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