Keeping us honest

Charles Krauthammer has some valid criticisms of Obama's association with Jeremiah Wright's church, today, that I think deserve a read, even if I think they do not fairly reflect the complexity of the situation.

A Brilliant Fraud

"This contextual analysis of Wright's venom, this extenuation of black hate speech as a product of white racism, is not new. It's the Jesse Jackson politics of racial grievance, expressed in Ivy League diction and Harvard Law nuance. That's why the speech made so many liberal commentators swoon: It bathed them in racial guilt while flattering their intellectual pretensions. An unbeatable combination.

But Obama was supposed to be new. He flatters himself as a man of the future transcending the anger of the past as represented by his beloved pastor. Obama then waxes rhapsodic about the hope brought by the new consciousness of the young people in his campaign. Then answer this, Senator: If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright's rants, but young people as well. Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?"

It's a valid question. God knows I would be concerned about exposing my children to such hate on a regular basis, especially on a Sunday morning.

This is why my family never went to a church like this one, I suppose. The Unity Church I attended my entire childhood was a little liberal church explicitly committed to the central principles of Jesus' teachings - love, compassion, forgiveness. The ones that everyone spends so much time running away from because they're harder to practice than to read about. I'm a soft atheist today, meaning I don't believe in God or Jesus as the messiah, as a technical matter, but I still take the teachings of Jesus and the Bible very seriously from a skeptical, independent-minded, critical, secular point-of-view. Because there is just too much in those teachings that make sense.

And God knows, from my own church experience, I just don't think I could ever expose my children to that kind of message every Sunday. It is anathema to everything that a decent religious experience would entail for me.

That is where I have a hard time defending Obama on this one. It is a strange position to be defending.

Having said that, I also take the virtue of loyalty very seriously. And I would never abandon a friend (I have given friends a rest, at times, when I've been emotionally exhausted, but I would never abandon a friend) because I didn't like their attitudes or their outlooks or if I disagreed with them.

I guess it is in this respect that I am very rooted in a liberal tradition. I believe in people in their capacity for self-correction, as E.J. Dionne put in his column today. I don't like E.J. hinting at an equivocation between Jeremiah Wright and Martin Luther King who had two very distinctly different messages. I've never approved of the equivocation of MLK and Malcolm X, who were two very different leaders, and explicitly so, if anyone would only listen to the two honestly, and one of whom, Martin Luther King, who I am completely clear, has a better message than the other, Malcolm X, who reflected the very kind hate that MLK was challenging in America, black and white.

But I do understand conservative issues with Jeremiah Wright. Because I have never equivocated the hatefulness of radicalism with the decency of liberalism the way most liberals do, and, as these conservatives sense are want to call bullshit on, when liberals do so for political advantage, having a hateful heavy to their goody-goody nice guy front.

And they are right. If Barack Obama is playing this game, being a nice guy front for a radical agenda, he and liberals who engage in this bullshit need to be called out on it. It is a big fat lie, a manipulation of the democratic process, the fodder for a dishonest debate, and an enormous contribution to everything that is wrong with the democratic process today. And conservatives, frankly, have every reason to be concerned about this switcharoo, because it has been played on them and the American and liberal democratic publics probably for as long as liberalism and conservativism as rival ideologies have existed. It is the reason that conservatives and former radicals like David Horowitz or Ronald Radosh switched sides in this rivalry. And it is a poison in the democratic discussion, I completely agree.

And the huge gap in the way that conservatives and liberals look at the race issues raised by this episode demonstrate just how cleanly ineffective the radical bullying on racial issues has been, in the last 50 years or so, to genuinely resolving the serious racial gaps that we often live with in America. And conservatives are right that these are gaps that needs radicals and African Americans to bridge as much as for conservatives and white Americans to be aware of serious racial issues in America.

I think Barack Obama was trying to do that, in that speech. But I also understand why conservatives view Barack as a typical liberal politician, as well, because many of the liberal themes he sounded - raging at outsourcing and blaming economic deprivation as the reason for black rage and hopelessness rather than the other way around - are ones that strike me as counterproductive and foolish themes, too, and ones that threaten values like free trade and treating corporations and businesspeople more fairly, that I care about, too.

