It is so obvious...

...when you're not defending the bullshit.

Turkish Parliament softens law restricting free speech

"Turkey's Parliament approved a government-backed proposal early Wednesday to soften a law restricting free speech that has been used to prosecute many intellectuals, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.

The legislators voted 250-65 in favor of the amendment to Article 301 of the penal code, which many critics say is one of the biggest restraints on freedom of speech.

The ruling party, which dominates the 550-seat Parliament with 340 lawmakers, was the only party that voted in favor of the amendment while opposition parties voted against it. The amendment has to be approved by the president before it can go into effect.

The older version of Aricle 301 bars insults to "Turkishness," a vague term used by many prosecutors to clamp down on some dissident voices.

The European Union has been pressing Turkey to abolish or overhaul the law as part of Turkey's campaign for EU membership...

...Fatma Kurtulan, a pro-Kurdish party lawmaker, said it was "illusory" to believe that the amendment would advance free speech, saying it was designed to please the EU without making substantial changes.

'What needs to be done is to abolish (Article) 301 altogether,' said Kurtulan.

The change cuts the maximum sentence for denigrating Turkish identity or institutions from three years in prison to two, possibly suspended for first-time offenders. The justice minister will have to approve investigations of possible violations of the law."

Fatma Kurtulan understands the problem.

Not only did EU pressure not create the free speech guarantess necessary in Turkey, but the Turkish government used their "soft power" to make sure that they look good while still repressing free expression and debate on this question of whether there was an Armenian genocide, which is one of the primary targets of this law.

Like most problems we face, today, this is not a problem, fundamentally, of securing enough pressure to force changes that we want to see forced. This is, fundamentally, an issue of free speech and a commitment by a government to not impose their sensibilities on that question.

It's really not that complicated when you are not defending force as a governing philosophy.

It is only complicated when you are rationalizing power. And that is what most people around the world, liberal and illiberal, are doing, right now, that is responsible for this repressive and regressive period in history.

It is the rationalization of power that is undermining reasonable, empirical, open, undistorted, honest, and free discussions about important public and private issues that matter to all of us.

It is all the power in this equation and in our lives that distorts our outlooks and understandings of the world and the free, open, and honest communication to create stronger understanding.

It is driven by our fear. And, ironically, it makes us far less safe. An honest and clear-eyed comparison of liberal and illiberal cultures and countries today and for the entire length of human history would make that eminently clear.

But we are driven by our own fears and our egos in a direction and in a logic that make very little sense, honestly and realistically, that the denial begins to look more and more like something more honest, even when it very clearly is not.

It's so obvious when you are not defending the bullshit that you have a really hard time understanding why everyone else is so lost in the bullshit.

Except, as George Orwell, Lord Acton, Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, and a million other brilliant people deduced long before me, when power, when force, is the way we relate with one another, it is all bullshit. That is why power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Because it scares all of us into lying to ourselves and to one another so frequently and so thoroughly that we forget we are lying, after awhile.

And it is only when we get honest with ourselves and with one another that our problems and mistakes get addressed more openly and honestly.

It is so obvious when you are not defending the bullshit.

I realized last night and today that this is the sadness that sits on my heart. That as long as we refuse to give it up, we are all stuck with this ugly, foolish, stupid, dishonest mess, all of us, even those of us who want to be more honest about the mess, for as long as we refuse to face it honestly.

But maybe some honest discussion just might make a difference.

I can only hope.

Freedom and idealism

I don't know why.

I guess it's because I'm at a point in my life where I am becoming more self-disciplined, where I'm accepting my limits more readily, and where I realize that what makes me unhappy in my life, always, is the extent to which my freedom is limited. Not the freedom to murder, obviously, or freedom to do ugliness. Just the places where my choices and an honest and open expression of my thoughts, feelings, self, and choices are limited.

I realized, today, that the reason why that period of my life, of most peoples' lives, where I felt the most idealistic - my years in college and grad school, especially - was because it was the period of my life when I was experiencing the most freedom and expansion of my freedom and exploring a world that I had, up till that point, not had much contact with.

The most idealistic times in my life were when I first entered college and was living a life on my own, for the first time. And when I was in grad school and dating my best friend and exploring a world freely with someone else, for the first time, that I had not known very well, up until that point, and sharing it with someone who also appreciated learning about that world with me and that kind of freedom. It was an innocent exploration, for the most part. Neither of us were using drugs or wildly partying. We were just exploring the world - a world of sexuality, of politics, of people we were not familiar with and had not experienced, before, of talking frankly with someone else we cared about, and making tons of mistakes in both of our first really serious relationship - and learning about everything it had to offer with someone who could appreciate both the experience and the freedom to have it that most other people, up until that point in my life, could not have appreciated as well.

I guess it's because I'm growing up and I'm letting go of much of the folly and immaturity of my youth. But much of that immaturity and folly is also associated, in my mind, with that freedom that so made my life worth living and such a deeply refreshing and rewarding experience.

Maybe that's why I'm so sensitive to efforts to limit my freedom. Because it is, for me, the best opportunity for learning and growth and associated with the time in my life when I learned and grew the most and the most profoundly and experienced a world I was largely unfamiliar with, up until that point.

Freedom matters to me because it is what makes all of the most profound and deeply enriching times in my life possible.

And today, for some reason, maybe because I'm getting to a point in my life where I am accepting limitations in my life more readily or maybe it is because I get tired of all kinds of limitations and impositions that I don't think I should have to put up with, I've been feeling a little down about not having it in my life.

What I need is some vegi phad thai, some obscure, cheap beer, and, ideally, I would need someone I could spill my heart with. I'd love that to be a girl. But I don't really have one, in my life, right now, that I could just spill with, like that, and get to listen to all of the exciting things she is learning and ready to share with me. That's the one I'm waiting for.

I suppose phad thai and beer will have to do, in the meantime. But I'm sure its the side of freedom and idealism that I crave the most.

Why this period is regressive

Press freedom declines worldwide, North Korea listed as worst

"Worldwide, the environment for journalists grew more hostile last year, extending a six-year downturn, researchers reported Tuesday.

Setbacks for press freedom outnumbered advances 2-to-1 across the globe, although the Internet and blogs helped slow the decline, particularly in Iran, reported Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that released the report in advance of World Press Freedom Day on Saturday...

...'For every step forward in press freedom last year there were two steps back,' said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House, in a statement accompanying the report. 'When press freedom is in retreat it is an ominous sign that restrictions on other freedoms may soon follow.'

And yet, journalists were credited with pushing the boundaries set by authorities. In Egypt, for instance, their increased willingness to cross 'red lines' was cited as boosting the country into the partly free category from the not-free group."

Liberal values are really not all that complicated, once you get out of the business of rationalizing power and limits on freedom.

Progress occurs with expansion of freedom, not greater limitations. We just get so full of the bullshit, sometimes, that we lose track.

When I think about it, my unhappiness is not with my job. My unhappiness is with a world where people cannot and refuse to engage important questions more honestly, substantively, and freely and are constantly using intimidation and repression as some kind of substitute.

This story reflects that reality all over the world, including in America.

Surely the free world, and the unfree world, can do better than this.

Changing our ways

I'm still supporting McCain. But I have to say that I agree, generally, with Andrew Sullivan's concerns about Obama and what his candidacy represents.

"We're seeing many of the worst aspects of America's culture war come back to target the one politician who had the chance to get us beyond it. It is no accident to me that Wright is of the Vietnam generation that bequeathed us these divides; and it is no accident that the Clintons will eagerly pivot off it; or that the far right will exploit it; or that Obama's tolerance for a man like this for so many years will hurt him. And yet I refuse to believe that we have to remain captive to this syndrome; I refuse to believe that racial discourse has to be framed by Pat Buchanan and Jeremiah Wright; I refuse to abandon the hope I felt only a few months ago.

This moment is far too important to surrender to the forces that want to return us to the divisions and obsessions of the past. The only way past this, perhaps, is through it. Obama needs to repudiate Wright's grandstanding and reiterate in clear terms the rationale of his candidacy: that the past is over, and we have to move forward in ending this war in Iraq, restoring America's standing in the world, repairing the massive and mounting debt, bringing America back to the forefront of human rights, and bringing the best aspects of America to the foreground again.

The world is watching. And we still can."

It is true that the Obama campaign is the most genuine commitment to leaving this kind of politics, and the political and cultural warfare of the Vietnam generation, behind us.

I've supported John McCain and Barack Obama in their respective campaigns because I thought they offered us the best opportunity for a more honest discussion and debate that seeks to leave such emnities behind us.

Leaders do not pander to our basest impulses. Leaders lead us past them. These two candidates were our best shot at that, in the political process, proper, I think.

And Sullivan is right that the campaign against Barack Obama is a campaign of smear and bitterness about those political battles that only is useful insofar as it raises relevant questions about the challenges we face, today.

Jeremiah Wright, John Hagee, William Ayers and all such similar figures are responsible for their own behavior and are only relevant insofar as they address how candidates would handle contemporary challenges.

But more, they say much about how we face those same challenges.

Are we wise enough to turn this discussion into something more constructive to address our common problems.

