Some thoughts following Obama’s talk at the Republican retreat, and the State of the Union Address.

Once again I feel like everything might be all right in the United States. Well, ok, I won’t go that far, but I feel that I got a glimpse again last night of what has the power and potential to pull us through, if anything is going to do it.

Of course, I’m talking about Love.

In his state of the Union address, Obama answered a question I’ve been wanting to ask him for a year now: what keeps him going in the face of the shitstorm he wakes up to every day? He said, in a nutshell, that it’s his belief in and experience with the basic decency of Americans. (I don’t think he meant just Americans – in context he was implicating a more fundamental human quality, what has often been called “basic human goodness.”)

I remember this experience myself, walking door-to-door in political campaigns; every day I came away from it electrified with excitement, just by hearing people’s stories and finding that they are fundamentally just like me, regardless of their opinions and ideologies. Everyone wants to feel like they are doing the right thing. (Even teenagers rebelling by doing the “wrong” thing are doing it because they feel that the “right” thing no longer holds the high ground.) Nobody, save a psychopath, wants to see, or be the source of, another’s suffering. On a more immediate level, almost everyone is cordial to some degree, and will smile or laugh at a joke, and will try to be kind to a stranger. Of course on my walks I met with some rudeness, shortness, and even threats (one fellow, with Fox News blaring from a big screen TV behind him, said “Get out of here or I’m gonna harass you!”) But the overall experience of human warmth made it clear to me that rudeness or violence is some sort of overlay or learned behavior – not essential to who we are as human beings. Even the threatening fellow above didn’t seem to have his heart in it. He was an elder who at first had a fatherly look and air to him, and his rudeness only came out when I told him I was canvassing in opposition to the Bush Administration, and his response sounded like a script he had prepared for just such a meeting. From the quality of character I sensed in him, I can easily imagine him regretting his behavior later.

I too have felt alarmed at what seems like a growing rudeness, and even violence, in Americans who are socially and/or geographically entrenched in right-wing ideologies. Of course I’m concerned about people living in isolated communities where they are saturated with hateful talk radio and right-wing “news,” and have no access to independent sources of information and ideas. I’ve gotten rude looks and treatment from these folks in truck stops and rest stops all across Middle America. But like I said above, I have faith that it’s a surface meanness, and that its source is the illness that Obama addressed in his televised talk with Republicans last week.

Going back, briefly, to the state of the Union address, one thing that struck me was hearing the President itemizing the progressive legislation that has actually been pushed through under his Administration. I had not heard of most of this, because my own sources of “progressive,” “alternative,” and “independent” news only report what’s wrong, supplemented only by one brilliantly-written and scathing op-ed after another on “how Barack Obama and the Democrats have failed the progressive cause.” And of course, one can’t expect the corporate-owned mainstream “news” that blares from every TV and headline to report anything positive – it seems the whole role of these outlets is to foment hopelessness.

I’m of course not saying we should sugarcoat what’s going on in the world, or ever cease our healthy critique of policy and politics. And I have my own deepening doubts that much can be done within our behemoth system to bring about the changes we need to urgent problems such as climate change and the ongoing wars; more and more, I’m looking to movements that circumvent the electoral and bureaucratic system and take matters positively and proactively into our own hands on a local level, such as green living choices. But Barack Obama has been giving us, over and over, a message that we can take as deeply and apply as broadly as we want to go with it, and the deeper, broader and sooner the better. Our problems are not so much in our disagreements on policy or ideology, religion, or lifestyle; these differences, according to the classic Liberal, pluralist model that Obama heartedly embraces, are inescapable in a democracy. Our problem could be introduced, in a word, as divisiveness, though there’s more nuance to it than the word implies. And this problem not only reeks in the outright ultra-conservative bile of Fox News, it is also perhaps more invidiously sleeping beneath the constant negativity of progressive news sources like Common Dreams. It is at the heart of my own feeling of being under-informed as I watched the State of the Union Address.

What is it that inspired me in the President’s televised meeting with the Republicans? Of course I’m as dazzled as ever by Obama’s stunning intelligence, confidence, mastery, humor and grace under fire. (Can you even begin to imagine Bush in the same situation, with the Democrats?) And these qualities are in no small part related to what really blew me away: the way he repeatedly drew attention to the debilitating divisiveness of both parties, and his explanation of the deleterious effect of politically-motivated attacks and negativity on the ability to get any actual work done in Washington. That it paralyses the legislative process, now and for the future. And he let the speakers in the actual question-and-answer section provide living examples of the kind of paralyzing language and behavior that he was talking about.

Like I said, it’s Love. Love doesn’t write off someone as not worth talking to. Love doesn’t consider another human being as inferior. Love “believes all things, bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (Oh, no… did I just quote the Bible? Well, there’s another unification project we need to talk about, mm-kay?) When, after almost an hour of difficult questions, the moderator implied that he would be willing to cut the last questions off because the meeting was going over time, Barack said, “I’m havin’ fun!” I truly believe it. I think that man is so grounded in his belief in the basic worthiness of all human beings, including sleazy politicos out to destroy him, that he is impervious to their blows as long as he’s actively driving his message home and working at the project of mending our divided Union. The more they tried to slime him, the more they proved his point. And he’s standing on the rock of his faith American Liberalism, and the Constitution. And he’s smart and studied as hell. And I think he’s rising to the occasion every minute he’s in there.

Yes, despite the ugly decisions he’s made in the last year, I’m still proud, and humbled, and I’m still blown away.

All Right Now

“In what concerns my association with men, with things, I refuse to be coerced even by truth, even by beauty.”
- Cicero

Thinking about the seventies again. They always get a bad rap these days – spun as a dark time of crime and chaos (there is of course a political element that gains power by our thinking of this creative time in a negative light) when actually there was a lot of joy – we were going to overcome the problems of the world with our increasing intelligence, humanity, and technology. Then came the conservative backlash… But that’s another sad story.

I used to perform occasionally with a drag king troupe. When I do drag I do it to celebrate maleness. My own male aspect, and the beauty of men. “All Right Now” is, in my mind, a perfect expression of the liberation of the seventies – a skinny English boy strutting out his sexuality in front of one of the thickest, baddest guitar riffs of all time. For the act I dress like a blue-collar guy in a ridiculously overstuffed toolbelt, an a-shirt, Levis and Dickies work boots. I bust open a 12 pack of Budweiser and invite my friends over to party, which snowballs into a swaggering air-guitar festival.