Having said that, I didn't find Barack's speech offensive. To the contrary, I found his frankness on this most difficult issue of the heart really refreshing, if imperfect. I guess I don't expect perfection from anyone, including politicians (hence my sympathy for Elliot Spitzer), which is much of the reason that I am so skeptical that they can make more decisions for my life than they are really capable of doing either competently or infallibly.

I think I'm watching both conservatives and liberals gear up for an election fight, right now, and decision-time about what we are going to do with Iraq.

There is no need for an honest debate or discussion, with these folks, because they have already figured things out, apparently (And so convincingly that they don't even need to talk with those who disagree with them because what would they know, anyway, if they don't already agree with them? Some people are so fuckin' weak and lame).

And that's what bothers me with all of the consistently partisan reactions to these kinds of things, especially from conservatives, on this speech.

It's so fuckin' mindless. And it reflects a lack of appreciation for people as both fallible and individuals and part of a larger web of friendships, relationships, and connections in our lives.

Andrew Sullivan posts an excellent discussion of the reaction by conservatives with two other critically-minded thinkers that I highly recommend.

The Right's Reaction

And do you know who has had some of the most understanding and compassionate remarks on this whole affair?

Mike Huckabee. Can you believe that?

Here's what he had to say:

"[Y]ou can't hold the candidate responsible for everything that people around him may say or do. It's interesting to me that there are some people on the left who are having to be very uncomfortable with what ... Wright said, when they all were all over a Jerry Falwell, or anyone on the right who said things that they found very awkward and uncomfortable, years ago. Many times those were statements lifted out of the context of a larger sermon. Sermons, after all, are rarely written word for word by pastors like Rev. Wright, who are delivering them extemporaneously, and caught up in the emotion of the moment. There are things that sometimes get said, that if you put them on paper and looked at them in print, you'd say 'Well, I didn't mean to say it quite like that...

As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say 'That's a terrible statement!' ... I grew up in a very segregated South. And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I'm gonna be probably the only conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you — we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names...

We've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names; being told you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie; you have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant; you can't sit out there with everyone else, there's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office; here's where you sit on the bus .. . And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder, and resentment, and you have to just say, "I probably would, too. I probably would, too. And in fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me."

This is why I like Christians who practice the love that Jesus preached. They're just more decent people to be around. And Mike is right in being consistent, here, and saying, to everyone who will jump all over any man, especially preachers, who I have agree are not the brightest lot, generally, and judge them only by their craziest statements and not by the totality of their lives and contributions, is not fair and doesn't reflect the totality of that human being and the good they have done along with the bad.

I am conflicted about this situation, because I have to agree that I would have a hard time taking my kids to the hateful sermons of either a Jeremiah Wright or a Jerry Falwell every Sunday.

Having said that, I think Obama's and Mike's instincts are right. We stick by people even when they think and say and do stupid things. Otherwise, what is the point? Of any of it, really. Why care about politics, at all, otherwise, except how it impacts your narrow, selfish interests?

I think they're right about that. And I appreciate them both opening up our democratic conversation to even some hateful motherfuckers, as much as I am tired of hatefulness dominating liberal democratic and American politics.

We open that more honest conversation with love, not with ostracism and hatefulness. That is more honest. And I appreciate people like Obama and Mike keeping us honest, even as I might disagree with their thinking or their politics.

Speak of the fuckin' devil

Bin Laden urges jihad for Palestinians

If you're a big fan of fear and hate, here is the hata' of all time.

Fear-monger and hate-monger numero uno.

And, boy, doesn't he have some suggestions about how to channel all that fear and hate.

You really think he does it for any other reason?

Do you really think that liberal fear-mongers and hate-mongers and conservative fear-mongers and hate-mongers are really so different?

Do you really think that rhetoric about "the rules" is really do different than Bin Laden's talk about an Islamic caliphate?

You might want to rethink that. Because his motivations are probably the same as yours. And the same motivation of every fear-monger and hatemonger who has ever rationalized force as a governing philosophy who has ever lived.