Or are we foolish enough to think that one group will win and others will lose in these ideological, cultural, and political wars.

If it is the latter, we are responsible for that problem, no matter how we spin it otherwise.

Taking responsibility for our role in these debates and discussions is our only way forward.

Everything else is foolhardy. And a challenge that our children will have to take up if we do not have the wisdom and the courage to do it ourselves.

Peace or tragedy

Talking to 'terrorists'

I have to say that though I certainly take exception to Jimmy Carter's equivocation of terrorism - if Hamas is not a terrorist group, what group would qualify? - the terms he hammered out with Hamas and details in this piece do look promising.

And though I'm not a fan of Carter's sympathy for Palestinian terrorists, he is right on the bigger issue. Only a peace deal gets Israel and Palestine out of this loop of ongoing tragedy. There is no military solution to this standoff.

Perhaps we should pause to consider what Hamas is offering.

Signs of hope

From the Economist:

"Yet jockeying for power at the other levels of government does continue, causing a few headaches for Mr Ahmadinejad. Earlier this week the minister of the economy, Davoud Danesh Jafari, was shuffled out of the cabinet. Unusually, he left with something of a bang, lambasting Mr Ahmadinejad for dreadful mishandling of Iran’s economy, failing to plan for the future or to listen to economic experts. The president was distracted by “peripheral” issues, and had allowed inflation to soar to 18%, he said. Although others have spoken out before, Mr Jafari’s words were unusually forceful and public as they came from a former ally.

The economy is Mr Ahmadinejad’s Achilles’ heel. The opposition has criticised him over it and the clerical establishment has joined in. In the past week prominent clerics have said that he has failed to take responsibility for Iran’s economic woes. Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavikani, a former prime minister and a prominent conservative cleric, was quoted in Aftab-e Yazd, a reformist newspaper, as saying: “We shift problems and faults onto others and in order to say we are innocent we blame others.” Several leaders of Friday prayers have complained that the government is doing too little to reduce inflation. Even Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, the president’s closest spiritual adviser, has said that officials have failed to employ expertise to tackle poverty."

Obviously, Mamoud Ahmadinejad is not taking responsibility for much of anything, these days, nevertheless Iran's dismal economy. And Mamoud Ahmadinejad presence in that office, at all, as well as the power of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, should be proof positive to any sane, liberal-thinking person that power and established authority is meaningless as a barometer of right and wrong in the universe.

But recognizing that power is, often, a refuge for those avoiding responsibility, not one where responsibility is learned or effectively modeled, as one of the more persistent facts of political and public life, is a sign of progress.

And having people in Iran willing to take on that power, to take on the overwhelming forces of repression in that country, to openly and honestly criticize that power structure is a sign of progress.

Real progress, generally, does not come from the powerful. Powerful people generally follow those who create genuine progress in a society, not lead them. In fact, it is so obvious that in liberal societies, that when political leaders finally do choose to follow pathes of progress that have been blazed by others, then they are recognized for their contributions to progress that, generally, happens long before those with power make their contribution.

As George Orwell, one such thinker who blazed progress long before and generally contrary to the governing forces of his time, might say, force is not freedom. Power is not progress. In fact, quite the opposite.

Progress is when people are able to live their lives freely, peacefully, democratically, and independently of their governments, including with independent consciences even when governments are abusing their power, as the Iranian government is clearly guilty of doing, today, on so many measures of free, fair, and honest governance, that it is frankly difficult for me to imagine that liberal peoples would ever invest themselves in the foolish idea that government is some kind of final or trustworthy arbiter of all or even most questions of conscience.

To the contrary, Ahmadinejad should be a clear reminder to us of the folly of that notion and the inspiration for liberal governance and liberal society.

I, for one, celebrate that freedom rather than shrinking from it out of the cowardice that, somehow, someday, we will magically harness government to control and prevent all the bad things in the world from happening. It is a clear and unmistakeable illusion to me, today. And I'm confident that future generations will see the same.

Because it is just is, completely independent of what it might wish it to be.

Life is not that difficult, once you understand it

As I read through Benjamin Graham's Intelligent Investor one second time, I'm struck by how money is not that difficult to come by, once you understand it and its relationship to real value it represents is being contributed to peoples' lives. And the ways that losing track of that relationship undermines both one's capacity to make money. And undermines one's life, in much bigger ways than money.

Teaching is like that, too. So is learning. So are relationships. And parenting. And virtue of all sorts. So is leadership. And envisioning something better in the world.

Life is not that difficult, actually, once you understand it.

It's the understanding it that is the trick.

If you have not seen There Will Be Blood, and you want a course on how and why we are generally the ones responsible for our own misery, in life, I highly recommend that movie. It was clarifying for me. For why all that virtue matters.

Liberty and reason. Freedom and understanding.

It's the understanding that is the trick. And it is the understanding that makes all the difference. And it is the understanding that will, for as long as people inhabit this earth, make all the difference in the future.

Life is not really all that difficult once you understand it.

And it is the freedom and the understanding, that people have long been resisting and undermining, since the dawn of humanity, that make it easier to navigate.

Perhaps its time to correct that problem.

Stupid and mean

It's funny.

We have a world where everyone is always pissed off and scared and hurt about how shitty everyone treats one another.

So the answer that every dumbass seems to have for this situation is to treat one another shittier. Without fail. It is the source of every worst impulse and treatment humanity has ever heaped on its own kind.

I can't tell if that so remarkably obvious and repeatedly foolish reaction is because we are so stupid or because we are so mean.

I think it's both.

Either way, you'd think we'd wisen up, at some point.

Maybe evolution skips a species, sometimes. At least it skips a groove until this particular species starts using all of that one serious advantage of intelligence that biology has conferred upon it.

Perhaps evolution of our intelligence only occurs once one realizes in crystal clear technicolor just what a fuck-up one is. And perhaps that goes for societies, even an entire species, as much as for each individual.

Then, again, maybe some people just have to wait until the next gene pool offers up something better. At least so they can get a good view while they're getting their asses kicked and wondering why they never faced up to their bullshit, in the first place.

However it pans out, we're kind of stupid and mean, is the truth. And no matter how you spin that, it's still stupid and mean. Not something better.

For all of our talk about intelligence, we're kind of a dumb breed, much of the time, don't you think? At least we offer each other company, I suppose.

Bullying

Does it not seem strange to anyone else that bullying is one of the most serious issues that most adults are concerned about among young people.

And yet so much of the current political period is one long rationalization of bullying?

If I were a kid, this world would make no fuckin' sense to me.

Very much like when I was a kid, actually.

Some things never change.

A hardened heart

I'm watching There Will Be Blood, tonight, and I think I'm seeing what is so wrong with the world.

I think, at this point in my life, I am beginning to more fully understand how hardened hearts make the world an ugly place for everyone to have to live with.

Watching politics, this election cycle, with more of an eye to its ignoble features, among all ideological participants, I'm realizing just how much this obsession with power and the hardened hearts that pursue it make the world a fairly ugly place to live. And then claim the need for all that power to purify all that ugliness. They are not alone responsible for all of the ugliness in the world, obviously. But politics and too many of its participants contribute more than their fair share to the ugliness in the world. All in the name of noble purpose.

It makes me thankful for the contributions of less hard-hearted, more decent folks to the world. It makes me thankful for all the people I spent time with as a kid - the teachers, the counselors, the neighbors and people in our community, the churchfolk, the folks who worked in museums and libraries and universities, and all of the decent folks in the world who have honest, kind-hearted, good things to contribute to the world - who made childhood a positive experience for me, and I imagine most kids, generally.

All that hard-heartedness that Michael Barone romanticizes. It's exactly what is so wrong with the world. Which is why his writing has bothered me so much, these last few years. And all such folks pretending that their hardness is really something more honest or decent than it is.

I've got it in me, too, at this point in my life, sadly. All of the rough treatment and disappointments and fear and heartache sit on our hearts like some dark reminder of just how hard and heartbreaking life can be.

We all live with it, is the truth. It is the motivation behind virtually all of the ugliness in the world.

The question for us, today, as always, is are we going to keep pretending that it is our better angels? Are we going to keep pretending that this is the best we or anyone has to offer the world? Are we going to keep pretending like this is the way the world is supposed to be?

To the extent that the answer to that question is yes, we can claim a lot of things. But progress isn't one of them. Nor doing better by our children and future generations. People will claim it, of course. Hitler and Stalin both claimed that their ugliness was for their children and future generations. But it was a lie. And it will be a lie when our hardened hearts do the same.

And to the extent that we face all of that hard-heartedness, that ugliness, and take responsibility for the heartache and unnecessary tragedy we cause others in the name of pretending that it is better than it is, then we will have made progress. Everything else will have been a lie.

That is the choice that lies before us, right now, independent of how the politics of the moment unfolds.

It is the choice that humanity has always faced. And it is the only honest standard of progress that we have ever operated under. Everything else is a lie. And always has been. No matter how sophisticated the propaganda, to the contrary, takes shape.

We will only make progress as our hearts soften and we become more decent. That is the only way forward.

