I only have a couple minutes, here:):):)...

...I've got a job opportunity working on a local marketing campaign for my favorite bookstore in the whole wide world:):):)...the Vagabond Bookman in Lawrence, Kansas:):):)...

Howard, who owns the store, is one of the greatest guys I've ever known and loves books and people -- at least openly -- more than anyone bookstore owner I've ever met:):):)...half the fun of going to the Bookman is to just talk with Howard about books and about life and to just enjoy loving both:):):)...Howard really is his own best asset:):):)...but my friend Devang and I have proposed that we might help him make the place a little bit more appealing to a broader group of people (and to his regular customers:):):)...

But, in the meantime, I just wanted to write for a moment about how blessed my life feels, despite all of the very hard times in the last year:):):)...how authentically, and I suppose appropriately, thankful I feel about my life as Thanksgiving comes up this year:):):)...

I've always said that my best holiday memories were during times of scarcity:):):)...

The year that we couldn't afford a Christmas tree and made a Christmas crib instead with a little doll baby Jesus borrowed from one of my sisters' collections:):):)...

...or the year when my father couldn't afford gifts for us kids and got us all little things like pencils and mini board games:):):)...

This year is not a year of scarcity like that:):):)...but it's definitely not my richest holiday season, in terms of money:):):)...

...which is ok because all my best gifts have always been white elephant or homemade, I think:):):):)...and all the best gifts I've received:):):):):) (other than money, which is a fine Christmas gift for those who like money's flexibility:):):)...

I realize this year that what I want more than anything is a few of my ideals to be achieved...some authentic progress on this situation with the university, where I am taken seriously as the prime mover in my own academic career, and where my professors' input is given serious attention, but where it is, ultimately, feedback rather than ultimatums...

I want more opportunity to help open up my community...to help make it more authentically stronger because people here learn to open our hearts in the face of difficulties rather than react with mean-spiritedness and force to every problem even when mean-spiritedness NEVER helps, and when force is only a temporary solution to problems that need more openness and freedom and discussion and support for individual consciences to sort out difficult questions and situations...

I want a real chance to share ideas where a lot more people have the opportunity to read them and engage them in their more thorough form, with patience and a sense of peace around the reality that people will still choose less than ideal ways to deal with problems -- individual and community problems -- that have consequences for all of us:):):)...

But a patience and a peace which is the more ideal route for our hearts to go:):):)...

And I want to experience and share more love in my life after a year when I have both shared and experienced more love than probably ever in my life:):):)...

I would like to see some of the seed of hope and love and ideas that I've planted this year to take some root:):):)...and I'd like to see how it grows:):):)...

OK...I've got to get out of here and go meet Howard's wife to see about this marketing opportunity:):):)...

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying life:):):)...

I'll talk with everyone soon:):):)...

Love,
Ben

The 2004 American Election and my experience with learning to accept our limitations:):):)...

The election has been on of the most interesting for me:):):)...

I've been following politics for a long time:):):)...and, especially in my young adulthood, with a commitment to understanding and improving the process:):)...

But this election has been one of the most interesting for me:):):)...especially since it occurs during a really important period of education and experience for me as a young adult:):)...

The most important lesson that I've been taking from this election is a greater authentic acceptance of ours' and my limitations:):):)...of the limitations on progress in a culture:)...of my limitations as a leader and responsible member of my society:)...of the limitations on our humanity:):):)...

The election is, of course, to anyone concerned about authentic progress in a society since, in so many ways, it was so clearly quite the referendum on the limitations of progress...

The most important issue of this election, I think most people agree, has been the war...and the commitment to the most learned or the most prejudicial and ignorant perspectives on the war...

The most learned in the field of international policy -- from people with the depth of vision, like Joe Nye, and even with less depth of vision but still important in their contributions to the field of international policy, like Henry Kissinger -- have been critical of this war in ways that the President has partly paid heed, reflecting some general accountability to their concerns, but which he has also reflected far too little curiosity and far too much arrogant assertion of power to warrant having that power...