It's so sad to think that these assholes are motivated, at bottom, by fear isn't it? They act so macho.

When the truth is that they're scared little bitches.

That's really what all that hate is about anyway, isn't it?

How fuckin' sad for us, right now.

Fuckin' scared-i-cats is what we are. You'd think the free world could offer something better. But they're too busy pissing their little pants.

No wonder this coward thinks we're soft. Because we keep acting like such little bitches.

Israel and Palestine and what it says about what assholes we are

I've not been inspired by any story for this post. The situation between Israel and Palestine actually looks pretty bleak, right now, like every other fuckin' situation the world faces as long we rationalize what hateful pricks we are. The most recent poll I saw in the International Herald Tribune says that a plurality of Palestinians currently support violence over negotiations to resolve the situation between these two countries.

I do want Palestinians to know that though I think war is a futile way to resolve that conflict, that, if I really believed that it was the only viable way out of that situation and Palestinians would take no other route, I would not cry as Israelis fuckin' wiped out as many motherfuckers as they would need to to finally end that goddamn conflict. You make me choose, I choose Israel and you give me no other choice, I will choose your death over the death of innocent Israelis. I don't pretend like there is moral equivalency in that conflict. Israelis don't intentionally kill civilians. I just read a poll that says that Palestinians do support the assholes who intentionally target civilians. So, if that is is the only choice you leave me, sorry but you're going to fuckin' die.

Having said that, I don't think that is either a viable or a better way to resolve things. Nor do I want to see one Palestinian die, is the truth. Nor any Israelis. A peace process is the only way out to anyone rationale.

And there is only one thing that blocks up that process: all the fuckin' fear and hate between these people.

That is what has inspired this post.

You know what is responsible for the world going to fuckin' hell in a handbasket, lately? It's not the sin. It's not the greed. It's not even the power, necessarily. Power, like money, and like most things, can be used for good.

None of those are really the problem. The problem is all the fuckin' hate and fear. Power definitely accelerates all that bullshit. But it's the hate and the fear that is the root of most of our problems. Power is often both a function of that and the way that some people try to spread it, sadly, hoping to eliminate, futily, its source.

The reason why the Israelis and the Palestinians can't make a deal is because all of the bloodshed that they keep engaging in, a fresh round each day, it seems, means for an awful lot of hate and fear between these people. Palestinians aren't holding out for a better land deal because they really want more land. They're holding out because they don't trust this country that occupies them and they're not ready to stop killing Israelis in revenge for the death and hardship they've suffered. And Israelis who won't pony up to the peace table are not holding out for control over these little strips off their borders. They are holding out because they don't trust that Palestinians will stop killing innocent Israelis and because they want to kill as many Palestinians that they can in the name of that mistrust until the end of time.

That conflict and never has been about land. It's always been about the fear and hate.

And as I watch a political period where I have to listen to yet one more excuse for why people won't give up the fear and the hate and the ugliness that animates political life and their own lives, I am reminded of what has always bothered me about that conflict and why it has always symbolized for me the stupidity of humanity.

The truth is that if Palestinians and Israelis really wanted a peace deal, they could have one tomorrow, or be well on their way. They could sit down, commit themselves to the process, find a workable solution, find ways to negotiate all negotiable concerns, and go home with a peace deal.

They don't have one today for one reason, fundamentally, and one reason only.

Too many people among both peoples would rather hold onto and be bound up in their fear and hate than a solution. They would rather more innocents and not-so-innocents die than face themselves honestly and their responsibility in all of those deaths. They would rather hold on to and rationalize their fear and hate than find a way through that leads to less fear, hate, ugliness, and, most importantly, less killing and dying over this cause that killing and dying will not, or ever, resolve.

People all over the world feel this way. Liberals and conservatives. Sunnis and Shias. Black and white. Muslims and the West. All over the world people hate one another. And then they proceed to rationalize why it's the right thing to do. The moral thing to do. The smart thing to do. The decent thing to do. The good thing to do. The Christian thing to do. The Jewish thing to do. The Muslim thing to do. The liberal thing to do. The conservative thing to do. The whatever-the-fuck-you-want-to-insert-here-to-rationalize-your-hatefulness-and-shittiness thing to do.