And that kind of progress, the only real progress we have and will ever make, is on no electoral timeline.

It takes as much as it needs.

Some resolution about being a decent person

I've found some resolution, this morning.

I realized about 5 or 6 years ago that the essence of so much of the ugly, dark side of the contemporary political discussion was that none of us really have to be good and decent people. We can be shitheads, if we want. We can be bitter. And nasty. Mean-spirited. Vindictive. Vengeful. Dishonest. Whatever things we know are bad, we can be them, if we want to, and noone can stop us.

In fact, we can lie to ourselves and one another and pretend like those things are really for good purposes, for the common good, or to serve something larger than ourselves. It's not really an original line of thought, actually. It was and is what animated and animates Naziism, Communism, imperialism, theocracy, genocide of all sorts, and almost literally every act of evil of any significant proportions. Very rarely do people do really evil, ugly things and say, "I just did it for the fun of it" or "I just did it because I wanted to." Usually, there is some kind of rationalization. Usually there is some kind of excuse that it was "for the mother country" or "for the people" or "for my people" or "for my family" or "for my friends" or "for the people I love" or for whatever.

There's always an excuse for shitty behavior, generally. When there isn't, it's a moment of honesty, which, at least, is an opportunity to take responsibility and move forward.

Otherwise, it's just bullshit. Which it often is.

And I've made some peace, this morning, that though it is true that people can be as shitty as they want for as long as they choose to be so. And they can be rewarded or can get stuff they want in life, despite and sometimes because of shitty behavior. Independent of the fact that it is pretty clear that what matters of our contributions is generally a function of what of value we have to offer and that even those rewarded in more material ways are often those who have something of real value to offer the world and that greed is often something that holds people back, distorts their outlook on the world and on the market, undermines their material gains, more than it helps anyone. Independent of all of that, it is still more important to make contributions to the world that do operate independent of money or power or sex or anything self-centered.

Because life is a shitty place to live for people who live that way. And the commitment to being decent, to being a good person, to forgiving those various inequities and wrongs and indecencies in the world and acting only when it will really accomplish something, that valuing the most important, most meaningful, most beautiful, most insightful, wisest, most decent contributions in the world is what makes it possible for us to have any of those things. And it is those most decent contributions that make this world worth living for.

Everything else is one long constant reminder of what shitheads people often are and what the world would be like if noone really gave a shit.

And there is far too much of that in the world, is the truth. Far too much. The world does not need me to add to that mix.

I need a decent world to live in: for myself, for my parents and brothers and sisters, for my wife and children, for my friends, for my colleagues, and for all of the people I care about in the world.

We may all dip our toes in the base elements of the world, out of curiosity about our own and others' human nature. But I have no interest in living there. And I certainly hope most people do not either.

And I have faith that they don't.

Because the truth is that the base cannot sustain us. It does not fulfill us or anyone else, for that matter. It does not make us better. Or help us grow. Or tackle successfully or unsuccessfully our most serious problems. The base does not make life beautiful. Or sweet. Or touching. Or enlightening. Or inspiring. It does not teach us or have anything real for us to learn except that it is so empty.

The base elements of the world are made up of the sides of all of us that do not care. And the truth is that we do not care far too often, not far too much. But our baser, more cowardly natures just will not be more honest, we will not be more honest with ourselves or with others, that this is the case.

We care far too little, is the truth. And that is our problem, most of the time. And that is why we find ourselves in so many messes. Because our lenses are so self-centered that we see almost everything we encounter as a function of who we are and what we want and not as a function of what will serve or help or support others.

And if you spend enough of your time with people who really do not care much about others, as much as I do, it becomes crystal clear just exactly what we take for granted with one another when we do care.

I have no interest in taking people who care about me for granted, anymore. I have no interest in taking for granted those who look out for others and for me with little or no reward or concern for themselves. I have no interest in rationalizing why I don't care about anyone else other than myself or why I only have me to look out for. I have no interest in pretending like it doesn't matter or that it really is that darker, more aggressive, more indecent nature about myself or others that keeps me or others safe. I've had enough experience, I've studied enough about the world, I know enough about people and how they live to know that such thinking is bullshit and dishonest. That it is one long rationalization for why I and everyone else chooses to act like shitheads in lieu of being more decent.

I know better. Everyone who has lived in a decent society should.

And having the freedom to learn better may be the only way that any of us really learn.

That was the point of those who originally espoused democracy and liberal values, I think. All those thinkers and artists and writers and Founding Fathers. That freedom offered us the vantage point to be able to judge what was good and what was bad, what was decent and what was indecent, what was right and what was wrong, what was enlightened and what was unenlightened, what was beautiful and what was ugly, what was brilliant and what was foolish.

And they were right.

There is no law, no rule, no power, no ultimate authority that can finally decide any of these things. Only the consciences and judgments of individuals. The consciences and judgments of common people, and, especially, the consciences and judgments of all too uncommon people, for all the right reasons.

The merits of what is or is not in the world is not and could never be decided by law or by those who are responsible for the law. They can and forever will be decided by the consciences of each individual.

And, by now, humanity has enough experience to know that some consciences shine brighter than others and make the path to progress clearer by their light.

It was not law or rules or power that made way for humanity's Age of Enlightenment. It was great minds, great contributions, great efforts, great ideas that made it so. And will forever make it so, no matter what the law may say or not.

And so it will forever be. Power be damned.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

And never, ever will power make anything so, except what conscience allows. Ever. Except that which cowardice allows. And that is exactly why it is such a poor settlement for anything and resolves no important question except that which conscience decides first. Law is used for cowardice far too often to warrant it as a moral or final arbiter of anything except that which the law and its guardians decide. It is an imperfect effort to resolve difficult questions. And will forever be an imperfect effort to resolve such questions.

Only conscience can resolve them for real and with any finality. And even then, often conscience fails. Conscience is also an imperfect effort. But it is a more honest and genuine one. And that is why conscience trumps all else.

What I realized this morning is that without people committed to that resolution, without people committed to a life that is more decent, more honest, more loving, more free, more just, more productive, more open, more full of all of life's most profound contributions and insights, this would be a very dark and lonely world indeed.

And that is why humanity should still strive, even as so many of us fall so dreadfully short, to live up to our highest, most genuine ideals.

Because a world where we do not is just too bleak.

And no matter who you are, who wants to live in that world.

If there is one most overriding important advantage that doing this work - teaching, and teaching the roughest kids, in particular - has had for my life is to make clear without a shadow of a doubt how important it is to have decent people and decent contributions in life to have available for more honest and genuine consumption.

It is exactly because life is so shitty, because people are so often so self-centered and ugly to one another that we need people who are bigger than all of that and have bigger and more honest contributions to make, as a consequence.

Because what kind of world would this be if it were only the shitheads who made their mark?

A cold, dark, and ugly one. Nasty, brutish, and short, as one philosopher once observed. Even for the shitheads.

Eventually, everyone needs more light and genuine warmth in their lives.

Bitterness

I'm realizing, this morning, reading another weak Charles Krauthammer piece (I'm voting for John McCain, so I got no axe to grind for Obama; Charles is just subject to weak reasoning, often, and this piece is one of the weakest), that what most people, including Charles, were so offended by when Obama talked about bitter Americans was that he was being so honest.

The truth is that a lot of people, like Charles, are bitter. They are bitter. And they are married to the emotional fragility that holding onto so bitterness engenders.

That's the problem with bitterness and the ugliness it often gives cover to.

It is a wound. A weakness. And often, when people experience this kind of wound, this weakness, they are wont to wallow in it.

Holding onto bitterness is a form of self-pity that many people, rich and poor, are tempted to wallow in since letting it go means facing and experiencing pain that those who are wallowing would rather avoid and escape. It is not only religion and guns, but drugs and other forms of recreation and entertainment, self-righteous bluster of all sorts, especially political bluster, and so many distractions which allow those who do not feel strong enough to face such weakness to avoid doing so.

The question we need to ask ourselves, and hopefully we are and do, intuitively, ask ourselves, is do we really want people leading us who wallow in self-pity, like this?

The Germans in Nazi Germany answered yes to this question. And from there all of their problems flowed.

See, the irony is that people who are afraid of facing this and all such weaknesses must convince themselves and others that it is not weakness, at all, but strength, for fear of facing the cowardice that animates their self-pity.

So it is for Charles Krauthammer. So it is for anyone who wallows in such self-pity. Myself included, if and when I ever indulge.

It is self-deception that has, far too often, led to some of humanity's worst abuses.

The less scholarly term is bullshit. It's bullshit, is what it is. It is people, like Hitler and like Charles Krauthammer and like a million such assholes pretending to be stronger than they really are.

And the really crazy bullshit at the bottom of it all is that it is not strength, at all. In fact, at bottom, it is cowardice to face weakness and the emotional wounds that life inevitably brings.

Fundamentally, people have a choice. We can ignore all that pain and bitterness and pretend they do not color our outlook on the world, which they clearly do with any reflection on the subject (lingering pain tends to make people more fearful and aggressive). We can pretend that such pain is a sign of strength, a pride based on the notion that surviving a life of pain - the life that we all must live, no matter what kind of life we live - and do much harm to others and ourselves as we pretend to ourselves and others in such ways. Or we can let go of the pain and mistrust, to forgive it and the source of our wounds and take responsibility for the pain and hardship and mistrust we have caused others.