When I first presented this idea to the rest of the drag troupe, some people wanted to add another element: some femme women would walk by with placards replying in sassy ways to the protagonist’s sexually confident come-on statements (“In your dreams,” “Yeah, right,” etc.) The troupe had a very strong poststructuralist, gender-critical feminist element in it, which I supported, of course. This was my first show with the troupe and I went along with the placard idea, but it really detracted from the point I wanted to make.

We’ve all heard the phrase “whenever anyone is oppressed, we are all oppressed.” I would like to add, “Whenever any one of us is liberated, we are all liberated.” The confident white boy in “All Right Now” reflecting on his (probably imagined) successful sexual exploit is just one voice in a whole freedom movement. One of the loudest, of course, because he is one of the dominant group: white men – the ones who got the recording contracts and all the other advantages. But to the degree he is truly singing from a state of freedom, he is the voice of all freedom.

I know the sexual liberation movement became an excuse for many men to push themselves on women with renewed brashness. I definitely had my share of men on dates responding to my rejections with “you just need to relax, baby – you’re too uptight,” and succumbing to them because I believed it – that there was something wrong with me. I have been through my anger over these violations many times. It really sucked that they did that. It sucks that they still do it with different excuses, or even worse, with chemicals.

But Love and fear are always interlaced – we haven’t managed to separate them yet.

Maybe just a listen to the song would clear this up better than all my words. Listen to the joy in Paul Rodgers’s voice, the delicious power chords barking out of those humbuckers, the sassy cheap-ass bass tone. The claves! A great moment in recording history that was, whenever someone in that studio said, “How about some claves?” Or maybe they used them from the start to hold down the tempo. Whatever the story is around the claves, the song wouldn’t be right without them.

In the liner notes of the “Best of Free” Jim Bickhart tells the story of how “All Right Now” came out of a riff that guitarist Paul Kossoff came up with “fooling around backstage.” The song came out of fooling around, some boys playing around together. Free. Free to play, free to strut, free to make big fat sounds in the night on a stage in front of thousands of other people feeling a little bit freer by the time they went home. Free.

This is what my drag piece was about. A blue-collar white boy celebrating his simple, sexy self. Knowingly or unknowingly toward the liberation of all of us, and inspired by the overall feeling of hope and freedom of the early seventies, riding the wave of the liberation movement of the women, the queers, the people of color, and inviting everyone along for the ride.

I just went online to look for pictures of Free, and ran across Andy Fraser the bass player’s website. I looked at his photo page and thought, “god, what a beautiful man!” Then I read his bio, and found out he’s just recently come out of the closet and is living with AIDS. And there’s this sublime video about his coming out to his family. Then I surfed on to concert clips of Free on YouTube, including the recent Paul Rogers and Queen tour. Paul Rogers is still a total babe, too! Wow! Sexy men. And knowing it.

Words create reality. Naming your band Free puts a certain responsibility on your shoulders; that word carries powerful medicine. The guitar player overdosed. The band split up. But the survivors are so beautiful it makes me want to go work out. Free. Free. Free. Can we be? Can we support someone to be free even when their expression includes the language or trappings of the old regime? Can we bring the old boys into the new world? I guess it’s a situational decision, how far to stretch or how firm to stand. That old democracy thing again.

When I allowed the placards in the drag piece, I sold out in the same way I did when I let the date guys convince me that my lack of attraction was my own personal flaw. I thought there was some feminist message I was just not sophisticated enough to think to include; I needed to literally include the “woman’s voice.” But in retrospect, I realize that the message of freedom is enough. It’s the height of sophistication, and feminism. It’s the voice of all of us, beyond gender – or far beneath it, at the core of who we are. It can only be found in joy, acceptance… Love, in other words. Not tearing someone down, but lifting them up. It’s really not that difficult to do, it’s just hard to see you’re tearing someone down sometimes. That’s what we’re here to learn. And we get to do it over and over until we get it right.

LarryCowellRIP

My father, Larry Cowell, passed on Saturday, July 12, 2008, at 10:30 am. I started a blog to honor him:
http://larrycowellcelebration.blogspot.com

A missive on my father, America, and all that

When you don’t have to think about something, you generally don’t. This is the problem of privilege. White people don’t have to think about the point of view of people of color. Men don’t have to think about the point of view of women, straight people of gay or gender-variant people, wealthy of poor, free of those in prison. If your position is comfortable and safe relative to someone else’s, it takes a monumental, sustained effort to leave that comfort zone and feel someone else’s perspective without quickly falling into the easy traps of condescension, such as charitable contributions and the assigning of false consciousness, that seem compassionate on the outside but allow the giver to unconsciously maintain the same spiritually destitute perspective.

I think white America is at a turning point. Last week my white, middle-class family spent ten hours in an emergency room waiting for a doctor to see my 84-year-old wheelchair-bound father – a man who fought in World War II, worked all his life at a tedious job, supported a family, did all the things he was expected to do. He had fallen down and hit his head – a bloody mess, but all he needed was twenty stitches. We sat beside a weeping young woman who had also fallen down and whose tooth was sticking through her lip. She waited ten hours too. As did the two people with broken legs, the ambulance arrivals, and the whole annex full of children in various states of misery. None of us had any choice.

This is not a new scenario for the poor and the marginalized – I heard similar stories about the Charity Hospital emergency room when I lived in New Orleans almost twenty years ago. The waits were not as long as they are in the current health-care crisis, but the insanity of the sick and injured being compelled to wait hours for care due to purely socioeconomic factors is the same. What is politically significant is that it’s happening to white middle-class folks now.

My whole country is becoming a ghetto. Under constant surveillance, economic stress, inadequate social services, and yet this transformation is still invisible to the continuing blindness and unconscious cruelty of the remaining privileged few.
The outrage, and even the mild discomfort, of white people over the words of the Reverend Jeremiah White exemplify the unconscious ignorance of the privileged. Because it requires so much effort on the part of the listener, it’s no fun for the privileged to hear the truth from the “other” perspective. It asks you to work. Who want to work? Isn’t life all about getting the maximum return for your investment, even spiritually and intellectually? I would guess most of our economically privileged are privileged because they follow, and have probably internalized, the basic principles of maximizing returns – whether they learned it the hard way or from their parents is irrelevant. It’s an ideology, the “naturalness” of free-market individualism having been psychologized hundreds of years ago in Western “Enlightenment” thinking by our friends like Locke and Hobbes. All we have to do is look out for ourselves. There is no moral imperative to care.

