what to do—I thought all that bad business had finally caught up with them.

 

They’ve soaked the poor and given gobs to the rich. They’ve neglected the environment. They’ve failed to create good jobs. They’ve exacerbated the energy crisis. They’ve propped up favored industries and neglected others. They’ve endangered our economy by irritating people all over the world, who finally wearily resist buying American whenever they can, and take their vacations elsewhere.

 

For once, I thought, all their stupid policies were going to land squarely on their own doorstep.

 

Then along came Hurricane Katrina.

 

And now all of sudden, none of it is anybody’s fault. Our administration’s hands are tied—by Katrina.

 

Without a doubt, Katrina has added immeasurably to the many enormous problems that the U.S. already had before the storm turned her wrathful face upon our citizens.

 

But along with her destruction, Katrina has provided President Bush and his Republican pals the perfect blanket excuse for every failure that was about to be firmly laid to their door.

 

The budget deficit? Unimaginable government overspending? Blame it on Katrina.

 

Our ill-conceived war going badly? Sorry—must divert our efforts to Katrina

 

Dysfunctional international relationships? Too distracted by Katrina.

 

Health care collapsing? Gotta spend the money on Katrina.

 

Lack of energy reform and high heating oil and rising gas prices everywhere? Katrina.

 

Global environmental catastrophes and dangers at every hand? Katrina.

 

Crumbling national infrastructure? Katrina.

 

Underfunded education? Katrina.

 

Terrorism? WMDs and weapons proliferation? Katrina. (Say what?!)

 

Stock market tumbling, real estate buckling, economy faltering? Katrina.

 

For years, the Republican administration has neglected domestic problems and aggravated international ones. Now it’s too late to do anything about any of them.

 

Because, you know. Nature’s power and unpredictability and all that. Shrug shrug. Wink wink. Because…. You know.  

 

Katrina.

Fire and Rain and Answered Prayers

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The morning after our house burned down three years ago, we sat in stunned silence, taking in the wreckage and work that lay ahead. In a weak attempt to cheer everyone up, I joked, “I’d better watch out what I pray for, because my prayers are powerful, and I’m afraid I’ve been praying for more excitement, and more time with my family….”

 

As our losses faded with time and our lives returned to our various versions of normal, my feeble “night-before-the-fire-prayer” attempt at humor has become family lore, growing to include (retroactively) pleas for time off work, for new stuff, stronger muscles, weight loss, unique topics of conversation, time in nature, novel experiences, interesting stories to tell my future grandchildren, new learning, and more patience…. And yes, I received all that.

 

The chaos and tragedy on the Gulf Coast can be in no way compared with our relatively tiny little personal loss (no one was hurt, we were insured and financially secure, our neighborhood, jobs and support systems were intact.) Hurricane Katrina’s suffering victims have endured the irremediable and irreparable tragic losses of loved ones—family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers. Many have been injured, and most have lost all they ever worked for, and must begin rebuilding again from nothing. Many lost their jobs and their livelihoods, all their social support, the towns they grew up in, everything they might once have fallen back on. Everything, in fact, except God.

 

What prayers, the night before such a devastating storm, could possibly have been answered by Hurricane Katrina?

 

I’ll give it a try.

 

Dear God,

 

Help me to appreciate my family, friends, and neighbors, my faith, my character, my education, my memories, and my two strong hands. Help me appreciate all that I have—my home, my possessions, my comforts, my pleasures.

 

Help me to see with new eyes the good in people, and to remember that the highest value is the value of human life everywhere. Help me to focus on helping, not hurting, and to learn to give as freely as I have received. Help me see clearly that mankind is one family, that we are all neighbors, that we are all, in fact, one, completely dependent upon one another.

 

Help me to drop my childish barriers toward differences in education, social classes, races, colors, religions, and nationalities, and to see only the face of God in everyone, especially those in need. Help me to support a proud, reliable, world-class American disaster-relief system available anywhere in the world, at a moment’s notice. Help my country avoid adding to the sum of human misery by turning forever away from war and every other form of political violence. Help me to work to build a wiser global energy future, and international and domestic harmony.

 

Help me become part of creating an exemplary, environmentally-inspired American Gulf Coast, and a safe, modern, compassionate New Orleans retaining all her unique greatness, spirit and traditions.

 

Help me remember that it’s always darkest before the dawn, to look for silver linings in dark clouds, and to accept that the Lord works in mysterious ways.

 

Help me to remember that you are my strength, my hope, my ever-present help in times of trouble. You maketh me to lie down in green pastures, you leadeth me beside the still waters, you restoreth my soul. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me.