It actually always has been that way. It's the human thing to do, is the truth. It's been responsible for such monuments to humanity as the Holocaust, Communism, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the crucifixion of Jesus, much of Imperialism and various hegemonies in the world, and just about every major tragedy that has ever befallen humanity that occurred at the hands of people.

And, right now, at this very moment, we all get to watch as the entire fucking world rationalizes the very impulses that animate that godforsaken bloodbath between Israel and Palestine and every ugly impulse that has befallen the world.

All in the name of fear and hate.

Don't you love it? It makes you want to spring out of bed, in the morning.

And, fundamentally, this period is not at all about choosing between conservative or liberal, Israel or Palestine, or between any groups that have sworn vengeance on one another.

Fundamentally, this period is about choosing between courage or fear. Love or hate.

Same as it ever was.

I've watched people rationalize the hate and fear side of this argument (as if there really is a legitimate argument between these two). I've watched us rationalize our ugliness. I've watched people make every excuse in the book for why their fear and hate was more important than what was good for everyone.

I've watched them do it. Our politics has taken a tailspin with it. Even Obama sounds off for American workers hateful about some Indian getting their jobs, these days, while he talks about the new politics.

And the truth is that all of this bullshit is about getting something for me because I could give two shits about anyone else and the truth is that I fear and hate a lot of those other motherfuckers, even if that attitude is stupid and self-destructive and means that everyone gets fucked in the process.

The truth is they don't care. Because it involves more courage than they have offer to look inside their hearts and say, "Maybe all of this bullshit in the world is because of me. Maybe it's not all the people I hate. Maybe it's me. Maybe I have responsibility in this mess we've created in the world. And maybe all of my excuses for why I do it to make the world better has not actually resulted in making the world better because I'm too much of an asshole to really care if its doing any goddamn good for anyone, including myself, or not. Because if you make me choose between having that kind of courage and holding onto my fear and hate and bile and ugliness, I'd rather have the fear and hate and bile and ugliness. Because it's easier. And I'm too much of a puss and a coward to choose different."

This political period is not about the good versus the bad people. This political period is about all of us fucking ourselves with all this hateful bullshit swilling around like it doesn't matter.

This is why the Nazis and the Communists were able to do what they did. Because they calculated, correctly, that people would often rather do that, short term, than have the courage to choose a more honest route.

And they were right. Short term. Tragically.

Because the truth is that we are a cowardly and hateful lot, often. And if people have to die so that we can hold onto our fear and hate, then so be it, we reason. It's just too goddamn hard to imagine different.

And so it goes. On and on and on and on and on.

The trick is, and our only fuckin' saving grace, is that there is no gold at the end of that rainbow. It doesn't exist. There is no end to it. There is no progress, that's for goddamn sure. There's nothing. Just a lot more fear and hate and lot more tragedy, and nobody better for it. Nobody.

Apparently, we are all OK with that. That's why we all just keep nodding along with the chorus, on this one.

Sometimes I can hardly imagine what a ugly bunch of sheep I have to inhabit this world with. They force me to, you might say. I certainly can't go anywhere else.

But for some inconceivable reason, I don't hate them. OK, sometimes. But, generally, I love this stupid, hateful lot. Why? Because what the fuck good would it be for me to add my fear and hate and stupidity and ugliness to that mix? What, so more people can die in its name? So more people can hurt their neighbors in the name of their ugly bullshit? So I can suffer with that shit in my heart like all of the assholes who make all of that available for you and me?

No thank you. I can't imagine a bigger waste of my time and my life than all of that nonsense.

And so it goes.

Palestinians kill Israelis. Israelis kill Palestinians. A fresh round. Then a fresh round. Then a fresh round. And then another fresh round.

And it never fuckin' ends until enough people say, "Enough of the goddamn fear and hate. Enough."

A little over 2000 years ago, this really decent guy, who perhaps thought too well of himself, who said the exact same thing to the people of his time. The authorities, the rule-makers who he had been criticizing that whole time, they killed him in terribly gruesome way. It took a hundred years for the Romans who had killed him to figure out that he was largely right.