I've been reading the first book Joe wrote criticizing the war -- a war he supported, up front, but which he has, rightly, become much more critical of -- The Paradox of American Power...Joe is still too committed to the idea that American preeminence in political, economic, and military affairs is in American interests, an idea that I take serious issue with...equity often looks like weakness by every generation that considers it...but, the clear consequence, each generation, is that equity makes us stronger, not weaker...a principle that I think Joe fails to account for in many of his assumptions about international policy...

But, in general, Joe's commitment to soft power -- meaning cultural, economic, and political freedom and democracy and the fruits of that free, democratic culture, including stronger and more authentically democratic and diplomatic engagement -- is a much stronger idea for handling the threats of terrorism and of future engagement with totalitarian regimes like Saddam Husseins Baathist regime...Joe's and my argument is not that war and aggressive action are always unwarranted...Joe's argument is that the current political leadership must pay much more attention to supporting its soft power and to being far less careless in underminding that same power...

Joe is not committed to equity in international relations in the same way I am...he doesn't account well enough, I don't think, for the long term costs that come with strong-arming and bullying our way through difficult diplomatic issues, though he is definitely doing better at accounting for those costs now than he did before this war began...he most recent writing reflects a clear departure from his past work where Joe does not make as clear distinctions in favor of soft power as he has more recently...in response to the failures of this Administration in handling these and similar issues, I think...

But as Martin Luther King argued around issues of race, so too goes for issues of political, economic and other forms of equity...though those who benefit disproportionately from inequitable arrangements, short term, may not be able to see its benefits, societies clearly function better the more attention that is paid to equity...for everyone involved...Martin Luther King argued more than 30 years ago that leaving the legacies of racism behind helped whites as well as African Americans...and more than a quarter century of much more open progress and experimentation around this issue bears out Dr. King's conviction...

More equitable international arrangements will take time to develop...but just as the transition from less equitable imperial arrangements to more equitable democratic arrangements has clearly benefitted the societies it touched, included those former empires, so will the inevitable transition from less equitable democratic arrangements to more equitable democratic arrangements benefit all societies, including those who formerly benefitted disproportionately from those arrangements:)...

Wealth equity in America and in international arrangements similarly will improve economic performance as much as resolve a critical issue of fairness and justice, just as free economic arrangements were clearly more beneficial to the Northern States in the United States than slave-based, less free economic arrangements were to the South...

And supporting freedom to make all kinds of choices -- from whom people want to marry, to what legal or non-legal pharmaceutical and intoxicating experiences people want to engage in, to the purchase of legal and non-legal firearms, to how people want to use money, in their personal lives, in their financial pursuits, in their political engagement -- and open, intelligent, democratic engagment on those same issues, will similarly play a critical role in supporting choices to support our communities more authentically, rather than repressing the very freedom that is so critical to authentic support for our communities...

But in so many ways -- judging a society by its political choices, in all parties and all political activism and attitudes -- we have so far to go to create such community...to support an authentically free and democratic community of responsible and intelligent peoples' and their commitment to authentic self-government, rather than to the more autocratic tendencies of the same society to control, force, and compel that commitment...a clearly futile effort that has frustrated the development of the very commitments that concerned peoples' intend but fail to cultivate when they try to compel their visions of the world...

We all -- liberals, conservatives, radicals, anarchists, libertarians...politically inclined and non-politically inclined people alike -- have a long way to go to cultivate a more authentically free and democratic society...

And this election has been a disppointing but real coming to terms for me of how far we have to go:):):)...

Largely because it has been only within the last couple of years that it's become clearer to me what direction, more precisely, that we are headed and need for the cultivation of our highest and best natures...

And this kind of reflection is EXACTLY the kind of thing that I think is needed to get us there...a commitment to the acceptance of our lowest natures even as we aspire to our highest natures:):):)...

I'm learning to better accept ours' and my limitations in this respect...as we make this neverending journey to an always better future:):):)...

I feel a little uneasy with it, as the moment:):):)...but I'm sure I'll get better at it over time:):):)...all that I can hope and expect for myself and everyone:):):)...