Most people choose the first or the second, out of cowardice, often. Myself included, too often in my life, sadly. But the third option is the only source of real strength, no matter how much we try to bullshit ourselves otherwise.

Many, many people try to bullshit themselves otherwise. Charles is one of many. It is not evil. It is all too common, really. It is not, however, noble. Nor should it be confused with something more noble. Nor it is confined to ideology. In fact, the spread of this weakness across ideology, class, race, gender, intellectual ability, nationality, ethnicity, religion, and every other identity that might otherwise divide humanity is the source for such divisions and it is the reason why wisdom cannot be found in any of its particular cleavages.

Strength is found in our capacity to relate to other human beings with a respect for their contributions, their free will and need to determine their own lives, their potential for decency and nobility of spirit, and their identities as like and potentially peacefully coexisting human beings that transcends narrower identifications. And to the extent that narrower definitions of our experience lingers in the minds and experiences of humanity, the narrower our outlook and the subsequent consequences for our lives will be. We can refuse to engage others in ways that make for more peaceful and mutually concerned coexistence.

And we live with the consequences of that kind of engagement until we do.

May we choose wisely.

The lasting power of force as a governing philosophy

I was watching this documentary, World at War, that features a long-haired Stephen Ambrose, at one point, which is fascinating.



And I think I came upon part of the reason why we've been going through this dumbass political period.

I am learning, with kids, that when people stop looking for better lessons to understand challenges they face in life, they, generally, are stuck playing out the stupid goddamn logic that they have been operating with up until that point.

And much of the logic of American foreign policy in the late 20th and early 21st century is a holdover from the beginning of World War II, the last war from which America feels a clear sense of moral leadership.

And the one lesson that dumbasses who don't think about anything else serious but the last fuckin' thing they discussed in some high school or undergraduate class 30 years ago is that Hitler had to be confronted with force. And that avoiding doing so cost many lives, tragically.

It's an important lesson from history. But it is not an absolute lesson, for anyone with half a brain to consider when and where force should be used, which is the obvious question to anyone who thinks before they act, at all, and is not just rationalizing their sloppy reasoning or their will to power.

Hitler at his height: 90% approval rating.

Obviously force nor popularity nor any other principle other than what does real good in the world is a good enough justification for power or how to use it.

But, like those Germans, Americans have been rationalizing power out of intellectual laziness and a lust for power and its spoils.

Hitler lost. And everyone who rationalizes power in such way will lose, eventually.

The question, as Ambrose argued in a What If? series essay he wrote about World War II, is not whether such power-mongers lose. The question is how long does it take before they lose and how many people are hurt in the meantime.

No matter what

I have to say that no matter what I end up doing with my life, that I honor the fuck out of the work that these teachers, all teachers, all professors (especially my professors), police officers, firefighters, military servicepeople, public-serving lawyers, judges, political leaders, and all of the public servants who work on behalf of the public.

But I do have to say that contrary to the nonsensical babblings of Michael Barone and his ilk, I honor the work that all teachers at all levels do. It's the most important work in the world. It's the reason I wanted to do this work.

And if Michael or anyone needs a reminder that all these soft-hearted teachers can be hard, I would be more than happy to lay him or anyone else the fuck out to give them a taste of just how hard a teacher can be if they want to be.

You doubt I'm tough? Ask my students. And if you need further reminders, I would be more than willing to step outside and give them to anyone convinced that soft-heartedness means weak. I'll show you weak, you piece of shit. And then I'll forgive your sorry ass for being such a fuckin' asshole.

All those teachers made it possible for you to have that cushy job to disrespect them, Michael. I'll forgive you. But if you need your ass kicked, I am more than willing to oblige on that front as well.

Love,
Ben

Progress?

Great. The first war on poverty went so well, I guess the Republican candidate would like us to embark on a second attempt.

McCain Vows War on Poverty, Says Nation in Recession

This is progress, I suppose. No offense, but if this is progress, I think I'm going to slit my fucking wrists.

I need a new fucking job. Because if this is it, we are going fucking nowhere.

And if we're going nowhere, I want first class seats and I have no interest in funding this shit.

Why we rationalize power and getting tough

U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations

"It used to be that Europeans came to the United States to study its prison systems. They came away impressed.

'In no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than in the United States,' Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured American penitentiaries in 1831, wrote in 'Democracy in America.'

No more.

'Far from serving as a model for the world, contemporary America is viewed with horror," James Whitman, a specialist in comparative law at Yale, wrote last year in Social Research. 'Certainly there are no European governments sending delegations to learn from us about how to manage prisons.'

Prison sentences here have become 'vastly harsher than in any other country to which the United States would ordinarily be compared,' Michael Tonry, a leading authority on crime policy, wrote in 'The Handbook of Crime and Punishment.'

Indeed, said Vivien Stern, a research fellow at the prison studies center in London, the American incarceration rate has made the United States "a rogue state, a country that has made a decision not to follow what is a normal Western approach."

The spike in American incarceration rates is quite recent. From 1925 to 1975, the rate remained stable, around 110 people in prison per 100,000 people. It shot up with the movement to get tough on crime in the late 1970s. (These numbers exclude people held in jails, as comprehensive information on prisoners held in state and local jails was not collected until relatively recently.)

The nation's relatively high violent crime rate, partly driven by the much easier availability of guns here, helps explain the number of people in American prisons.

'The assault rate in New York and London is not that much different,' said Marc Mauer, the executive director of the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group. 'But if you look at the murder rate, particularly with firearms, it's much higher.'

Despite the recent decline in the murder rate in the United States, it is still about four times that of many nations in Western Europe.

But that is only a partial explanation. The United States, in fact, has relatively low rates of nonviolent crime. It has lower burglary and robbery rates than Australia, Canada and England.

People who commit nonviolent crimes in the rest of the world are less likely to receive prison time and certainly less likely to receive long sentences. The United States is, for instance, the only advanced country that incarcerates people for minor property crimes like passing bad checks, Whitman wrote.

Efforts to combat illegal drugs play a major role in explaining long prison sentences in the United States as well. In 1980, there were about 40,000 people in American jails and prisons for drug crimes. These days, there are almost 500,000.

Those figures have drawn contempt from European critics. 'The U.S. pursues the war on drugs with an ignorant fanaticism,' said Stern of King's College...

...Several specialists here and abroad pointed to a surprising explanation for the high incarceration rate in the United States: democracy.

Most state court judges and prosecutors in the United States are elected and are therefore sensitive to a public that is, according to opinion polls, generally in favor of tough crime policies. In the rest of the world, criminal justice professionals tend to be civil servants who are insulated from popular demands for tough sentencing.

Whitman, who has studied Tocqueville's work on American penitentiaries, was asked what accounted for America's booming prison population.

'Unfortunately, a lot of the answer is democracy — just what Tocqueville was talking about,' he said. 'We have a highly politicized criminal justice system.'"

The countercase is argued cogently with U.S. Justice Department statistics in this piece. It is a case that I will need to deal with in my book. As you can see, my thinking runs more along the lines of that of those who wrote this article and, specifically, with this line of reasoning.

"'Rises and falls in Canada's crime rate have closely paralleled America's for 40 years,' Tonry wrote last year. 'But its imprisonment rate has remained stable.'"

Meaning, in many cases - alcohol and drugs being ones that I am fairly convinced happen to fit - when behavior is prohibited or made illegal, it has the unintended consequence of increasing the behavior in question, as well as other more dangerous behaviors, like murder and violence around these illegal trades.

In other cases where incarceration is necessary, for purposes of containment, I think a strong case can be made in favor or incarceration, but reducing crime, long-term, is not one of those cases. Recidivist rates among violent (and non-violent) criminals should give us pause to believe that prison reduces crime (Paul Cassell makes the straight-forward and yet evidenced claim that tougher and longer prison sentences reduces crime - "[F]rom 1981 to 1996, according to Justice Department statistics, the risk of punishment rose in the United States and fell in England. The crime rates predictably moved in the opposite directions, falling in the United States and rising in England." - that needs to be considered, even as I have much reason to disagree with this conclusion). But I am fairly clear, at this point, that such sentences, at best, reduce the likelihood of recidivism only when criminals believe that they might be caught. And they are far from addressing the matters of conscience and thought which underly criminal and decent or law-abiding behavior.

The better case, I think, favors the idea that prison rates have negligible effects on criminal behavior, even when they are without doubt, to my mind, necessary, when people who are rationalizing clearly dangerous behavior need to be contained. Meaning, prison is necessary in cases where clearly dangerous behavior is being rationalized and is, thus, likely to be repeated. But, even then, it, likely, has a very negligible impact on criminal behavior, and only when people think they might be caught.

This is why Americans and people all over the world do and always have rationalized power and toughness. Because they are convinced that such behavior reduces their vulnerability to pain and hurt that result from aggressive and criminal behavior. It is true in cases of national security as well as cases of domestic law and order. It is a pernicious illusion, I believe. But it has been with us since the beginning of time.