I only participated in the ten-hour emergency room vigil for a few hours – I had a plane trip to pack for. I called my stepmother’s cellphone at 10 p.m. – hour six – to see if they needed me. She said no, they were already in a room now and would be taken care of any minute. When I called the next morning, she said they finally got out of the hospital at 2 a.m. For twenty stitches. Then I was taken to the airport, bound for visits to Political Science graduate programs in the Northeast, burning with rage at my father’s and the tooth-girl’s mistreatment by, and vulnerability to, a pathologically imbalanced national economy and “health care” system.

You have to understand something about my father to see the significance of this series of events. My father is the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the Golden Age of Greece. He is Plato and Galileo and John Stuart Mill. He is the triumph of reason over the dark night of religious ignorance – atheist, secular humanist, scientist, former communist, realist artist, engineer, peace activist, civil libertarian. He rails against the conservatives and still flies his flag every Fourth of July. He critiques this country and has been willing also to die for it. He flew fifty-one missions over Germany. And like the Enlightenment Man, he has had some myopia. He has “a few Black friends.” He calls women girls sometimes. He thinks gay people are superior in intelligence and creativity. (Well, ok, he got that right.) He spoils his daughters, though it looks like liberty, and lays unreachable expectations on his son, though they are always unstated. I was allowed almost absolute liberty as a child, to the degree that I have had to learn about boundaries and self-discipline the hard way, as an adult. (A problem of too much democracy?) While we are free to become whomever we please, and are praised for our progress, some invisible Platonic ideal hangs constantly over our heads: who we become is never enough. Religion and spirituality cannot be discussed. But over all, I agree with the general opinion of almost everyone who meets my father. He is a wonderful man and he must be a cool dad. Yes, he is, and I’m very proud of him.

He was diagnosed with ALS a couple of weeks ago. He kept falling down. Older people almost never contract ALS – it’s a “young man’s disease.” My dad was the picture of vitality until a few months ago, flying his airplane, walking the dog every day, proud of his health and attributing it to his positive attitude toward life. Now, all of a sudden, his brilliant mind can’t tell his muscles what to do. We are all devastated, and there is no telling how or at what speed this disease will move.

I am his seed. For my whole adult life I took the liberty to pursue happiness, as a musician, artist, and lover. While disdaining calcifying institutions, I still believed in the critical importance of education (my sister became a teacher, my brother should have several autodidactic PhD’s by now); while disdaining Western masculinist literary culture I still get misty over the Great Books (my sister is now a librarian, family gatherings always see somebody with their nose in a book); while exploring alternative spirituality and seeking intuitive feminine wisdom, this wisdom still strains against a rational humanist skepticism in my mind (my brother converted to an orthodox religion for many years, but one with a strong intellectual discursive tradition.) And though for most of my adult life I rejected political involvement and awareness in favor of “personal growth,” I am now a born-again activist looking at graduate work in Political Theory. I can’t escape Plato. Well, can any of us?
Now back to the airport.

Still breathing through my anger and frustration over the emergency room, I went as calmly as I could through the security check. They told me I couldn’t bring my bottle of water through, so I went back outside to drink it. Coming through the second time, I guess someone read my rage; though it had gone through fine the first time, this time a belligerent, clearly ex- (or wanna-be-) military security guard carried my suitcase around a corner and came back with a baggie full of my shampoo, lotion, and deodorant. He asked me scoldingly if I knew what a ziplock bag was. I calmly told him yes. He told me condescendingly that he wasn’t going to trouble me with the very important security reasons, but that from now on I needed to put my little shampoos and lotions in one, and that my deodorant bar was over the liquid limit and he was doing me a favor to let me keep it. He talked to me as if I were a misbehaving child.
Marilyn Frye calls this the “double bind” – when you are enraged over your treatment, but showing that rage can get you in worse trouble. So you are forced to put on a happy face. A shit-eating grin. It’s a familiar feeling for folks of color. Look at the trouble Reverend White has gotten Barack into just by letting out some of that rage, years ago. It’s also familiar to women. How do you keep from looking like a “hysterical” (from the word for uterus) bitch when you finally blow your top at being treated like a child?

I got about halfway from the security checkpoint to my gate, and I just let it out. I started making animal retching noises like a Black woman at her son’s funeral. Then I fell on my knees sobbing for my violation by that security officer, for my country, for the Home of the Brave crippled by stupefying fear, for the way it treats its veterans (my dad told the hospital orderly about the “fifty-one missions over Germany” as he was helped out of the car. I think it helped get him into triage early, but he still had to wait as long as everyone else for actual care. Which is really only fair, in a boneheaded Aristotelian way.) I doubled over my suitcase and wept for the people in emergency rooms all over the country, for the mothers in Iraq, and for the Fathers who thought that this nation could stand for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For the Father who was poisoned 2,400 years ago for trying to show us what justice is, only to have his ideas co-opted and misread by generations of selfish and pusillanimous elites. I cried for the mothers of children sent off as chattel slaves to the prisons of the Land of the Free. I wept for our betrayal.

I am America. My Fathers’ child.

My hope is that when a white woman can fall down screaming a mother’s grief all alone in an airport while a nervous crowd looks on, that maybe a corner has been turned. If we couldn’t hear the wailing of the African, American Indian, Filipino, Hispanic, Iraqi, German, Japanese, Jewish, Vietnamese mamas, and all the others all over this continent and elsewhere, if we couldn’t hear the wailing of the Earth for the stripping of her forests and the undignified mass enslavement and slaughter of her animals, maybe we can hear the wail of a formerly-privileged, now-we’re-not-so-sure, middle-class-and-falling white woman.