And that was the essence of his message.

Love they neighbor as thyself.

Pluck the beam from your own eye before you pluck the splinter from your neighbor's eye.

Give relief to those who need it, especially those who are easily neglected or excluded.

And forgive.

And over 2000 years later, we still kill one another, imprison one another, fear one another, hate one another, and hurt one another all in the name of not having to face up to this fundamental truth of life which leaves us facing too much pain and bitterness and a more honest self-assessment to practice that kind of courage and decency in our lives.

Until enough people are killed and hurt, that is. And then we always begin to figure out that maybe all of that ugliness was not what it was cracked up to be. Maybe it doesn't do any good for us, after all.

Which it doesn't, of course. We're all just too goddamned stubborn and stupid to face up on this one.

Until things get so bad, that - though we always have a choice; just ask Hitler - most people stop being foolish shitheads and choose better.

Fundamentally, that is the choice we face today. And everything else is more bullshit. And bullshit can only take us so far.

And dat's all she wrote, folks.

Here's to less bullshit and more honesty and decency. Because the bullshit is getting really fucking deep, these days. And I don't think I have money in the budget for new shoes.

What the fuck is wrong with us?

Who will blink first in Obama-Clinton war of nerves?

This is the same goddamned party that went into a hissy fit, rightly, about their candidate winning the popular vote, but losing the electoral vote?

These two are ridiculous. They act like what really matters, here, is what happens to either of them and that whether Florida and Michigan voters get a say in this election counts for shit.

If Floridians don't want to take part, so be it. If Michigan doesn't think it can do it in time and isn't interested in trying, so be it.

But Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton acting like what really matters is what happens to them and not what happens to the people they serve really is the most serious problem in politics.

I don't mean that in a populist, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore," "Who will take care of the people?", what's wrong with politics is that they don't listen to the will of the people kind of way. That critique is amorphous and bullshit.

I just mean, each citizen deserves a vote. If they don't want to exercise that freedom, so be it. But it's not up to Obama and Clinton to decide if and when these voters get enfranchised. It should be up to them.

This is the same party that went into hysterics when George Bush won the 2000 election without the popular vote.

Goes to show. Any rationalization for power will do. I can't trust any of this lot, goddamnit. At least not as long as they think that politics as usual - meaning power at all costs - is a winning formula.

Surely there is more to democracy than all of this.

If not, who really gives a shit?

This is going to be a long election

Obama Ties Economic Woes to Iraq War

Is this really what Barack Obama learned at Harvard?

I have a feeling he may have paid too much for his education.

What Reverend Wright says about us

Surprisingly, Ann Coulter actually has a decent criticism of the Obama speech that gives me insight into why conservatives are so pissed off.

Throw Grandma Under the Train

From that column:

"As an authentic post-racial American, I will not patronize blacks by pretending Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is anything other than a raving racist loon. If a white pastor had said what Rev. Wright said -- not about black people, but literally, the exact same things -- I think we'd notice that he's crazier than Ward Churchill and David Duke's love child. (Indeed, both Churchill and the Rev. Wright referred to the attacks of 9/11 as the chickens coming 'home to roost.')

Imagine a white pastor saying: 'Racism is the American way. Racism is how this country was founded, and how this country is still run. ... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God.'

Imagine a white pastor calling Condoleezza Rice, 'Condoskeezza Rice.'

Imagine a white pastor saying: 'No, no, no, God damn America -- that's in the Bible for killing innocent people! God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human! God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme!'

We treat blacks like children, constantly talking about their temper tantrums right in front of them with airy phrases about black anger. I will not pat blacks on the head and say, 'Isn't that cute?' As a post-racial American, I do not believe 'the legacy of slavery' gives black people the right to be permanently ill-mannered.

Obama tried to justify Wright's deranged rants by explaining that 'legalized discrimination' is the 'reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up.' He said that a 'lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families.'

That may accurately describe the libretto of 'Porgy and Bess,' but it has no connection to reality. By Rev. Wright's own account, he was 12 years old and was attending an integrated school in Philadelphia when Brown v. Board of Education was announced, ending 'separate but equal' schooling.

