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.

Famine, food shortages, and economic freedom

Hand to mouth

"THE rising cost of food is being felt around the world, by the poor especially and, in turn, by politicians. Greater demand from China and India as more people switch to rich diets is lifting prices, which had been low for some 30 years. Last week the prime minister of Haiti resigned in the face of a mob angry at the cost of food, while the Philippines made hoarding rice a crime punishable by life imprisonment. The price of wheat rose 77% in 2007. Since January the price of rice has jumped by 141%. But growing more food takes time, and as the land available for production has decreased, governments and farmers must look to improve crop yields."

That kind of fairly typical reaction is exactly why Amartya Sen argues, I think wisely, that though governments can be helpful in crises to provide emergency relief and in providing basic needs, freer markets, not less free, are the best way to address hunger and famine.

Governments can and probably should help in emergencies, when no other actor is helping or can provide enough help quickly enough.

But repression, limiting freedom, in the face of crises is the $64 million fuck-up of humanity throughout it's long history.

We've just somehow distorted that long established fact of history into some kind of rationalization for power and a solution that has never really been a solution.

Why? Because that is the fairly typical reaction for people to have when they get scared. To get aggressive. To use force. To strike out. At something. Someone. Somewhere. Someone has got to pay.

It's fruitless. And counterproductive. But we fuck it up over and over and over again and again and again. Each time we have a new name for it. Each time its the same old fuck up.

People and societies that take the principle of freedom seriously, even in the face of emergencies - which happen fairly frequently, you may notice, and will happen frequently enough for the length of humanity's stay here on earth - tend to be stronger, safer, more successful and deal with such crises less.

If the dire situation in places like Zimbabwe do not convince us of this fact, I do not know what will.

What I know is that free trade is not a slogan, an accident, or a conspiracy.

Political and economic freedom are the foundations of a strong, decent and prosperous society.

If we only have the courage to take them as seriously as they deserve.

Doing something with my life

Much of the problem with the world, I'm convinced, is that most people are so lost in their own bullshit - their rationalizations for why they want whatever they want whenever they want it, right now - that they have a really hard time understanding the consequences that follow. I've been guilty of that plenty in my life. But I also tend to take responsibility better than most people, is the truth. And I get tired of dealing with people who won't or don't, much of the time, because it's just too challenging for them to face up and face themselves.

I need a life where I deal with more people who take responsibility more often.

And for some strange reason, I chose two fields - education and politics - where taking responsibility is the exception much more than the rule.

And I think I'm insane if I do that for a lifetime when I have so many other choices that don't involve staying lost in the bullshit, so much. I'll still teach my two years of my scholarship. I'll still write my book, probably. But I'm preparing myself for something else, long term, I think.

Because I'm just not willing to live my life lost in someone else's bullshit into eternity because they are just too chickenshit to face themselves and the choices they make.

I am not willing to work, my entire life, in fields where victims are the rule and grown-ups are the exception.

But, for now, I can do some good, while I get started on something that at least does more good for me, if everyone else isn't really terribly interested in doing something better with their lives.

That used to be academia. But I have to say, that, for the first time in my life, I'm not so sold on the nobility of academia. Not because it's not noble. I think it is. But because it's completely clear to me that universities, like everywhere else in the world, are places where bullshit overwhelm honesty far too much. And if honesty is not something I can count on in academia - as much as I can count on it more, there, generally, than other places in the world - then there really is no fuckin' point to that route.

And so the door of life is completely wide open to whatever I think would make me happiest, for me, at this point.

Because I have done my part. I have done my duty to lift up humanity. I will write at least one book to add to that contribution.

But I need something for me, too, and not just a life trying to make everyone else feel good when everyone else are not necessarily committed to such a fate.

If people want to be unhappy, I say so be it. If people want to be bitter, cynical, self-righteous, or any of the rest, I say, so be it. If you want to be happy or achieve something with your life, go fuckin' do it and stop whining about it.