With a strange mixture of joy and a heavy heart, I’m bundling up and going off to Canada this fall to study democratic theory from outside of the U.S. They have more money to offer me – I can live comfortably and give my mind to my studies rather than having to work, and scrimp, and read heavy theory while malnourished and stressed-out. As I prepare for this major move, I’m thinking of all the international students I’ve seen pass through the University of Arizona, here from war-torn, exploited, poverty-stricken countries, happy for the opportunity to study comfortably in the richest country in the world, but always with a subtle sadness behind their eyes for a faraway people and home. When I traded my Canadian twenty for U.S. nineteen dollars and fifteen cents for my return trip, I felt a loss of more than eighty-five cents. I’m thinking of Richard Wright making it through grade school on greens and a piece of white bread for dinner – no lunch. I’m thinking of the War on the Poor taking lives by martial law in my other home of New Orleans, and leaving wounded lying in the park up the street from my current home in Tucson. I’m thinking of my friends and family under the stress of increasing police surveillance, the skyrocketing price of gasoline and bread, diminishing salaries and wages, and of the mysterious lightness of my steps along the frozen streets of Toronto. I pray I don’t lose my edge. Because I’m doing this for my country: for all those I leave behind, and for all those to be born, and for the cultureless culture that no other culture can imitate.

This has gotten rather long. I was supposed to be writing another paper. In fact, this was going to be a piece about the Reverend White uproar. Well, suffice it to say that I agree with Cornel West: we have indeed become a “blues nation.” Even the white middle class is feeling the boot heel on its throat. The words of Reverend White and Barack Obama’s graceful and moving response to the “scandal,” and the economic stress and biopolitical security state we are now all faced with, are an opportunity for us white folks to look at the truth, step up to a more compassionate worldview, and make this a more loving country. I think we need nothing short of a miracle in the United States right now to save any semblance of democracy, and that electing Barack would be the first step toward us creating that miracle. We are the miracle. Of course, I would support Hillary too, and pray she could pull off that health care plan (but preferably from Congress.) But if McCain gets in, I’ll set up camp for you all in Toronto, ok? Because that would be a wrap for the U.S. Work for the Democrats and Greens, in Congress and in your own states. Please. And turn off your TVs – it will only drain you.

PS for my homies:
If my father’s health takes a turn for the worse soon, I will defer grad school for a year. Otherwise, I’ll be leaving this summer, with my family’s blessing, to do the work my dad groomed me for. (Oh well. Screw psychology. We do become our parents to some degree – just hopefully the better parts of them, augmented.) Yes, of course I’ll still do music, silly! Maybe more, now that I don’t have to hold down two part-time jobs. With some difficulty I’ve chosen the amazingly huge, diverse and excellent Political Theory program at the University of Toronto over the small, intimate, and surprisingly cool Social, Political, Ethical and Legal Philosophy program at SUNY Binghamton. I made fast friends with the folks at Binghamton and I’m sad to decline their offer, but there are friends to be made in Toronto too, and I find my heart is more in Political Theory than Philosophy. And the resources at U Toronto are unbelievable. I hope to be involved with the new Centre for Ethics, among other things. And the law school looks really good too. Anyway, I’ll be back to visit, and back to stay someday. I love you all. Come say hi before I go, ok? Or at least come to the party – July 12 or 13, tba.

letter to a superdelegate

Hello Superdelegate!

I am actually not as alarmed as many people seem to be about the superdelegate factor. Between going door-to-door and lobbying Congress and knowing some local officials, I know that we are all human beings and all possess the capacity to act from a hopeful place inside of us, or from a fearful one. I think you can’t be involved in progressive politics without having a foundational belief that things can really get better. But I think this belief can be buried under layers of disappointment and cynicism, as it was for me.

I was born in 1964. Most of the people who would later become my political heroes were killed before I even knew who they were. Almost every election of my life, I have voted for the lesser of two evils, or at the very least settled for someone perhaps quantifiably “qualified” but uninspiring. This constant state of disappointment eventually left me dispirited, and I “checked out” of political involvement, until 2004 when I realized that I needed to do something about the Bush administration. Even then, I was not walking for a candidate, but to root out a diseased administration. As always… damage control.

This is the first time in my life I have been fundamentally lifted up by a candidate for the presidency. I didn’t decide on Barack Obama until about a week before our primary. Hillary Clinton is highly qualified and would make an excellent president, and the subconscious sexism underlying the Republican hate campaign against her galls me to no end. But compared to a candidate who is not only qualified, intelligent, and good on policy, but also inspiring on a level many of us have never seen before, voting for her would have been settling again. And in the deepest part of me I feel that nominating anyone but Barack Obama would break the heart and the spirit of the American people. I really do. We need him. The potential for healing this country is phenomenal: African Americans are feeling respected like never before, young people are getting involved because they see someone who finally speaks clearly to what they as untarnished souls know is possible, and even the red-blue divide is breaking down around this man. I stood outside of a polling place on February 5th and actually had Republicans walk up to me and tell me that if Obama got the nomination they would vote for him. Three or four of them, of their own volition. No kidding.

But this is not an argument for a favored candidate as much as it is a respectful request that the principle of democracy be upheld in our party. I understand that in its highest purpose the superdelegate element of the nominating process may perhaps act as the “voice of reason” to keep the passions of the people from sweeping an improbable or unelectable candidate into the nomination purely based on charisma or star appeal. I have two answers to this possible argument. First, Obama is highly electable – various polls have shown him to be more popular among Republicans and Independents than Clinton. He is also highly qualified. The only argument any opposition has had against him is that he has not spent as much time in Washington as the others. Because he was busy fighting in the Illinois legislature to make federal promises come true on the state level. I think this makes him more qualified.

For the second part of my response, I’m going to have to draw on Plato. Please forgive me, but the old guy was pretty wise about human nature, and our Founders seemed to think so too. (My political reawakening in 2004 inspired me to go back to school and study political theory – I am in my last semester now.) In Book IV of the Republic Socrates found reason and passion to be allies against capricious decisions based on fleeting factors like appetite and addiction. Passion can actually be very reasonable. And I think this is what we are seeing in the movement behind Obama’s candidacy. We are passionate about this candidate because we know what’s good for us – as individuals, as a nation, and as a planet. This passion more resembles the passion of Tom Paine than that of a Britney Spears fan. The exciting thing is that it’s happening in the Britney fans too! We all love our country.

I feel Barack Obama represents me not so much on policy (all of the candidates are too conservative for me, really,) but in a certain spirit I wish to embody myself. I think we call it the American spirit. For me, it’s the idea of our “improvability” through participation in the democratic process – that the very self-evident truths this nation was founded on provide a basis for the ongoing creation of a more humane and just society. I can tell you that even listening to the respectful, honoring, and positive tone and language of Obama’s speeches has inspired me to greater integrity in my own speaking, writing, and interaction. His candidacy has improved me. I want this man to represent me, and this country I am so proud of, in the world community.