And it is the reason why Americans are rationalizing power, right now, I believe. It is the reason that humanity has always rationalized power. And it is, without pause, it seems, the reason why humanity finds itself in all of its most serious messes and dealing with its most serious and ugly behaviors.

My job, in this book I'm working on, will be to honestly explore this question and offer up answers that move us forward.

Mugabe and Clinton

The parallels between the Mugabe government and the Clinton candidacy are spooky.

Officials release 1st result in Zimbabwe election recount

"The state-run Herald newspaper also suggested Wednesday that a government of national unity led by Mugabe could end Zimbabwe's deepening political and economic crisis — a departure from its regular stance of accusing the opposition of manipulating the vote."

It's the dream ticket, featuring Robert Mugabe. How dreamy.

"No presidential results have been released from the March 29 election, and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's party insists it won outright. The Movement for Democratic Change has called the government's refusal to release the results part of a ploy to steal the vote.

For the first time in Mugabe's 28-year rule, the opposition defeated his ruling ZANU-PF party in the first count of last month's parliamentary vote. But electoral officials began recounting ballots Saturday for the 23 legislative seats, most won by opposition candidates. The ZANU-PF party needs just nine seats to reclaim a majority.

The recount in Goromonzi concluded Tuesday with just a one-vote difference from the original count from the poll, giving the seat to Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, the Herald said. Officials found no errors in the vote for the upper house, or Senate.

The opposition had demanded the Goromonzi recount. No further results from the recount were released.

In the editorial prominently displayed on the Herald's opinion page, columnist Dr. Obediah Mazombwe called a unity government negotiated by regional leaders of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community as 'the most viable and safest way forward.'

He said regional leaders, along with 'the progressive international community,' could bring together key players: Mugabe's party, the opposition, former colonial ruler Britain and the United States.

'The situation in Zimbabwe is dire, but all is not lost. Whilst the ruling party must stop behaving like a wounded buffalo, the opposition must stop its hysterics and lapses into delusion,' he said.

'The West, particularly the Anglo-American establishment, should stop insisting that President Mugabe and ZANU-PF cannot be part of a future prosperous Zimbabwe,' Mazombwe said.

Under a transitional arrangement, the resumption of critical Western financial assistance could be negotiated, Mazombwe said.

Tsvangirai and other opposition leaders, now in 'virtual exile,' should be guaranteed their safety and 'come home and start playing a constructive national role.'

A unity government would then be expected to reform the nation's constitution and organize fresh elections under regional and international supervision, he said."

If the election results are not significantly different from the original count, then the numbers I saw say the opposition should have the slight edge. And but for bullshit parliamentary rules - which, tragically, may exist - then the opposition should win this election outright. The only need for a runoff should be if there is either a tie or if some parliamentary procedure not cited in this article makes that necessary. Either way, it looks like, from the numbers I've seen that the opposition should have a bare majority and Robert Mugabe should not be in power (the opposition inexplicably got a bare majority, because Mugabe has so clearly demolished that economy and undermined a free civil society, by any objective measure, that there is no good empirical reason by any liberal democratic standard that Robert Mugabe should still be in power).

Mugabe's whole election race has so creepily taken several pages from Hillary Clinton's power playbook - his arguments about being "a fighter" who was still in the race came within weeks of Clinton's same arguments and calling for a unity government with an opposition which, by these numbers as much as by the original numbers, that is in the lead are both bizarrely reminiscenct of the Clinton campaign - that it is hard for me to understand why Americans would have such a hard time seeing the rationalization of power in both cases.

Except that many Americans and Zimbabweans are also rationalizing power. Same as they did in Nazi Germany. Same as they did in the Soviet Union. Same as they have virtually everywhere since the beginning of humanity. Because people are dumb and they have this stubborn habit of belief that power solves more than it does, when the Zimbabwean case should be such a clear and undeniable refutation of that fact that entertaining it becomes an exercise in intellectual dishonesty and futility.

This was the wrong line of work for me. Public service. Politics. Public education. Anything having to do with power. Because people are too stubborn and stupid to finally throw off this bullshit rationalization. They can. They need to. But they perpetually engage in it.

That's why Hitler, Mussonlini and Stalin all knew they could get away with their ugliness. Because they knew that the dumbasses of the world would stand behind them. Because it's all they know. Because in the face of aggression, people almost invariably turn to aggression rather than thought. Because they are convinced that aggression solves more problems than it does rather than being the pretty clear source of many of our worst problems that it is.

It doesn't matter how obvious the problems become, as in Zimbabwe, which suffers with up to 165,000% inflation and 85% unemployment. If your problems are that bad, and you still can't see that strongmen do not solve them, when are people going to face the bullshit?

When hell freezes over, I suppose. Or until the next intellectual rationalization for this bullshit takes root.

Robert Mugabe and Hillary Clinton both need a serious breather from public life. Even if majorities and their followers are too dumb or too full of the rationalization of power to see it, they both need to take a break and/or be removed from office.

And I need a break from this life, too, if power does perpetually overwhelm honesty. Because there's no fuckin' use wasting my life because people are too fuckin' stupid, scared, and self-righteous to see the goddamn problem.

Most people are cowards, is the truth. And they perpetually want someone they think is stronger than they are, more powerful, wealthier, more whatever than they are to come and fix all of their problems for them.

I need a life where I'm not subject to such peoples' bullshit all of the time. Be as stupid, scared, and self-righteous as you want with your life, I say. Just leave me the fuck alone. And leave everyone else alone, too, while your at it.

I need a beer in a serious way, after reading this news.

Another term of Robert Mugabe depresses the shit out of me.

How Zimbabweans could be be so fuckin' stupid to reelect this asshole or even let him get close, I will never know.

All I know is that I am tired of people being so fuckin' stupid. And acting like no big deal.

A Mi Manera

If you have never heard the Gypsy Kings' nod to Old Blue Eyes in their remarkable version of A Mi Manera (My Way), you are missing out on something of rare beauty.



And live...



Especially at this point in my life, this song really resonates with me. And this is the most moving version I have ever heard.

Enjoy.

Force and freedom

Grace Wang, a Chinese student at Duke University, has an article in the Washington Post, today, about her experiences amidst pro- and anti-Tibetan independence protests at Duke that illustrate the difference, well, between the use of force and honest discussion.

Caught in the Middle, Called a Traitor

"I study languages -- Italian, French and German. And this summer -- now that it looks as though I won't be able to go home to China -- I'll take up Arabic. My goal is to master 10 languages, in addition to Chinese and English, by the time I'm 30.

I want to do this because I believe that language is the bridge to understanding. Take China and Tibet. If more Chinese learned the Tibetan language, and if Tibetans learned more about China, I'm convinced that our two peoples would understand one another better and we could overcome the current crisis between us peacefully. I feel that even more strongly after what happened here at Duke University a little more than a week ago.

Trying to mediate between Chinese and pro-Tibetan campus protesters, I was caught in the middle and vilified and threatened by the Chinese. After the protest, the intimidation continued online, and I began receiving threatening phone calls. Then it got worse -- my parents in China were also threatened and forced to go into hiding. And I became persona non grata in my native country...

The Chinese protesters thought that, being Chinese, I should be on their side. The participants on the Tibet side were mostly Americans, who really don't have a good understanding of how complex the situation is. Truthfully, both sides were being quite closed-minded and refusing to consider the other's perspective. I thought I could help try to turn a shouting match into an exchange of ideas. So I stood in the middle and urged both sides to come together in peace and mutual respect. I believe that they have a lot in common and many more similarities than differences.

But the Chinese protesters -- who were much more numerous, maybe 100 or more -- got increasingly emotional and vocal and wouldn't let the other side speak. They pushed the small Tibetan group of just a dozen or so up against the Duke Chapel doors, yelling 'Liars, liars, liars!' This upset me. It was so aggressive, and all Chinese know the moral injunction: Junzi dongkou, bu dongshou (The wise person uses his tongue, not his fists).

I was scared. But I believed that I had to try to promote mutual understanding. I went back and forth between the two groups, mostly talking to the Chinese in our language. I kept urging everyone to calm down, but it only seemed to make them angrier. Some young men in the Chinese group -- those we call fen qing (angry youth) -- started yelling and cursing at me.

What a lot of people don't know is that there were many on the Chinese side who supported me and were saying, "Let her talk." But they were drowned out by the loud minority who had really lost their cool.

Some people on the Chinese side started to insult me for speaking English and told me to speak Chinese only. But the Americans didn't understand Chinese. It's strange to me that some Chinese seem to feel as though not speaking English is expressing a kind of national pride. But language is a tool, a way of thinking and communicating.

At the height of the protest, a group of Chinese men surrounded me, pointed at me and, referring to the young woman who led the 1989 student democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, said, 'Remember Chai Ling? All Chinese want to burn her in oil, and you look like her.' They said that I had mental problems and that I would go to hell. They asked me where I was from and what school I had attended. I told them. I had nothing to hide. But then it started to feel as though an angry mob was about to attack me. Finally, I left the protest with a police escort.