 

Amen

Quitcherbitchin, My Fellow Liberals, and Confirm Judge Roberts

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This wild-eyed lefty blogger thinks we have the best Supreme Court nominee the American public could deserve or expect, considering the President we elected twice.

 

The best outcome anyone can hope for given any Supreme Court vacancy is a nominee who is educationally and experientially well-prepared to consider complex constitutional issues, and who has shown himself a person of excellent judgment and character. To all appearances, Judge Roberts will be a thoughtful constitutional judge.

 

All the current hand-wringing, posturing, and outrage by Democrats is, I suppose, somehow useful or necessary to future fights, but we can hardly be surprised that a conservative president has selected a conservative nominee. In an unbroken American political tradition, presidents have always nominated candidates who share their political leanings. I mean, duh.

 

I’m grateful that Mr. Bush took someone’s very good advice concerning his huge responsibility to select a nominee who might make thoughtful decisions over a long period, who might strongly influence or even lead the court, and who has the capacity to deeply impact the country, albeit for good or ill. I’m also grateful that Mr. Bush did not select some fringey right-wing extremist type (we don’t need any more of those on the court. Or any more justices of dubious credentials, experience, or reputation.)

 

A woman or an ethnic minority would have been nice, all things being equal, but I saw no conservative ethnic or female nominee with equivalent qualifications.

 

Supreme Court justices are always a crapshoot anyway. Indeed, if this guy goes south on us and completely forgets that the job of a judge is to weigh all sides of an argument fairly, I’ll sadly chew very tough crow. Indeed, Roberts may make a terrible justice; one can never know. All such predictions are mere risk-calculation and glorified guesswork. Left-leaning justices sometimes swing right, solid conservatives like O’Conner sometimes move center, and sometimes we get a justice who turns a little nutty—or nutty-er. Then it’s up to the other justices to work hard to shape, mold, rein in, or sit on the new guy or gal.

 

Roberts’ relative youth is a smart choice too. Of course we would rather the young ones with years of influence ahead were liberals. But it’s good that Roberts is generationally close to the nation’s youngish folks and thus may better relate to our rapidly changing culture and the myriad new issues being raised, and it’s good that he has a young mind which may not have stopped opening and growing.

 

Judge Roberts has apparently worked amazingly hard, has shown integrity, character, and sound judgment in every phase of his life so far (except in choosing to be a conservative, heh-heh) and he has demonstrated a capacity for independent thought. His brilliant wife (also an independent thinker deeply concerned with ethics and trained in law) can only be an asset to him. His young adopted children are also a factor in his favor, as they may humanize and keep him grounded.

 

Can Roberts relate to the common man? Does he have as-yet unrevealed weaknesses? (Every other human being has; why not he?) Will our privacy rights (which cover abortion) be threatened? Maybe. Hope not. But Roberts is the best candidate we could have expected from our system when it’s working as well as it can, given our current President.

 

The very complex, fine-line, difficult-to-weigh-and-decide, arguably this-or-that cases that come before the Supreme Court are best considered by a group of thinkers who represent the broad range of American constitutional thought, both left and right. Even I don’t want a Supreme Court packed with only liberal thinkers; I hardly have that much faith that I’m always right, and the court will never be served by hordes of knee-jerk partisan yes-men. Besides, some of my opinions are proudly rightish. 

 

Finally, I’m surprised and pleased that this nominee is apparently not an extremist, but possibly, in fact, almost main-streamish-y, sort of.

 

We could all wish for a more representative government, and we could wish for a less politically influenced and influential Supreme Court. But, given the government we have, in this particular instance, President Bush has done exactly what he’s supposed to do. For a change.

 

If we want to confirm an equally qualified, more left-leaning justice when Justice Rehnquist or whoever it is next steps down, we should support Judge Roberts’ nomination, thus earning the legislative reciprocity we’ll need when our own shiny-new president (some day soon–they're all getting old!) nominates a slew of similarly qualified liberal justices.

Against Nationalism: A New Revised Standard Version of American Allegiance

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As I pull up the tiny plastic U.S. flag (tagged “Made in China”) which my well-intentioned neighbor leaves on our front lawn every July 4th, I ponder my deep affection for America–her ideals, traditions, and achievements. This land has been home, safety, and opportunity for me and mine. I acknowledge the good will and sacrifice of patriots of every nation. And I do want to be an accepting, supportive neighbor.