I think John McCain’s little-publicized strength is in a certain integrity of character that he projects. He has stood against torture, and for electoral integrity. I think that any wide appeal he might find would not be based on policies as much as character. The Democrats need someone with a similar strength, and Barack Obama has this in a depth that even McCain’s political advisor Mark McKinnon refuses to contest.

I know this is a long letter, and I appreciate your time. I am sure you will do what is best for our country and our planet.

addendum

I don't mean to imply the last few days or months went flawlessly. There are things I would have done differently for Jerome if given a second chance. I let him get all the way to maggots in his fur, whereas if I had let him go a day earlier, he wouldn't have had to experience that. If I had made the appointment earlier with the housecall vet, I wouldn't have had to put Jerome through a sudden trip to the vet as his last memory (though I think whatever Donya did seemed to have tranquilized him a great deal before we even left the house.) But I think these are just the flaw in the tapestry. Times like birth and death are the territory of the Mystery, where we don't get to know exactly what to do. There is no right and wrong. Dealing with an animal who doesn't speak English makes this all the more clear; sometimes you just don't hear what they're saying and have to make a difficult call. All we can do is be as present as possible, and learn from the experience without self-judgment. It is really a magnificent adventure, as life always is if we let it be.
Jerome obviously didn't stop being my teacher, even in death. Thanks, little dude.

RIP Jerome the cat

Jerome the cat passed on June 8, 2007. He was 17 years old.

Jerome came into my life magically. In 1990, after moving back to Tucson from New Orleans, I told the universe I wanted a black cat. Soon after this, my friend Karen called me and told me a black cat had wandered into her yard and would I like him? He was around 6 months old when I took him in.

Karen had been calling him Wally. I wanted a classier name, because he was so devastatingly handsome and sleek. I named him after Jerome Kimsey, the drummer in Sam Taylor’s band, because they both wear black all the time. I gradually discovered that Jerome the cat was not exactly a picture of grace, though – he was always falling off of things and knocking stuff over. I probably should have kept Wally.

As an adolescent, Jerome liked to unroll the toilet paper all the way through my apartment. Another charming habit of his was killing birds on the pillow right next to my head as I slept, leaving certain unwanted organs, feet, and birdseed for me in the morning. He was always a generous boy.

Aside from the usual cat preferences of things like stinky fish and baby birds, Jerome liked corn chips, refried beans, and beer. He was a very affectionate boy and slept under the covers with me every night. Before the duty was taken over by “the dog” (to be said with an air of indignation and condescension,) Jerome would come running out to greet me every time I came home. In his prime he was a big strapping panther; in his old age he was skin and bones and light as a feather. He gave kisses just like a dog, and never let a lap sit empty. He liked it when I played my nylon-string guitar. Watching the toilet flush was the ultimate ecstatic experience for him.

He was also a healer. When I was having any sort of health issue, Jerome would lay on or near the trouble spot. Believe it or not, he also did this for Stella the dog.

The most important things Jerome brought me were lessons about how to do life. He handled change at a glacial pace, but he handled it with a grace and self-love I aspire to. It took him about three years to adjust to having a dog in the house. But after that, Jerome was the boss. When we changed apartments, he slept under the bed for a year, but then he was back to normal. He taught me about slowness, patience, gentility, and boundaries.

Jerome began to have bad breath about a year and a half ago. I put it down to old age, but he got really sick in late December and his vet told me he had a mouth infection compounded by kidney failure. She said I would hopefully get a few good months with him. The last five months have been a very educational process of daily saline injections and almost constant antibiotics. The daily injection became a sacred act between us, where I learned to listen to Jerome’s needs and balance respect for his space with “tough love.”

A few weeks ago Jerome began firmly refusing medication, and he made himself a little hospice in a corner of the yard under some oleanders, on a bed of leaves and dusty pink flowers. He spent his last days here peacefully, and he made it clear when it was time to take the final trip to the vet. My friend Donya came over and did energy work with Jerome and calmed him in his final hour. My sister Jenny carried me through the process, and she and her partner Barry took care of me for the rest of the day after the procedure.

Rest in peace, little man.

Common Ground

We live in terror because persuasion is no longer possible…because we live in a world of abstractions, of bureaus and machines, of absolute ideas and messianism without nuance. We suffocate among people who believe they are absolutely right, whether in their machines or their ideas. And for those who can only live in an atmosphere of dialogue and the fellowship of man, this silence is the end of the world.
- Albert Camus

I was the most patriotic little kid you can imagine. Born in 1964 on Thomas Jefferson’s birthday (April 13th,) I came of age to the fifes and drums and fireworks of the Bicentennial celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I begged my parents for a red-white-and-blue Free Spirit commemorative bicycle (which I got – thanks folks!) and when the Freedom Train exhibit came to town, my family stood in the long line to see the artifacts of the birth of our country. The Vietnam War and the lying president were aberrations – America was fundamentally a great country to be proud of.

My parents also raised us as good Democrats. If our government can, through taxation, make life easier for the less fortunate, it should. Duh. As I understood it, Republicans were cold-hearted hawks who fought for the interests of the privileged and wanted to leave the “little people” to fend for themselves in a brutal world. I never understood why anyone would be a Republican, and I avoided the company of these people. Their ideology was to be tolerated, but it was basically “wrong.”

I won’t go into the saga of the disillusionment and apathy that overtook my spirit during the Reagan era. Suffice to say, since the 2004 election I am now a recovering participant in American democracy.

Last week I attended the RESULTS international conference in Washington DC. RESULTS is a group that seeks to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty domestically and globally, while empowering everyday citizens to participate in our own government through letter-writing, calling, and actually meeting with legislators. So the grand finale of the conference was all of us walking over to the congressional office buildings and lobbying our senators and representatives on upcoming legislation. After, of course, a little singing in the banquet room!

Our Arizona group had appointments with aides of both senators and seven representatives, including face-to-face meetings with Reps. Raul Grijalva and Jim Kolbe. We also met briefly with Rep. Rick Renzi after talking specifics with his LD. Our focus was global poverty issues – upcoming legislation on the funding and structuring of programs to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, Basic Education and the elimination of school fees, microcredit, Assistance for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, the Global Fund, and UNICEF.