Back in my dorm room, I logged onto the Duke Chinese Students and Scholars Association (DCSSA) Web site and listserv to see what people were saying. Qian Fangzhou, an officer of DCSSA, was gloating, 'We really showed them our colors!'

I posted a letter in response, explaining that I don't support Tibetan independence, as some accused me of, but that I do support Tibetan freedom, as well as Chinese freedom. All people should be free and have their basic rights protected, just as the Chinese constitution says. I hoped that the letter would spark some substantive discussion. But people just criticized and ridiculed me more.

The next morning, a storm was raging online. Photographs of me had been posted on the Internet with the words "Traitor to her country!" printed across my forehead. Then I saw something really alarming: Both my parents' citizen ID numbers had been posted. I was shocked, because this information could only have come from the Chinese police.

I saw detailed directions to my parents' home in China, accompanied by calls for people to go there and teach "this shameless dog" a lesson. It was then that I realized how serious this had become. My phone rang with callers making threats against my life. It was ironic: What I had tried so hard to prevent was precisely what had come to pass. And I was the target.

I talked to my mom the next morning, and she said that she and my dad were going into hiding because they were getting death threats, too. She told me that I shouldn't call them. Since then, short e-mail messages have been our only communication. The other day, I saw photos of our apartment online; a bucket of feces had been emptied on the doorstep. More recently I've heard that the windows have been smashed and obscene posters have been hung on the door. Also, I've been told that after convening an assembly to condemn me, my high school revoked my diploma and has reinforced patriotic education.

I understand why people are so emotional and angry; the events in Tibet have been tragic. But this crucifying of me is unacceptable. I believe that individual Chinese know this. It's when they fire each other up and act like a mob that things get so dangerous.

Now, Duke is providing me with police protection, and the attacks in Chinese cyberspace continue. But contrary to my detractors' expectations, I haven't shriveled up and slunk away. Instead, I've responded by publicizing this shameful incident, both to protect my parents and to get people to reflect on their behavior. I'm no longer afraid, and I'm determined to exercise my right to free speech.

Because language is the bridge to understanding."

People who are not bullshitting themselves and one another know the difference between force and freedom.

Unlike Grace, I do support Tibetan independence. Because I know, as do most people who are not lost in the power calculations on this question, that the only thing standing between the Tibetans' desire and right to self-determination and independence and totalitarian rule of the Peoples' Republic of China is the use of force by the Chinese government. But for that force, Tibet would have its independence.

Americans should be accutely aware of the significance of that fact, since it was the overwhelming force of the British Empire that Americans had to overcome to found the first sustainable democracy in the world and the first government founding explicitly on a commitment to freedom as a principle of governance and society. A commitment they celebrate when they are not rationalizing calculations for power.

Freedom is not a value to be feared. It is the value that makes us stronger, wiser, and more genuinely noble, when we take it seriously and the responsibilities that come with it.

And good for Grace for taking that value seriously in the face of the threats and aggression of her peers and, if they are involved, the Chinese government.

That is what courage looks like. Not the bullshit that has been pretending to be something more noble during this time.

And thanks to Grace for demonstrating courage under fire even when cowardice is so much easier when force and aggression are the popular rallying point.

I am tired of the propaganda and bullshit on this question. I am tired of it distorting the substantive discussions that need to take place in the world. And I am tired of people pretending like it is freedom and not force that is the problem.

But mostly I am tired of a world where I must pretend that this is the best we have to offer.

I, for one, expect better.

A life worth living

I spent some quality time with a good friend, last night. And he told me a story that helped me clarify, for myself, what I want with my life.

We were talking about raising kids and growing up. My friend is a dad. A good dad. And we were just talking about time we spent with our fathers at the movies, growing up. I recalled a drive-in my father took us to that was a kind of a rare treat - though I saw many, many movies as a kid, I probably watched more of them with my grandparents than I did with my dad, for lots of reasons, I suppose - and my friend recalled several different stories of drive-ins and movies that he and his sister and his dad shared.

And it occurred to me, at that point, that that was really the kind of life I wanted. There's a lot of big ambitions I have and have had, over the years. And during a time in my life when I did not have a family and I took the relationship I had for granted, all I really wanted was those ambitions. I was obsessed, I think my girlfriend at the time would agree. So obsessed that it was often a disruption for our relationship, which I didn't have enough experience with, at the time, to prioritize over other ambitions.

But, at this point in my life, I am perfectly clear, I suppose because I've been without that or another comparable relationship for almost 7 years, now, that being in love, having a marriage, having a family, spending time with my wife and kids, these are the things I really care about more, today.

When I was in undergrad, I imagined what it would have been like to write something so profound, as so many of the philosophers and thinkers I read had, that people would still be reading what you wrote hundreds of years after you wrote them.

And to me, at the time, this was what a great life might consist of.

There might be truth in that. I have an aspiration like that with a book I'm working on.

But the truth, I realize, today, is that I would never, in as many hundreds of years, trade a life of ambitious writing, thinking, or anything for a life where I have the time and inclination to spend that kind of quality time with my wife and kids, with my family.

And I no longer spend my life anxious about whether or not I would or would not fit in with various intellectual, political, journalistic, academic, or other circles that consumed me when I was in grad school and busy taking that relationship for granted.

I just want a nice life with my kids and wife and friends and family, is the truth. My upbringing and still too much of my family life is full of far too much drama, unecessary and self-righteous conflict and foolish turmoil, and has generally left me with a grounded commitment to a family life that is fairly peaceful and loving and quality time together.

I'm realistic enough, at this point in my life, to know that my kids will make their own choices with their lives, including how happy they are going to be, as they grow up, and that it is wise to have my own life, as well, that is not contingent on their lives or happiness.

But I just don't feel as caught up or as lost in the rat race or all of the anxieties that such a race often consists of that I'm not convinced do for me and my life what I thought they might, at one point. I am still ambitious. Just not in a way that would undermine or take for granted these more important priorities of marriage and family and quality time with people I love.

That's a life worth living, I think.

My uncle Tom, who I think raised a really great family with my Aunt Linda and their six daughters, including my cousin Carla, who I feel really close to as we get older, told me when I was first graduating from college that some people live to work and other people work to live. And what he meant is that some people work because they are convinced that those ambitions will bring more of what they want in life, whereas some people work so that they can provide for their family and then live their lives in time that was left, instead of making their careers and ambitions their entire lives or the center of their lives.

I guess I'm figuring out where my center in life is, I suppose is what I'm saying. I'm figuring out what a life worth living might look like.

I used to watch movies like A River Runs Through It or When Harry Met Sally to get an idea of what a more idealic relationship or more idealic family life might look like.

But movies do always have the drawback of only being movies.

And that simple conversation with a good friend gave me a more realistic idea of what it is that I might want in life.

And I'm finally at a point in my life where I'm completely clear that though ambition, recognition, even money might play roles in my life, that the truth is that I have no interest, nor have I ever had an interest, in any of these things being central to my life.

Maybe that's why so many political folks seem a little out of touch with average folks. Maybe their ambitions center more in their lives, too much in their lives, than do their families or the people they love. Maybe. Who knows.

All I know is that what I really want is to spend time watching movies and going to drive-ins with my kids. I want to get Chinese and watch cable all night on weekends, like my grandparents use to do with my brothers and sisters growing up. I want to be a good dad and a good husband far more than I want to be a well-known or widely-read author or even a respected teacher or rich businessman or any other ambition, for that matter.

And I don't want to ever take the priority for granted in my life ever again.

Sounds like a live worth living, to me. I suppose I better find a girlfriend, at some point, to get the ball rolling.

The political class

I just happened to check out this discussion on Youtube, this morning. I hardly watch television, at all, anymore, it seems so mindless to me, much of the time.

And I have to say that this conversation, and many others I watched this morning, illustrates well that most, if not all people in the Beltway, are good, decent, often thoughtful, flawed people who have very strong opinions about matters that, often, they really do not know answers to.

Watching and reading about the war in Iraq, the most serious and consequential issue we face, right now, and listening to these very ambitious, opinionated people who have far fewer answers to such issues than they pretend to have has very much humbled my view of wisdom in these circles.

Power distorts so many policy discussions, since it is so frequently employed - either formally, in the form of government authority, or informally, in the form of pressure, leverage, or otherwise bullying rather than persuading others of differences - in ways that undermine an honest and practical discussion of how to solve problems.

The Iraq war is one of those problems.

When you take the propensity to leverage and rationalize power out of the equation, this situation becomes not nearly as complicated.

The Iraqis need security amidst a situation that America started, with large majorities of our people supporting this invasion.

American soldiers, Iraqi soldiers, and the Iraqi government say that the Iraqi troops are not ready to take over that responsibility.

American liberals, many of whom opposed this war, up front, want validation that they are right and conservatives are wrong that this war should not have taken place in the first place. They also want fewer American soldiers to die, as everyone does, obviously.