 

Which is why it's so very hard to explain why I can no longer countenance nationalism and patriotism in this shiny new century. We Americans could choose to salute the amazing human achievements which have arisen in our unique context of a vast, rich new land teeming with seemingly infinite natural resources. Instead, we too often associate all that is good and proud and fine and brave about our land and history and people with a divisive sort of me-first superiority thing that insists that the people on our side of an arbitrary border are us–the more-deserving good guys in the white hats, with all the best approaches to everything–while those sub-humans on the other side of the borderline, their side, are they, them, the other–fearsome, strange-looking beings, susceptible to all kinds of dangerous differences. It's just exactly this kind of automatic us/them competitive perspective that power-hungry demagogues tap so conveniently when they want to lead aggressions.

 

At least our growing understanding of ecology has finally helped us see that birds and insects and seeds and wind and rain and sun, in fact all of nature–sans humanity of course–have the common sense to be oblivious to imaginary, arbitrary borderlines. I guess that's some progress.

 

The more closely I look at nationalism, the more of our planet’s ills I blame on it. Wars. Terrorism. Unrepresentative politics. Social injustice and gross inequities. Coldness to the plights of non-“us” humans. Environmental disasters. Global epidemics. Unfair trade policies. Prejudice. Intolerance. I could go on. You name it, nationalism hurts it. Stirring emotional associations prettify the concept of nationalism, but ultimately fail to conceal the ugly truth that its most predictable fruits are separation, fear, and hatred, along with their natural corollaries, violence and suffering.

 

Perhaps not so incidental in this so-called Christian nation is the sad reality that there is not a single Christ-like or Christ-advocated thing about nationalism/patriotism. Equally tragic is the fact that nationalism doesn't accomplish anything which couldn't be achieved far less harmfully through unfettered, internet-linked local, regional, and global organizations supporting human endeavors of all kinds, whether social, political, economic, spiritual/religious, artistic…whatever. What positive thing could nationalism possibly accomplish which a consistent allegiance to and respect for human life on this earth could not do better?

 

Nationalism is an empty rhetorical device crammed full with irrational, emotional connotations, a burning nonsense cipher comprising all our breast-swellings, gratefully blown to life by small alienated power-hungry groups capitalizing on it to quickly inflame frightened masses into exploiting, occupying, attacking, retaliating, and avenging. However painfully and slowly, we need to wean ourselves from our knee-jerk heartfelt faith in nationalism, and begin to reconsider its value and its harm to all human beings.

 

I know, I know. Some people still believe in the devil, and think that human sinfulness necessitates all the “us”-es marching furiously off into all corners of the world carrying big sticks, breaking into their houses and changing their ways of life. If someone tried to bust into my home, push around my family, hurt my neighbors and interfere with our ways, I too would fight back. Meanwhile, I’m left to wonder whether nationalism and its spawn are the evils we're so afraid of, the devil incarnate himself.

 

The very concept of “nation” is, historically speaking, a relatively new one, going back only a few centuries. Before our present age of nationalism, local and regional thugs used fear, religion, ideals, and money (as recruiters do today) to attract followers. However, in those days, the accumulation of power was blessedly limited by the mortality of such temporary leaders. Today's nationalism requires citizens to blindly and permanently transfer their loyalties, indeed their lives, over to whichever country they happen to be born into, regardless of incomprehensible and rapid changes to the integrity, responsiveness, principles, and even the intelligibility of leaders, policies, and processes.

 

On this past 4th of July, I sat out under the trees with my family, eating hot dogs and spitting watermelon seeds along with other lucky Americans. With them, I took time to express gratitude for past and present leaders and workers, and for our battered but hopefully still resilient legal, economic, social, and political traditions. And then I added thanks for the uniquely American gift from God–the richest swath of untouched land in the history of mankind–and asked for guidance and humility in using what’s left of that unimaginable wealth more wisely and generously in service to mankind.

 

I prayed that nationalism will soon be just a memory of a sad, crazy passing political phase, albeit one which, during its brief reign on earth, provided a multitude of rationalizations for aggression, greed, and barbarism, always characteristically cloaked in beautiful passionate colors–among them, our own beloved red, white, and blue.

 

This morning, I try to find a dignified way to dispose of this small flag, symbol of my ardent childhood pride, devotion, and innocence, symbol of the anguish endured under patriotic predations everywhere. Of course I want to pay my respects for yesterday’s sacrifices and values. But I am moved also these days to honor the emerging, competing value which more and more Americans and their fellow earthlings are finally recognizing as far higher and purer than nationalism/patriotism. And that is respect and support for–allegiance to–human life everywhere.