I've been watching Jimmy Stewart's classic, Harvey, as I've been writing this:):):):)...a pretty appropriate movie for just this kind of sentiment, I think:):):)...

May we all learn the appreciation for humanity that Elwood P. Doud has to offer us all:):):)...

I hope everyone is doing well:):):)...have a good day:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Enough:)...

I've been thinking a lot, today, about the election...

...about how far America seems to be from my ideals for her:)...

...and about how this election seems to both confirm how far we've come and how far we have to go, by my lights:)...

I've still got applications to fill out...but I've also been visiting some old websites that I haven't visited in a while...conservative...liberal...academic...

I realize, as I visit these websites, that my vision of how I would like to see humanity go (and which I have a feeling, in general, it will go, given that this vision is based on what I see and think humanities deepest impulses lead it), is quite different than a lot of more partisan and antagonistic visions of America...or of humanity...or whatever:):):)...

I'm not trying to figure out who I fit in with by who I exclude...

I'm imagining how we all belong...and how we might make that real and not just rhetoric...

I'm not looking for common ground with anyone based on what we can manufacture as common ground between us...

I'm looking for genuine common ground...what deepest needs and loves and passions bring us together:)...

I have to say that I've been pretty discouraged in the last few years that so many people -- liberal and conservative, radical, anarchist, and libertarian, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and otherwise, American, French, British, German, South African, Japanese, Iraqi, Iranian, North Korean, Cuban, Chinese, and otherwise -- have focussed their bitterness and resentments and hatred as means of bringing people together that they clearly don't trust in a more authentic way -- to express their deepest values...

It has been a dark time for freedom...and democracy...and decency...and humanity...and love...and openess...and liberality, in its best sense...

And the election seemed to confirm peoples' attachments to so many of their prejudices...and darker fears...for themselves and for others...

But it also gave me some time to see that, for now...the love and decency and openness and humanity...and love...and freedom...and authentic liberality that we have to offer...

That it's enough...for now...and we'll build on it...to make things better:):):)...

Have a good day, everyone:):):):)...

Love,
Ben

The day after:):):)...

I've got to go pick up Melissa for lunch, here in a sec:):):)...

But I just wanted to make a little comment on the election, now that it is over:):):)...

The bigger picture, right now, I think, for American democracy, is that during an extended period of voter apathy and lack of voter turnout for elections in most major democracies, that trend might be changing, somewhat, this election:):):)...

That's a good sign, I think...because, hopefully, it will mean that citizens will play a more active role in their democracy...that they will be more responsible for the decisions of it's government...for it's failures as well as it's successes...

And...as Andrew Sullivan says this morning...the silver lining in this election is that Republicans and President Bush are now squarely responsible for the consequences of their policy choices...with no concerns about whether the American public is behind them...or with power wrangling in the Senate...they now, unequivocally, run all major branches of the Federal Government...and the American people are clearly and without a doubt responsible for putting them there...

Now we see what happens:):):)...

In 1972, Richard Nixon won reelection with, as George Will writes this morning, a divisive war engaged...and the larger picture, from that period, I think, is that decent people make mistakes...but that we can support them to do better:):):):)...

All of our efforts should be dedicated to supporting the President to win this war and to cause as few casulaties to U.S. troops, Iraqis, terrorist victims, and everyone as possible...to wage this war with integrity and to make SMARTER choices...not NASTIER ones:):):)...

And to do good for everyone's sake...and I mean everyone...around the globe...

We get better at it a little bit at a time:):):)...

Talk with everyone later:):):)...

Love,
Ben

I've got to eat and fill out applications, but:):):):)...

...I needed to take a moment to say how incredibly proud I am of so many people taking this election and politics seriously this year...today:):):):):):):)...

Where I think we need to go is to a place where we just look after one another better:):):)...personally...autonomously and voluntarily:):):)...in our own communities:):):)...out of our own hearts:):):)...

And people getting psyched for an election is not the same thing as people looking after one another:):):)...