Meanwhile, at least since the Supreme Court's decision in University of California v. Bakke in 1978 -- and obviously long before that, or there wouldn't have been a case or controversy for the court to consider -- it has been legal for the government to discriminate against whites on the basis of their race.

Consequently, any white person 30 years old or younger has lived, since the day he was born, in an America where it is legal to discriminate against white people. In many cases it's not just legal, but mandatory, for example, in education, in hiring and in Academy Award nominations.

So for half of Rev. Wright's 66 years, discrimination against blacks was legal -- though he never experienced it personally because it existed in a part of the country where he did not live. For the second half of Wright's life, discrimination against whites was legal throughout the land.

Discrimination has become so openly accepted that -- in a speech meant to tamp down his association with a black racist -- Obama felt perfectly comfortable throwing his white grandmother under the bus. He used her as the white racist counterpart to his black racist 'old uncle,' Rev. Wright.

First of all, Wright is not Obama's uncle. The only reason we indulge crazy uncles is that everyone understands that people don't choose their relatives the way they choose, for example, their pastors and mentors. No one quarrels with idea that you can't be expected to publicly denounce your blood relatives.

But Wright is not a relative of Obama's at all. Yet Obama cravenly compared Wright's racist invective to his actual grandmother, who 'once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.'

Rev. Wright accuses white people of inventing AIDS to kill black men, but Obama's grandmother -- who raised him, cooked his food, tucked him in at night, and paid for his clothes and books and private school -- has expressed the same feelings about passing black men on the street that Jesse Jackson has.

Unlike his 'old uncle' -- who is not his uncle -- Obama had no excuses for his grandmother. Obama's grandmother never felt the lash of discrimination! Crazy grandma doesn't get the same pass as the crazy uncle; she's white. Denounce the racist!

Fine. Can we move on now?

No, of course, not. It never ends. To be fair, Obama hinted that we might have one way out: If we elect him president, then maybe, just maybe, we can stop talking about race."

The irony, of course, is that Ann Coulter has been written off many times by the left as a raving loon. And the truth is that Ann Coulter's anger and Jeremiah Wright's anger and all of the anger that has boiled over during this speech has derived from the same source: a lot of angry, hateful people trying to rationalize why they are all so angry and hateful. It has been the calling card of the last 8 years of politics and too much of daily life. How do I know this? Because I'm a nice guy whose not all angry and hateful, most of the time. And I've had to put up with the same shit that Obama is having to put up with now as all these shitheads try to rationalize why they are all such angry, hateful assholes.

The bottom line is that there is no excuse for why people are such angry, hateful assholes. They just are.

Everyone has pain in their lives. Everyone has a million reasons to hate and be angry at the world. Everyone. No goddamn exception on that.

People with more courage face up to that, let it go, and move on with their lives. Everyone else dwells in it, marinates in it, and looks for a million fuckin' excuses for why they have every right to be a shithead.

It's dysfunctional and foolish. We just keep doing it because it's easier than being honest with ourselves about our behavior.

And that rationalization has animated much of this political period.

I learned this lesson the hard way after my last major break-up. I was in a lot of pain. I was missing Brandi in a serious way. We had both been in a lot of pain, together, after a 4 1/2 year relationship where we fought like cats and dogs and passionately as we loved one another and brought the whole thing to a crashing halt one month before September 11th. I was in a lot of pain, I was hurting and angry, and on a trip to Disneyworld with my family, I took it out on my brothers and sisters and family, something I've regretted ever since. Truth be told, we were all shitheads to one another that weekend. My parents were trying to behave. But all of my brothers and sisters and me were fighting with one another, that weekend, like we did when we were kids. It was pathetic is what it was.

And I learned an important lesson, that weekend, about pain and anger. I went to 3 therapists after that trip. I studied Zen Buddhism (which is a really helpful practice for dealing with emotional pain, by the way, if you ever consider giving it a try). I read every psychology and relationship book I could get my hands on, because I was still trying to win Brandi back and trying to be the best person I could be to do that.