Me. I think I've done my bit for humanity. I think it's time for me to do something for myself and not just be thinking about everyone else, all the time. God knows a lot of people could give two shits about me, or anyone else besides themselves, for that matter.

I'm tired of thinking so much about everyone else when everyone else is not really thinking much about me, most of the time.

I'm tired of trying to help others find a route to happiness and success that they just don't really think they can bring themselves to get their minds or hearts around.

The one thing I have complete control over is me being happy and successful.

And that is something I plan on doing with my life, with or without anyone's help.

The courage of real progress

Here's the headline:

Analysis: Obama wants voters to remember Clinton's past

Here's what Obama said:

"'She has gone through this,' Obama said. 'I recall when, back in 1992, when she made a statement about how, what do you expect, should I be at home baking cookies? And people attacked her for being elitist and this and that. And I remember watching that on TV and saying, `Well, that's not who she is. That's not what she believes. That's not what she meant.'

'And I think Senator Clinton learned the wrong lesson from it because she's adopting the same tactics,' Obama said."

I guess it's always darkest before the dawn.

But it's fuckin' dark outside, right now. And I could use a little sunlight.

I don't know if I've ever seen so disappointed with my country as I am, right now. Everything about my country reeks of, "We do not deserve the power we seek," right now.

I guess I was naive, growing up, thinking that America was more worthy than this election is demonstrating. I think she's more worthy. I just think her ugliest instincts are overwhelming her most decent instincts, right now.

It doesn't have to be that way.

But it will take confidence in our strongest liberal democratic values to turn things around.

It's so strange watching a nation conceived in liberty angling so hard against its own founding values and the strongest values that America and the world has to offer, all so we don't have to face our cowardice to be better.

The kids and I have been studying the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence in U.S. History. It took so much courage for those Founding Fathers to take on the most powerful empire in the world, at the time, for liberty and independence.

You'd think we could dig deep and find some of that courage, right now.

I think we can.

Courage is not living without fear. Courage is doing the right thing in the face of fear.

I think we have that in us.

We ought to, given how America was conceived.

What this bitter discussion says about us

By winning back unhappy GOP voters, McCain makes it a race

Bitter GOP voters, you might say. As it turns out, there's quite a few of them. Including many rich Republicans who write for wealthy newspapers. And plenty of rich liberals in the same boat, for that matter. Plenty of bitter people in the world, rich and poor. How incredibly sad, I must say.

McCain and Clinton may both be calculating wins based on flattering the vanities of petty and bitter citizens that want to find some protection from a world that they always feel is victimizing them. It's so sad, isn't it. It's always the decent, thoughtful, and compassionate who are always victimizing all of the nasty, petty, and bitter. It is always the narrow-minded and hard-hearted who are being victimized by their too soft brethren. If we could only find a way to protect the mean-spirited amongst us from the decent and compassionate, only then could we have a better world.

But, alas, the decent, compassionate, and thoughtful never seem to learn from the error of their ways. And it, thus, on the shoulders of the assholes to save all of us from ourselves.

It almost makes you want to cry, doesn't it?

And I guess it is the only gamble left for those banking on cynical power gambles to animate their political careers rather than thoughtful and inspirational leadership that tackles the nation's and world's problems more effectively.

Right now, I'm voting for McCain, until I hear Obama say he's not pulling out and he's not pressuring for a pullout which artificially distorts the discussion about what to do in Iraq with "How do we get the fuck out of there?" instead of "How do we clean up this mess with some integrity?"

Those who can't find the integrity to leave behind their bitterness, pettiness, and cowardice should never be taken as seriously as those with more integrity to our strongest values, obviously, really, to anyone not trying to rationalize what a shithead they are. And those who are more honest should be taken more seriously.

It is telling about the American political process that a candidate who gets more honest with the electorate about itself is one that so many people want to punish, isn't it? It doesn't just tell us something about power. It tells us something about how honest we are and our political process really is, with ourselves and one another.