But it is something:):):)...it's people learning to take seriously the idea that their lives extend beyond the immediacy of their daily responsibilities:):):)...

Taking seriously the idea that SOMETHING -- ANYTHING -- other than apathy about the state of the world needs to take hold:):):)...

It's exciting:):):)...and a total confirmation of an thesis I developed when I was working at CLO:):):)...that people often, if not always, grow DESPITE their environments:):):)...not just because of them:):):)...

As Andrew Sullivan notes accurately, I think, these are dark times for lovers of freedom:):):):)...but...for some reason:):):)...people so innately need freedom:):):) -- even as they might deny it to their neighbor:):):) -- that they do eventually get over the apathy that controls and estrangement from decisions and lack of engagement and feelings and often realities of helplessness often generate:):):)...they eventually stand even as many forces work to actively knock them down...or at least stare at them, coldly, when they are down:):):)...

And it's exciting to see people take seriously the idea that it matters who leads them, even as they often sound -- I think, rightly -- dissappointed with their far from ideal choices:):):)...

It's also an affirmation of the idea that life is a constant option between less than ideal choices, hopefully becoming more ideal over time:):):)...

I've got to eat and to get to work on these applications:):):)...

I hope everyone is doing well:):):)...and that as they vote then also stop for a moment to get a little perspective on an important election...but just one more election, nonetheless:):):)...

Talk with everyone soon:):):)...

Love,
Ben

I've got to finish an application, but:):):)...

I visited my advisor today about going back to grad school:):):)...

Grad school, at this point, is half-formality for me...and half an opportunity to finish my dissertation which was around developing more equitable and open relationships between schools and children and their families where kids' and families' and teachers' and other folks' are taken seriously as participants in conversations about what's going well and what needs to improve in schools...I don't assume that everyone has equal wisdom...but I am certain -- absolutely certain, at this point...about the only thing I think I can be absolutely certain of:) -- that NOONE has a monopoly on wisdom...and that EVERYONE deserves to be treated equitably and have their freedom of thought and expression and -- to the degree that it doesn't involve physical violence against others -- of action respected...that people need to have their freedom respected and the learning that goes with that freedom...

And my thinking is that much of what goes wrong in the relationships between these people in schools happens to the degree that that freedom is not respected and taken seriously...

The principles of least possible aggression that I've been working with -- which don't imply no aggression is ever warranted, mind you...they just mean that the least possible and reasonably aggressive means of handling a situation, including and especially those that involve violence and aggression should be used if authentic change is desired rather than the perpetuation of self-fulfilling prophecies -- are solid enough in my own mind to tell me that there's no professor or school who could really put a stamp of approval or dismissal on my ideas to validate or invalidate them...and...ultimately...that's what school is all about...at it's best, school is to teach us to think for ourselves...to challenge dogma and orthodoxy...to think creatively and originally...and to develop better ideas when older ideas and ways are failing...

And I feel thouroughly confident both in my ability to articulate these ideas and their applications...

I've been frustrated with John Kerry, lately...saying that he's going to "hunt down and kill" the terrorists...is he unaware of the consequences of his language for those terrorists?...

If you're one of those terrorists, how would you react to that kind of threat?...

Throw your hands up in surrender?...

Not likely...

You'd likely fight harder...dig your heels in deeper...plot with more commitment to kill more Americans...

It's a serious mistake on John's part that is calculated, I think, cynically, to win the votes of an America that can be too vengeful for it's own good...

And I think John should focus more on saving those Americans' lives than on pandering to their fears...

John's words, I'm afraid, provoke the terrorists more...they don't end the violence and the threat of violence, which is John's intention, I hope...

And, similarly, the illusion that we can use force to solve many and most of America's and the world's problems -- rather than more authentically collaborative and humble engagement with one another -- is so far afield from the reality that it leads us all to feel and think and act a little crazy, I think, in a world that is far from ideally functional in how it deals with us and how we deal with that world...