American conservatives, many of whom supported this war, up front - although, the truth is that many, many American, liberal, conservative, and otherwise, supported this war, up front; I know, because I opposed it - want validation that they were right and liberals were wrong that removing Saddam Hussein and other rationales employed for this war were worthy of the sacrifices made. They also want fewer American and Iraqis to die, as everyone does, obviously.

It is not that truth is found somewhere in between. The truth is that power distorts our ability to look at this situation more squarely, as various parties seek to rationalize their own claims on power and their notions that their use of it are more effective than they clearly are to any objective observer not trying to defend its use.

Leveraging the Iraqi government has clearly been ineffective and counterproductive, as has the leveraging of the Iranian government, and leveraging of domestic parties in the U.S.

Not only has it been ineffective and counterproductive, it has sent the message to Iraqis that when Americans say that we have come to liberate you to determine the fate of your own country, that we only mean that insofar as you do what we say - a clear contradiction in terms, if we could ever have the courage and honesty to face that contradiction, and a clear violation of our presumed commitment to Iraqi self-determination, if we could ever let go of the rationalization for power that has overtaken every other policy concern during this political period.

American political leaders and others need to talk with the Iraqi government and not at them. They need to ask them, and their security forces, in particular, and American security forces that are charged with that security detail, currently, and with preparing Iraqi forces for taking over those operations, what they need to take responsibility for these security operations. And they need to provide for that security, first, before any talk about leaving.

We need to cut out the bullshit, is the truth. We need stop pretending like we are having a more honest conversation than we are having. And we need to stop pretending that the bullshit leveraging is not distorting the conversation more than it clearly is, if and when we decide that we are going to face up to the failure of this strategy.

The truth is that none of the people at this roundtable know exactly what to do in Iraq. They talk confidently. They talk eloquently. They talk intelligently. Which is all well and good. But the truth is that they do not know. Nobody knows exactly.

But the terrain does become clearer the less the politics, the power strategies, obstruct the policy, the concern with solutions for serious problems.

In the meantime, this whole war and all of the politics we engage in, right now, becomes one long exercise in theater of the absurd.

It becomes a stage where everyone looks like a fool for acting like they have more answers than they do. Hubris, the Greeks whisper to us. Hubris. The arrogance of pretending that we have more final answers than we really have found. It afflicts every generation. And the hubris is found in the notion that somehow our generation has escaped it. When the truth is that no generation escapes it. Ever. We just, sometimes, hopefully, get closer to answers, the more we try. Sometimes. And if Paul Krugman is any indication, sometimes not, even when we try very hard.

I'm gonna go take a walk. And then do some lesson planning.

It is amusing thinking that at one point at my life all I ever wanted to do was be accepted by such people. Today, I am more aware of their shortcomings. And just kind of amused by them, frankly.

Let's hope such perspective might offer us better opportunities to end this war with honor, dignity, and a concern for the Iraqi people and not just our own self-righteous notions of How Things Are.

I think we owe the Iraqi people that.

Frederick Douglass and freedom

As I reflect, today, on the challenges to freedom, the waste laid by the stubborn unwillingness of those desperately rationalizing power, and the burdens that has created for my own life, as a teacher, I thought about the American slave turned civil rights leader, Frederick Douglass.

I thought about Douglass because he was a man who also passionately sought his own freedom and failed escape from slavery twice for seeking it (once from a brutal slavemaster, Edward Covey, whom Douglas was rented to for a year to break his spirit as a young teenager and undoubtedly offered up brutal abuse when Douglass was returned to him).

Douglass had this to say about the question of what whites in America should do with African Americans, that I think applies just as well to what any person should treat any other person:

"Everybody has asked the question. . .'What shall we do with the Negro?' I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!"

There are exceptions to that principle, obviously. We can and should protect one another when we are facing imminent violence and look after one another when we face harm. There is much common sense on such questions.

But controlling one another is hardly noble. And doing so and claiming to celebrate freedom is a lie. And it is not a noble lie. It is the oldest and most pernicious ignoble lie, in fact.

And Frederick Douglass knew the fact of that lie in his life better than most of us alive today.

Big fuckin' joke

That pretty much sums up the stupidity of the political class, right now.

This process is a big fuckin' joke. And at least John Stewart is funny.

Getting honest

Andrew Sullivan points me in the direction of an excellent discussion of media and politics by James Fallows, of the Atlantic Monthly, from 1996.

Why Americans Hate the Media.

So many good highlights from this article:

"The discussion shows that are supposed to enhance public understanding may actually reduce it, by hammering home the message that issues don't matter except as items for politicians to fight over. Some politicians in Washington may indeed view all issues as mere tools to use against their opponents. But far from offsetting this view of public life, the national press often encourages it. As Washington-based talk shows have become more popular in the past decade, they have had a trickle-down effect in cities across the country. In Seattle, in Los Angeles, in Boston, in Atlanta, journalists gain notice and influence by appearing regularly on talk shows--and during those appearances they mainly talk about the game of politics.

...When ordinary citizens have a chance to pose questions to political leaders, they rarely ask about the game of politics. They want to know how the reality of politics will affect them--through taxes, programs, scholarship funds, wars. Journalists justify their intrusiveness and excesses by claiming that they are the public's representatives, asking the questions their fellow citizens would ask if they had the privilege of meeting with Presidents and senators. In fact they ask questions that only their fellow political professionals care about. And they often do so--as at the typical White House news conference--with a discourtesy and rancor that represent the public's views much less than they reflect the modern journalist's belief that being independent boils down to acting hostile.

The limited curiosity that elite reporters display in their questions is also evident in the stories they write once they have received answers. They are interested mainly in pure politics and can be coerced into examining the substance of an issue only as a last resort. The subtle but sure result is a stream of daily messages that the real meaning of public life is the struggle of Bob Dole against Newt Gingrich against Bill Clinton, rather than our collective efforts to solve collective problems.

The natural instinct of newspapers and TV is to present every public issue as if its 'real' meaning were political in the meanest and narrowest sense of that term--the attempt by parties and candidates to gain an advantage over their rivals. Reporters do, of course, write stories about political life in the broader sense and about the substance of issues--the pluses and minuses of diplomatic recognition for Vietnam, the difficulties of holding down the Medicare budget, whether immigrants help or hurt the nation's economic base. But when there is a chance to use these issues as props or raw material for a story about political tactics, most reporters leap at it. It is more fun--and easier--to write about Bill Clinton's 'positioning' on the Vietnam issue, or how Newt Gingrich is 'handling' the need to cut Medicare, than it is to look into the issues themselves."

Fallows' takes reporters to task for their pettiness and their focus on power at the expense of resolving critical public problems, which they deserve in a serious way, if that ABC News Democratic Debate illustrates anything at all.

But the truth is that Fallows lets citizens off the hook. The truth is that citizens not only consume politics like it is entertainment, they encourage this kind of behavior among journalist and among politicians, because it is easier for everyone, not just journalists, to play politics like a game than it is to engage the serious questions of what directions on serious issues will actually get us somewhere other than on-going power battles that go nowhere.

The same could be said of teachers. And students. And parents. Almost all of the citizens I have contact with, at some level. People are constantly trying to avoid the substance of life in favor of its cheaper alternatives. Schools have a million different ways that they undermine the substance of education. Terry Moe and John Chubb fault, rightly, I think, district bureaucracies for this tendency. But the truth is that it isn't just the district bureaucracy. It's everyone. Teachers and students, both, often avoid sustantive learning in favor of less substantive alternatives, at the university level as much as at the K-12 level. It's the single biggest fact of school life and political life that drives me up a fuckin' wall. And exactly why I'm seriously considering doing something else for a living.

Obviously we can do better than all of this.

What has really floored me and what I was not, in the least, prepared for before I left grad school, was how little people are willing or interested in engaging serious discussions about issues, engagement that takes differences seriously and considers them honestly as well as their alternatives, and thoughtfully reflecting on pathes that transcend our endless political and culture wars.

Most people are not terribly interested in such discussions, I am concerned and in my experience, often, because the discussions seem too difficult, the honesty is too much for them to handle, the thought too complex, and the obsession with power is too tempting an alternative to such engagement, no matter how much and how long throughout humanity's history it has always failed to resolve much of anything at all.

Humanity obviously has it in us. The truth is that most people don't really want to be better and engage more honestly much of the time, sadly, because they feel like its too hard, it's too much for them to handle, it's just not the expectation they want to have for themselves or for one another.

It could be. It needs to be. Because the alternatives are so fuckin' shitty and clearly counterproductive, if we'd just get honest about that fact.

But getting honest is what everyone is avoiding.

And yet that is the only way that any genuine progress lies.

We can do it. The question is will we do it, not can we do it.

And the verdict on that question is still out.

I sure as hell hope we make the right choice.

I think I see the problem

I'd like to see a world where we don't treat each other like such shit.

That's what Maslow and most psychologists mean when they talk about reducing aggression, dealing with control issues, stronger communication, deeper connection, etc.

The goal, obviously, everywhere, should be that we're treating each other better. And talking more honestly. And being more decent to one another.

Most people want the ability to treat others however the fuck they want to. Especially people they don't like or don't identify with or have demonized. And most people are always bottoming out their expectations for their lives, for how they get treated, and for how they treat others.