Of course, we went into this knowing full well that “foreign aid” is not a favorite subject with our Republican legislators. We also went in with the conviction that global epidemics combined with huge populations of desperate, uneducated people in the poorer countries constitute a major security risk, with terrorist-training groups like Madrassas offering free food and education while the U.S. continues to reluctantly shell out a pittance relative to our wealth. We know that to halt these global crises we need a lot more than the approximately 2 billion dollars currently proposed, but we offered clear, intelligent plans for the spending of this money as an investment – a little spent now on prevention will avoid major, expensive crises later on. So we had some good talking points, but were still braced for adversity and debate.

What surprised me most about our meetings was the receptivity of almost everyone we talked to. It was similar to the feeling I had the first time I canvassed door-to-door – people are, for the most part, nice. We want to do the right thing. We want to cooperate.

(Yeah, you can call me a ridiculous optimist. I prefer to reclaim the word “realist.” No, not exactly the “Realist” of international relations theory. If you’d like to know why, or need a little push in the same direction, check out my blog “Optimism and Realism.” If we’re already on the same page about human nature, read on…)

I have been around the block enough to have some instinct as to when someone is lying to my face. And I felt that from no one in these congressional offices. The ones who disagreed strongly with us were at least clear in their hesitancy or their squirming, or at most told us outright that our requests had little chance of their boss’s support. And these were only a few. I felt like we really reached some common ground with most. Basically, we had a great time! Most of the RESULTS groups, when we checked in after our first day of lobbying, agreed that this year’s response was much better than last year’s. Now we’ll see when we do our follow-up calls how much our members of Congress and their aides walk their talk. I, of course, have high hopes.

I guess what I’m getting at here is the heart of American democracy. Bear with me.
In the offices of these Republicans, I met a wide range of acceptance, ideology, and willingness to cooperate. I found the aides exceptionally bright, well-informed, and inquisitive. Surprisingly, in at least one office we found utter disgust with the current Republican leadership’s power brokering. On further reflection of my experience, I realized that labeling the offenses of our current administration and the forces threatening our democracy under the blanket term of Republicanism is really unfair. Yes, I believe a criminal element in our government has been working within that party. But there is plenty I can blame my own party for, too. What I’m seeing is that there is a split happening in our country, and it’s not between the Democrats and the Republicans, or even the liberals and conservatives (regardless of the divisive language being spoon-fed to us by the media.) This split is between the Americans and the fascists. And the tool that fascism is using to divide us against ourselves is our own narrow-mindedness.

OK, I’m not saying we Democrats need to get all lovey-dovey with the Republicans. But we need to step back a minute from all the rage we’re feeling and look at a few things…

The United States was founded on the principal that we can disagree with each other. American democracy was engineered to be a workable system within our ideological differences. For over two hundred years liberals and conservatives have been arguing, pulling their hair out, storming out of debates, and then going back in and working things out. Somehow, for all these years our leaders have managed to hold to the rule of law and put the preservation of our democracy above their differences. It’s really like a successful marriage. So are we going to get a divorce?

My personal ideology can be labeled very liberal, though I also have some conservative beliefs (fiscal responsibility, less bureaucracy, etc.) and prefer to call myself a progressive these days. I will continue pushing for legislation that matches my ideals against any counterbalancing ideology. But I will not lie, steal, dishonor or disrespect my fellow human beings, or try to change the laws of this republic to throw off the balance of power. And I will look for the ways in which I’m closing my mind to other people’s point of view. America invites us to “be all that we can be” in this way, you know; democracy works better if we work on ourselves. We need some nuance in our thinking. Thomas Jefferson, reviewing the newly created U.S. Constitution, said that it would guarantee the American people exactly the government we deserve. What kind of government do we deserve? What are we putting into it?

I don’t think I’m being too much of a “radical” to say that a very narrow ideology is trying to take over our government right now. Some clever and unprincipled men have found the cracks in our Constitution and our system and are prying with all their might. They are co-opting the language of some of our deepest-held beliefs: eroding civil liberties and free speech in the name of “freedom,” angering the international community in the name of “security,” calling hateful, exclusionary behavior “Christian,” waving the banner of “Support Our Troops” while ignoring the safety and medical needs of those same troops and veterans… George Orwell is doing the Lindy Hop in his grave...

So I really believe we are being called on, all of us, to defend our country. Not from outside forces, but from an enemy within. And I say it’s not just the little band of neo-cons in the Republican leadership that poses the biggest threat. Or even the multinational corporations. It’s our own fear. We need to stand up for what we believe in, and support each other to do the same. There are people of all parties in Congress who are committed to working long hours serving the higher good, and many are walking on eggshells to keep their positions within a hostile environment. Attacking them or writing them off doesn’t help anyone. We need dialogue, with honesty, respect and integrity. We need to be face to face as much as possible. We need to be vigilant.

A few months ago I found myself rooting for India as the next world power. They at least had the influence of Mohandas K. Gandhi in Nehru’s early native democracy. I was so disillusioned with what the United States has done with its power. But I have to say that meeting with our legislators in a serious and focused way has given me a new jolt of patriotism. I really feel like we can make this work – but we’ve got to hustle. I’ve heard it said that children are naturally patriotic; as adults we learn to mistrust, to withhold, to be cynical. I’ve also been told that someone like me is a sitting duck in Washington DC. I now think that DC needs people like me. Our democracy’s built-in safeguards against special interest and corruption have been breached, and we need a huge dose of childlike honesty and trust right now.

In closing I would just like to thank the amazing people of RESULTS. Please visit the website www.results.org - it’s a great way to get involved in our government and be part of our evolution toward a world without hunger and devastating poverty. What a fabulous idea, huh? And I would like to thank all of the public servants who work so hard to keep James Madison and the gang’s crazy idea working. And a special shout out to Rep. Rick Renzi (R, AZ) and his staff – you guys rock.

This just in…
The Senate just approved the extra $100 million to the Global Fund we requested. And they thanked citizen lobbyist groups for helping their decision. How cool is that?