And the best thing I've come to terms with in the last few years is that there is NOONE who has a monopoly on wisdom in these matters...and that investing people with the power to act as if they have more wisdom than they do on most matters of domestic and international and local and organizational or whatever types of policy is not only foolish...it is often terribly, terribly counterproductive...

Democrats and Republicans and parties around the country and around the world seek opportunities to limit everyone's freedom...

Often this is for reasons that are understandable...

Everyone might understand why Yuri Andropov, the last Soviet Premier before Mikhael Gorbachev, might be engaged in initiatives to end absenteeism and alcoholism...

But the fundamental flaw of the Soviet regime...and the Chinese regime...and the Cuban regime...and the Baathist regime in Iraq...and the autocratic version of democracy in Russia...and the Iranian theocratic version of democracy...and the Israeli theocratic version of democracy...and everywhere where power concentrates in the name of some ideology claiming good intentions...

Their fundamental flaw is their lack of respect for freedom...and for authentic and equitable democracy...and for honesty and intelligent engagement...for compassion and understanding in dealing with problems of their peoples...

Ultimately, it was that in the pursuit of efforts to "purify" their peoples' they have and continue to often disregard the concerns of those same people as they run amuck over their freedoms to independently deal with problems that require intelligence much, much, much more than force...

I don't know if my professors will ever get this...if they'll get that their efforts to force their wisdom led only to me losing respect for their wisdom...

But a boy can hope:):):)...which is why I went back to talk with Tom:):):)...

But if it doesn't work out:):):)...the most important lesson to be learned out of this entire crazy mess is that we are all subject to abusing power:)...all of us...no matter how smart...or decent or compassionate...or whatever...

Intelligence and engagement and learning are where the life of a culture are...power is the most important stymie to that life...and that is a problem that we all contribute to...and which we are all responsible for ending -- in our personal lives as much as in our democracy -- if we are going to grow a more authentic and free democracy out of the very decent, but flawed foundations that our current democracy offers us:):):)...

The tragedy that fear leads even the most mature democratic and free societies to want to look more like their less mature and fear-driven parallel cultures and societies in the non-democratic world is real...

But it is also possible to change...

And to change it, each of us will need to take more seriously that freedom and democracy and independence that is the strength of an otherwise flawed but noble country and civilization...

In our schools...in our families...in our democracy...in our workplaces...in our relationships...in all of the places in our lives that matter:):):)...

I've got to go pick up Melissa:):):)...talk with everyone later:):):)...

Love,
Ben

I'm feeling better:):):)...

I talked with my stepmom, Marilyn, last night:)...her dad just died and she seems to be doing amazing about it, frankly...I can't imagine how much she must miss him...and, as she said, hopefully it is something that I will not have to face for a very long time:)...

But it was good...Marilyn is someone who is strongly committed to me and my life...and to doing good in the world...she's an amazing listener...and we've both clearly grown in the last 2 years in ways that are really good for our relationship...

Most important to me is that I can speak more freely in front of Marilyn, now, I think...and she's not hassling me as much about whether I talk the way she wants, etc...

I, frankly, think that so much of how we guard our language and thoughts around one another grows out of our fears that we won't be accepted for who we are...which happens so often that it leads us to feel afraid of just being ourselves...as if we could dichotomize our lower instincts and our highest instincts...as if there will be a time when even if we don't say, "Fuck" out loud, that we'll stop thinking it...

It's a silly, sad, restrictive for-no-good-goddamned-reason attitude about life that reinforces one of our truly lowest natures: the persistent fact that we are so often dumb, scared little bitches who have such a hard time just learning to be grown-ups, for goodness sakes, and not just playing them on TV...we spend so much time trying to PROVE and PRETEND what grown-ups we are, that we persistently fail to be them enough to recognize that grown-ups (and kids, when they aren't afraid that grown-ups are going to hurt them) cuss and do all kinds of things that are not so polite...

And -- most grown-up of all things to face -- that THAT FACT OF LIFE is not going to go away...ever...ever, ever, ever...no matter how many times we try to punish one another into submission...