And every time I want to raise those expectations, I've got to deal with someone, somewhere, trying to find the problem with me having too high of expectations rather than being honest about those low expectations of themselves and of others.

And I have no interest in making people or trying to manipulate people into expecting more for themselves and from others. If we don't want to do that, if we want to settle for the shitty ways that we treat one another, today, and how we get treated, today, I say so be it. Leave me out of it. But so be it. You go on being treated like shit and treating others like shit, as long as you don't fuck with me.

I want better than that. My vision is of a world where people don't treat each other like such shit. And where they honestly clean it up when they do.

But I'm just not convinced, anymore, that that is the life that people want.

And so maybe I need to move on to a life where I just look out for myself, more, and stop concerning myself so much with other people and their needs. I'm a good guy, so it's not like I'm going to start treating people like shit. It's just that I can take all these good guy qualities and translate them into some effort that makes me more money or gets me more things that I want and not have to spend my entire fucking life trying to convince other people that they have more in them than they want to believe that they do or that we can expect more of ourselves and of one another than most people seem interested in or willing to do.

If people want to have a world where most people are kind of dumb, where they treat each other like shit and pretend like that is the best we can do, and where we keep pretending that none of this matters anyway, then there's not much I can do about that unless people want to change that. If people want to settle for being treated like shit - like so many of the teachers at my school seem willing to settle for - then far be it from me to convince them different, I suppose. It's a pain in my fuckin' ass, is what it is. And it certainly doesn't pay the way many more lucrative fields might pay.

And I'm fuckin' tired, is the truth, of trying to convince people, all the time, that they can and that it's worth their time being thoughtful, being more decent, being more honest, being better than they are today.

If people don't want to be those things, which they generally don't really seem to want to be, then so fuckin' be it, I say. We could develop more constructive, more rational, more decent, and more intelligent policies for how to handle such situations. But why the fuck would I waste my life trying to convince people of such things if the truth is they really just don't want to be better people? I have no clue.

So I'm thinking, I teach out my scholarship, I write my book, I put it all out there, and then I go do something, like Warren Buffet, where I just be the example of how virtue pays and if you don't want a piece of that action, then so fuckin' be it.

I'm tired of being the world's bitch. I wanted to contribute. I made my effort. My efforts in that domain, I am completely convinced, will never be good enough. Because the truth is that everyone is just rationalizing why they don't want to be better. That's why you had all those discussions about Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Everyone knows that King was the better man. People just didn't want to be held to that standard. Malcolm looked like lower hanging fruit. He was easier for people to identify with because he was about as shitty as they were. His tactics were shitty, and counterproductive. He was always in King's fuckin' way. So many radicals long after King's death still trying to take credit for King's work and use Malcolm as a foil in that effort.

All because they just don't have the courage to admit to themselves that King was the better man. He wasn't perfect. He was wrong about a lot. Everyone is. But he was the better man. Better than all of them. And he did the really heavy lifting on that movement. And Malcolm X was an angry black man who figured out late in life that maybe King was right.

Why do I still engage in these debates? I don't know why.

I need to do something in my life that is not dependent on the validation of others. Something that rewards me because I do the right things and not because someone else says so.

I'm tired of people being so stupid and shitty. But just about as tired of trying to persuade people to stop being both, as well.

I need a shower. I got a lot of work to do. And thinking to do about my life.

Zimbabwe and political and economic freedom

If this case does not convince you of the evils of repressive political, economic, and other policies, I have no clue what will.

Mugabe blames Zimbabwe's troubles on Britain, whites, foes

"HARARE, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe devoted his first major speech since the unresolved election three weeks ago to denouncing whites and former colonial ruler Britain, an attempt to convince Zimbabweans their political and economic troubles stem from abroad.

The scene at the official 28th Independence Day celebration Friday had all the pomp of old, with air force jets sweeping overhead and Mugabe, bedecked in sash and medals, striding past soldiers at attention.

But any private observances by ordinary Zimbabweans were likely muted — prices for food, gasoline and drinks have more than doubled just in the past week amid an economic meltdown that has emptied store shelves and idled four of every five workers.

"There are black people who are putting prices up, but they are being used by the whites," Mugabe said, promising to tighten laws that set prices and to crack down on — and possibly take over — businesses that break the rules."

This is not only a country with serious and deadly shortages of food and other basic needs, it is a country that, as of yesterday, had an inflation rate of 165,000%, the highest recorded rate since Weimar Germany, by many credible estimates I have seen.

Zimbabwe's unemployment rate is at 85%. And food and basic need shortages are at intolerable levels.

There is a reason why the most recognized poverty and famine economist in the world, Amartya Sen, favors free trade and free economies.

And this situation in Zimbabwe reflects that reason better than any other case in the world, perhaps, right now.

May we find the wisdom and the courage to listen to reason.

Quality people

I have to say that the best part of this job - for all of its frustrations - is the people I work with.

It is kind of a lesson in cream rising to the top, within any particular situation. Because my administration, I think, are really some of the most quality people in the building and some of the most quality people I've met in my life.

This work is really hard. And anyone who sticks with it for that long has a lot of respect from me.

But it really nice to have people in positions of authority and even colleagues who I can talk with, openly, who listen and have constructive advice to offer, generally, and who are not so stuck on themselves and self-preservation that they become more of a burden than they do a help, as my administration, and too many teachers were, last year, for me. I've made my own mistakes as a teacher to be responsible for. But working with people who are always dragging you down and making life hell is really the worst thing for a person to experience on a job.

And the strongest quality about this school is the quality of the people I work with. It's one if not the least threatening environment I've ever work in, so I can talk with colleagues and administrators and they are generally people who care more about kids and the work than most teachers and administrators I've work with, up to this point.

I'm frustrated. Because I feel like I'm offering help to kids that don't want the help much of the time. They need it. But they don't want it, often. And it gets tiring dealing with the defenses of teachers as well as kids for why kids are behaving so poorly rather than just saying, "Who knows all the reasons these kids act so badly. We care about them. And we are sticking by them despite all of that because we care. And someone has to teach them to behave better, or else there really is very little hope for these kids. And if they were my kid, I would want them to have teachers who cared that much, no matter what explanation we could come up with for their behavior."

But there is a part of me who also misses, badly, the experience of succeeding and achieving on my own merits and not having it dependent on the efforts of those who are least prepared to achieve, who have contempt for that kind of achievement, often, as much as resisting it, who often have few intentions of really turning that around because life doesn't seem so bad as a badass or because school or growing up just isn't that important to them, and whom everyone around them seems more committed to defending their behavior than correcting it or working to improve their behavior.

There is a part of me who misses working for excellence and having it recognized. Where caring is seen as a strength (although, the truth is that caring seems to always be taken as weakness, no matter where you are, when everyone is rationalizing what shitheads they are). I miss achieving excellence on my own merits, or even failing on my own merits, but having any recognition, awards, or other reinforcements being based on my own abilities and not on the vagaries of the behavior of others that I have very little if any control over.

Special education feels, often, like one long catch-22, where everything I do, because it never gets us to a goal that is always elusive is never, ever good enough. And that wears on my heart, after awhile. If I didn't care about the kids so much, I wouldn't put up with any of it, is the truth. The behavior from the kids, the behavior of parents, the half-ass reasoning and commitment of too many teachers, the abuse from administrators that I dealt with last year, and all of the bullshit I have experienced in this career.

That's why I'm always thinking about other options.

I want to love this job like my last relationship where I never thought about anything else because I loved that relationship that much. I want to either love my job, that much, to be rewarded, in lieu of loving a job that much, or know that I am doing something that really matters that much.

Right now, I'm not getting enough indication that this work really matters that much to anyone, really. Certainly not to the kids, most of whom would love to see me quit, at this point, I'm sure, since I guess I have something of a reputation as the tough teacher in the cluster. And many of the teachers would write me off as yet one more reason that there isn't much hope with these kids anyway. I know that all of the teachers and administrators at this job care more than most teachers or administrators I've encountered, because they treat me and everyone more decent than any crew of teachers or administrators I have ever worked with.

But it is discouraging that so many of these same people seem to act like they really don't think this work matters.

Because, after awhile, when most people you are working with think that your work doesn't really matter, maybe it really doesn't. If it doesn't matter to the people who are doing the work - either kids or adults - maybe it really doesn't. Maybe I need to let people live their lives day-to-day and stop getting in the way of that and go live a life that has integrity but which is less frustrating, with more rewards, and less dependent on the vagaries of the behavior of others.

Investment has a calling for me, for that reason. Once you get your head around it, Warren Buffet's $62 billion is not too much of a mystery. It's just investing with intelligence and integrity. That's why Benjamin Graham called his book the Intelligent Investor. And Buffet can live his life working with one partner, his best friend, who he trusts, make a shitload of money, and be dependent on only those businesses and partners he trusts. He can give his money to good causes. But he is not dependent on his charity work to achieve important things in the world.

And if this work really doesn't matter that much, maybe that would be a better route for me.

That and some writing.

I don't know. I'll keep chewing on it.