Optimism or Realism

OK. I’ll admit I’m an optimist. It’s as natural as breathing to me. I’ll find something positive in any situation or person. I’m not blind to hatred, fear, injustice, and all of the scary things that are going on in the world. From a certain point of view, you could say I almost have an unnatural tendency these days towards looking at these things. Sometimes concerned friends tell me I should go on a “news fast” for my own good. But it seems like the more I look at the ugly stuff, the more hopeful I get. Because I know we can overcome it.
I wore a veil of cynicism for most of my life. Maybe “suit of armor” is a more appropriate metaphor, though a little cheesy. Like most grownups, it’s taken me many years of inner work to learn to trust and let down my tough exterior, and I’m not nearly done yet. And I believe it’s the innocence and optimism at the very core of my being that has given me the strength to push through the layers of cynicism covering my personality. Certainly the inspiration didn’t come from my culture – cynical humor is always guaranteed to get a laugh – watch any sitcom on TV. OK now stop - it’s not good for you!
And I would propose that this core of optimism is at the core of every one of us. In whatever individual ways, we throw up protective barriers around us to protect ourselves from the harshness of the world. But I don’t want to define your reality for you. If you feel you’re a pessimist to the core, so be it. In my eyes, though, you are as young and hopeful and innocent inside as the day you were born.
In fact, the word “optimist” is a bit of a stretch for me. I prefer “realist.” This layer of callousness we wear on the outside is a construct. We teach ourselves to be violent, self-serving, and pessimistic. There are studies that show this - soldiers have to be taught to kill. Really, we are caring, generous and cooperative at our core.

Shark Attack

It was a beautiful day on the beach. The children splashed and played as hundreds of families came out to enjoy the water and sea breezes. Then, out on the edge of the surf, someone spotted two fins approaching fast. One belonged to a dolphin, and one to a shark. Someone screamed “shark!” and soon the press arrived. In the service of fairness and unbiased reporting, the press examined the two creatures, and found that the shark had slightly longer fins than the dolphin, but a narrower tail. Meanwhile, the shark devoured two swimmers. To be fair to the shark, the press did an expose’ on the dolphin’s long history of eating small, innocent fish for dinner. When another swimmer was eaten, some people screamed, “Shark! Get out of the water!” Of course, these people were accused of being partisan toward the dolphin, conspiracy theorists, and possible terrorists. The FBI showed up and took down their information for further investigation.

A few more swimmers were gobbled up while all of this was happening, but the people on the beach were now becoming desensitized to bloodshed and increasingly interested in the colorful stories being told on the evening news about sharks and dolphins and their fascinating similarities and differences. T-shirts and bumper stickers were printed up for dolphinites and sharkophiles, and debates were held. Though the dolphin squeaked eloquently and the shark showed no verbal communication skills (and continually broke the rules of debate by leaping off its platform and trying to devour the dolphin,) the press found them to be well matched. The dolphin, though clearly more intelligent, was seen as aloof, overly intellectual, and of course people had a hard time understanding what he was saying. The shark, however, was admired for his emotional honesty, directness, and unwavering commitment to his goal of eating everything in sight…

So when in the course of human events does it become necessary to go beyond non-partisan, unbiased reporting and lecturing on the state of our union? Do we wait until American democracy is gone, until the have-nots are living in a state of real economic slavery to the haves, until the whole international community hates us for who we are, until this irresponsible administration has done generations of damage to our global ecosystem? I understood the importance of the press and our educators remaining non-partisan back when the Republican and Democratic parties were balancing forces in our government. I remember my Democrat father actually voting for a Republican or two when I was a kid in the sixties. But now this little group of radical right-wing extremists is taking over the Republican party and forcing the Democrats into the position of merely representing the sane middle ground. (Never mind the left - we don’t even have time for people who want to talk about peace and justice and environmental responsibility. We’re just trying to keep our ship of state from going under right now.)

When one “party” is clearly representing an agenda of fear, hatred, greed, separation, non-communication, lies, and injustice on a global scale, and the other is simply crying for some sanity and balance, I think we need to answer to a higher law than simply the need to be “fair and unbiased.” I believe, in the current political climate, that any institution that compels an educator or member of the press to speak mildly and safely from behind the veil of non-partisanship is biased against the whole human race. We need the truth. It’s your job.

Motivation for Liberals

I think we would benefit from reading more books by Republicans. I know there is a whole library of books coming out these days by progressive authors informing us on the horrors of the war, the obscene excesses of our consumer economy, the evils of the corporate takeover of the world - the list of dragons to slay is nearly inexhaustible. And I’m so grateful to these creative people for taking the time to dig up the dirt and inform us about it. And for getting us riled up. But I’m concerned about our attitude.

I know a man who writes books about success and does motivational workshops with business leaders. I haven’t talked to him in a few years, but I just found out from his distraught sister that he’s a Republican. While I was deeply saddened by this news – he’s a sweet, creative guy who can sing Elvis to make you cry – I wasn’t surprised. His teachings are all about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps – a philosophy that we’ve all seen works really well for privileged white men. (It’s just a little more complicated for the rest of us, but that’s not the focus of this essay. Suffice to say, it’s hard to pull yourself up by the bootstraps with someone else’s boots standing on your chest.) But let’s look at some of the techniques these types of motivational courses and books teach…

Believing in yourself in the face of adversity. Taking risks. Letting go of negative, defeatist thinking. Trusting your creative impulses. Getting organized, setting goals, making plans and sticking to them. Constantly raising the bar for your achievements. Knowing you’re going to win because you deserve it. Using any and all resources at your disposal. Learning new technologies and techniques to achieve your goals.

The other day I was at a meeting for a canvassing effort organized by the Democratic Party. When we were discussing the details of the plan, and someone observed that parts of it were not completely clear, one woman laughed lightly and dismissively and said “Oh well, we’re Democrats and you know we’ve never been all that organized!”

O.K. I know the same type of open-minded, mellow, accommodating spirit that draws people to the Democrat or Other tickets also tends to be a little loosey-goosey on details, and is more improvisational than structured. We color outside the lines. We play. I love that about us.

But let me just suggest integrating some of these ideas about motivation and success, and applying them to the task at hand. We know our goal: to get these criminals out of office and restore our country to some semblance of sanity, integrity, and dignity, and to rebuild our democracy. So let’s do what we need to do to achieve that goal. Despite the plethora of bad examples in the world, you don’t actually have to be an aggressive jerk to be successful in your undertakings. You just need to cultivate some new skills and beliefs.