Always, always, always...people make up their own minds about what is ok and what is not so ok...what is great and what is terrible...and no amount of bullying will ever make that fact of life go away...

I don't know how many friends I have who have serious drug histories who still tell me that they think that scary things in life or things they don't like can be bullied away, obviously completely oblivious to their own pasts...the biggest reason why I'm so clear that the drug war has been a miserable failure is because I have way too many friends who have shared some SERIOUS drug histories with me...much of it was pretty innocuous, really, and would be terribly tragic if they faced some kind of jail time or losing Pell grants or other kinds of punishments for much behavior that is just self-destructive, at times, and happens to be illegal...Big Macs are self-destructive, too, but I don't want any stupid fucking laws against them...and I'm just waiting for the anti-obesity crowd to make them illegal and then we can REALLY begin to resemble the old Soviet Union in our OBSESSION with kicking peoples' asses to be how we want them to be...but even the things that were more serious problems -- like out-of-control junkies -- no real indication, at all, that jail-time or any kind of force would do anything, really, to improve the situation and deal with all of the emotional shit that is underneath that bullshit...

But the major point, here, is that my friends just can't seem to get the foolishness in their reasoning...bullying will make problems go away and yet in one of the issues that is central to so many of my friends' lives it has CLEARLY not had an impact...and, if anything, has made it taboo enough that they want a taste...and, often, much more than just a taste...

And what is so incredibly dysfunctional about this, to me, is that almost literally EVERYONE knows it...that people will want to do what is taboo...

And some people, at least, seem to know that the best way to remove the temptation of danger is to remove the taboo...that repression -- social, intrapersonal, legal, political -- does not work except temporarily in the face of immediate danger...and, even then, it has longer term consequences that must be accounted for...

If it did, then highly repressive societies like Saudi Arabia should not produce insane mass murderers like Osama Bin Laden...or Germany and Hitler...or China and Mao...or Cuba and Castro...or Kim Jong Il and North Korea...President Bush is not a mass murderer, but he is FAR TOO RECKLESS with power to warrant having it...but, as in so many fucked up countries all over the world, people still choose him no matter how much destructiveness he engages in...because he supports their seemingly unrelenting prejudices about life, no matter how destructive and self-destructive those prejudices might be...

Hopefully they will choose differently this election, so that we don't have to listen to four more years of rationalization about how there's nothing really serious to learn from our failures in Iraq...

I don't know WHY people are so persistently such crying, whining little dumbasses and victims of a world that they help create...

I take that back...I think I do know why...but the causes are very similar to the very things that so many of my friends say they want...how much THEY have been hurt in the world...how self-protective that makes them...how the emotional defenses blind them to the consequences of their actions both because they don't want to get hurt but also because they think they have to hurt others to make it in life...it is such a crazy, dysfunctional belief that it's hard for me to believe, sometimes, that we will escape it...

But escape it I am fairly confident we will do...

Because we really only fuck life up so much, it seems, before we get on a better track, if history is any guide...

It's just disheartening to know that we have to fuck it up so much before we get it straight...

But get it straight we generally do...

I am tired of the cycle, though...I am tired of rooting for just LESS mean ways of dealing with one another...

How about dealing with our meaner instincts on our own time and learn to be responsible for them and stop taking them out on others because ignoring them or trying to pray them away isn't working...

Taking therapy and psychology more seriously might help here...as might learning to more authentically and openly acknowledge when we think we might be wrong...

But much of it, I'm convinced, is risking looking "weak," when, ironically and paradoxically, that so in so much of what too often looks "weak" to us is where real strength lies...

And the ultimate show of weakness...the ultimate showing of our underbellies...is just being ourselves...and not worrying about what others think about us...

And the truth is that the deception invovled in this one is really all just an illusion...

Because the truth -- the real truth -- is that none of us can be anything OTHER than ourselves, no matter how much we try to delude ourselves otherwise:)...

I've got to go...I'm starving...and I'm tired of ranting:):):):):)...

I hope everyone has a good day:):):)...

Love,
Ben