The point is that we all can take a turn for being a shithead. But some people refuse to face up to the anger and the fear and the bitterness that dwells inside of them. Because it is painful. And it takes courage to deal with it and face up to it.

That's my experience and consistent with my studies. Anger and hatred and all of our worst impulses that have all of the most serious damage in the world are all a function of pain that people just have a hard time facing, both because they don't understand it, and also because it is painful and our emotional defenses are a temporary measure to give us breathing room from dealing with that pain in a world where our evolved instincts are designed to give us protection but not make choices for our learning, growing, thriving experiences in the world.

That's the point of forgiveness, and love, and compassion. It gives us respite from all of that pain and helps us see more clearly a world that is full of pain and the aggression that often, though not always, engenders it. That was the point for people like Abraham Maslow. The goal of human psychological learning curve is to deal with this pain more effectively so that we are not constantly taking out the aggression found in those emotional defenses on our friends, family, colleagues, and everyone around us. The reason why we need the courage to deal with our pain is because our emotional defenses are constantly hurting others and undermining our capacity for genuine connection with others.

All of the aggression that we have dealt in during this political period accelerates that problem and brings up those defenses in fiercer, more aggressive ways. Which both makes learning the lessons more difficult and which accelerates the aggression. Which leads to resistance and reprisals. Which accelerates the aggression. Which leads to resistance and reprisals. And on and on and on.

It's been an ugly spectacle to watch.

And the sad part is that all of this tough pretense is all in the name of cowardice to face up to that pain, anger, and bitterness, rather than accelerate all of that aggression and the emotional defenses that come with it.

We are such a foolish, cowardly lot, sometimes. Humanity.

And our one saving grace is that all of our foolishness has consequence. And noone wants to keep dealing with the ugly consequences forever. That was why liberal values took hold during the Enlightenment. And it is why there is only one logical way forward during this period. And it is not the foolish and cowardly route of force that we have been taking. In fact, to anyone not engaged in emotional and otherwise defenses for that behavior, it is pretty obvious regress. And all of the consequences from that behavior are pretty obvious regress, too, for anyone not trying to defend this course.

It is undoubtedly clear to me how the Nazis did their damage, now, after much disbelief, as a kid growing up and studying that period, that an entire nation of people would follow such ugliness. But now I understand why. Fear, anger, hate, and bitterness animate much of many peoples' lives. Power is a seductive fantasy for resolving all of that ugliness for those who have lacked the courage to face up to it in their hearts.

And it would will out if it were not for the fact that it goes nowhere. But the fact that it leaves peoples' lives in shambles is why it cannot continue. Eventually, the pain becomes less scary than who we have become.

And what we have become is not progress, that's for sure. It's nothing to be proud of, really. It just is.

And, if we want to be better, we will have to give this up, at some point.

There is no "or else," really. We would continue to get worse, of course, if we didn't choose differently. But the truth is that most people want to be better, even as they slide in bad directions. And the truth is that, very much like today, the world does kind of go to shit when we don't.

And noone wants that.

Maybe courage isn't so tough, after all.

Sometimes the progress is a little stupefying

Scooter Libby loses law license

I just watched Age of Innocence, again, last night. There's so much in that movie, that I had to watch it again to get it all.

It's a story of high class aristocrats in New York at the beginning of the 20th century.

And that's what Washington looks like to me, these days.

People with too much power and too much money constantly obsessing about whose got more and who they are going to exclude from the club.

It's a club I'd never want to belong to and would never felt like I really belonged if I did.

And that's the kind of government that we've settled for.

The progress is a little stupefying, isn't it?

Why are we so obsessed with how tough we are when it accomplishes so little?

For the same reason that Mouhmad Ahmadinejad, Fidel Castro, Wen Jiabao, the Myanmar military junta, and the same reason that Saddam Hussein believed in the same.

Because we're scared. And our fear, as it always has, fucks with our vision and distorts our outlook on the world.

I guess one thing that I can be thankful for in this world is that I don't live afraid like that.

Ironic, huh? And completely predictable.

Progress hardly comes with power. Go ask Adolph Hitler.