I’m sure by now most of you have read the letter circulating around by Michael Moore about letting go of our habitual defeatist attitudes and rallying behind John Kerry. I was so refreshed by it, weren’t you? I just want to add an image of my own if I may:

When you’re on a team about to play a big game against a highly-ranked opponent, do you all sit around in your locker room saying “Oh, well, we probably can’t win, they’re really good, they always win, ho hum, it’s O.K., it’s just a game, I’ll open my eyes when it’s over…”? Hell, no! You rally. You get louder and bolder and fiercer. You tell the other team just how you’re going to wipe the floor with them. You have your cheerleaders bouncing and your brass band pumping away as big and brash as they can. And you play your asses off.

And this is a really big game, y’all. Maybe the biggest one ever.

We’ve got to know that we’re winning. Go to all of the events you can that bring our team together. Take a look at the amazing, beautiful, creative, colorful people around you. We are legion. Let it fill you up. Know that it’s happening all over, and that the whole world is watching. Embrace this responsibility. Rise to it. Or, in the words of that old bastion of conservatism, the U.S. Army: Be All That You Can Be! It’s time.

The Sacrament of Marriage

I’m finding it a great paradox that the people who are loudest in their claims of being followers of Jesus are so opposed to state acknowledgement of marriage between two people who happen to be of the same biological sex.

A couple of years ago, my girlfriend asked me to marry her. It was very sudden and early in our relationship, and I had to take some time to think about it. And think about it I did – for about a month, all day, every day. I wanted to find out exactly what marriage meant to me, and what the difference really was between dating someone and being married to them.

One of the first things I came up against was the fact that our marriage wouldn’t be recognized by the state. Despite my not wanting her to, my girlfriend smoked, and I imagined the scenario of her in a hospital intensive-care unit someday, and my not being allowed to see her because we weren’t acknowledged as spouses. All the more reason to quit, I suppose! I imagined how we still wouldn’t receive the same tax breaks available to any wife-beater capable of talking his girlfriend into a quick visit to the Justice of the Peace, or any female social climber marrying a rich man for his money. And I thought about my girlfriend’s daughters – two wonderful little girls whom I love so much, and whose upbringing I was thrilled to be invited to participate in – and how my girlfriend’s ex-husband would always have more rights as a guardian than I could ever hope for. Luckily he’s a pretty nice guy, but what if he hadn’t been?

And then I considered the true meaning of marriage. To me, marriage is a commitment made by two people in the presence of their Higher Power, family, and peers. It’s the acknowledgement of a feeling of connection with each other (called Love) that transcends the flesh, and a willingness to honor that feeling throughout and beyond the boundaries of this Earthly life. It is, in the deepest sense of the word, a sacrament. It was this understanding that finally lead me to say Yes - Yes, I’ll observe this sacred rite with you, because my heart tells me to.

Now, you followers of Christ… can any of you tell me what is unholy or evil about this union? Would Jesus, that sweet man who held Love as his ideal to the death, disapprove? I would think that Christians would be thrilled that so many homosexual people want their matrimony made legal – it’s more people choosing to live their lives through the Holy Spirit, and asking the state to acknowledge the sanctity of that choice! How much more American Christian can you get?

Another quick point here - I know most of the people opposed to equal marriage rights are Republicans who want to keep government simple and uncomplicated. What you might not know is that disallowing same-sex marriage will create complications beyond your wildest dreams, when the transgendered, transsexual, and intersex people seek justice in their individual cases. And they will – they are a powerful new minority presence that is demanding we rethink our prejudices about gender. So if you’re still insistent on homosexuals not being allowed to marry legally, I suggest that you forfeit your own rights to visitation, tax breaks, and guardianship of your spouse’s children – it’ll be much simpler in the long run.

Or better yet, take a moment to reflect on what marriage really means to you. Could it be that we’re actually on the same page about this?

Einstein quote

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mystical. It is the source of all true art and science.
- Albert Einstein

Violence and Denial

Last year I was working as a travelling art teacher in a school on the East side of Tucson, just outside the Air Force base. I just happened to be scheduled to work out there the day after the invasion of Iraq began.

The first thing that struck me was the utter silence in the teacher's lounge. I thought there would be a flurry of talk about the war, or that someone would at least have brought a radio in so we could find out what was going on (not that the corporate radio stations tell us what's really going on, but if nothing else as something for us to gather around.) But it was business-as-usual. Not a MENTION of the war.

Of course, the kids were wound up like tops. A lot of them had (and still have) mothers, fathers, siblings, and family friends over there, or on the verge of deployment. The tension was a palpable thickness in the air. A school full of heavy hearts.

My second class of the morning was coming in from their recess as I came down the hallway. Fourth graders. The swirl of chaos around the classroom door let me know that business was no longer as usual. Ms. Flank (I'll feel free to use her name, as she no longer works there) had a group of about 7 kids lined up beside the little table in the hall reserved for private conferences. She told me to go in and start the lesson, that these children had been in a fight and she needed to talk to them one at a time out there. The first child sat down and the rest of us went in.

The whole class was bouncing off the walls. The kids who had been in the fight strutted in like heroes, smiling and joking. Details of the brawl, which had been huge and involved several students from various classes, were bubbling around the room and being woven into legend.

I managed to get them started on their project, and eventually Ms. Flank, having reprimanded all of the brawlers, came in and sat down. She expressed her shock at the scope and the violence of the fight, and I joked, "Well, how could we expect them to act, considering how our leaders are behaving?"

Oops. Didn't compute. I was subjected to a lecture on what an evil guy Saddam Hussein is, and then a lecture about how she doesn't take sides on political issues in the classroom. And then more about the evils of Saddam and his plans to take over the world.

I dunno, are Michael Moore and me and you and a handful of other informed citizens the only ones who are seeing the connection? That a society that answers every conflict with violence and every unknown with fear is going to raise children who deal with things the same way, and who think it's normal? If the president does it, it must be cool, because he's the most important guy in the most powerful country in the world. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln... we looked up to those guys as kids. Kids learn from what they see, not what they're told.

I hope that this gives an example of violence as an energy that we can control in our own lives. If you are feeling bewildered and powerless at the atrocities committed by our "leaders," know that every moment we have the choice to meet the situations in our lives with Love or with fear. And that our choices have repercussions we could never dream of. Young eyes are watching.

Peace.

Mitzi

Enter the Mitzone!