And how sad that we might get so lost in our own bullshit that we might actually choose pettiness over more genuine courage and honesty.

But we can't choose it for long.

Because pettiness and cowardice don't lead anywhere.

There really is a reason that courage and integrity are our most cherished values.

And it's not because they go good with barbeque.

A victim of perception

Quick: What's the quickest way to create the perception that you are dishonest?

Need any more time? How about lying your ass off to everyone?



And the biggest lie would be to lie to everyone about how you are not lying to them.

This article on the subject is hilarious. And encouraging.

Poll Shows Erosion of Trust in Clinton

"Advisers argue that her positive ratings have dipped as she has been defined by her opponents -- a normal campaign occurrence -- and that her honesty problem reflects the pounding she took from Republicans in the 1990s. But the Bosnia incident and the way the campaign handled it have left advisers divided over what a candidate can do after such a steep drop in trust.

Some of her aides believe that after Clinton told the Bosnia story -- of having run from her military aircraft into a hangar to avoid sniper fire -- when television images of the event showed otherwise, the campaign had no choice but to say she "misspoke." Communications director Howard Wolfson first did so on a conference call with reporters, and Clinton repeated the explanation over the course of several days.

Other Clinton advisers thought that response did not come quickly enough -- and that when it did, without further explanation or talking points for surrogates to use, it only worsened the perception that she had lied. Making the situation more difficult was a split within the campaign over whether Clinton had exaggerated, or simply confused the landing with another trip. One Clinton insider announced in a strategy meeting it was ridiculous to have imagined the first lady ever having been in danger, or for Clinton to have thought she was -- a slap at the senator from New York that other advisers described as disrespectful.

At the same time, die-hard Clinton loyalists thought her communications operation did not defend her heartily enough, which press aides said they thought was impossible. "Continuing to say it did happen when it didn't happen is not a strategy," one adviser said.

The problem was exacerbated when Bill Clinton, in defending her confused memory of the Bosnia event, got key details of the incident wrong, before later saying his wife had told him to stay out of it.

Two staffers from the Clinton White House years, Lissa Muscatine and Melanne Verveer, wrote a New York Times op-ed article recalling the perils of the trip, trying to justify why Clinton had gotten the story wrong. "As has been reported, Mrs. Clinton's trip to Bosnia included a U.S.O. component with the comedian Sinbad and the singer Sheryl Crow. The helicopters that carried them to performances at American base camps zigzagged just above the trees to avoid potential ground fire, according to Carey Cavanaugh, who was then a State Department official traveling with Sinbad, and helicopters flew alongside to deal with the threat of anti-aircraft fire or snipers. These facts explain why many of us, including the first lady, believed that the conditions on the ground were precarious. We were worried about sniper fire and were prepared to rush off the tarmac when we landed," they wrote.

Senior Clinton advisers argued that the Bosnia story would not have developed the way it did if it were not for a story line about Clinton that goes back to the 1990s, when scandals involving the first lady, including the firings in the White House travel office and her financial dealings, resulted in widespread doubts about her trustworthiness. That framework, they argue, made it easier for Clinton to be perceived as dishonest, a problem that first arose in her presidential campaign in a debate last fall when she gave conflicting answers on whether she supports allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses."

I think the Clinton campaign has a problem with perception/reality correspondence.

Hillary Clinton does not have a problem with being perceived as being dishonest.

Hillary Clinton has a problem with being dishonest.

I suppose when people get lost in the perception/manufacturing reality business, for too long, they get a little lost in the bullshit.

Hillary Clinton is way lost in the bullshit.

That's not my perception.

That is cold, hard fact.

And, encouragingly, most Americans seem to be recognizing that fact too.

The arrogance of power and the Clinton campaign

Douglas Schoen writes this brazenly arrogant piece of political consultant tripe for the Washington Post, today, that gets to the heart of why Hillary Clinton should not have power.

New Strategy for Clinton

Money quote, as Andrew Sullivan would say:

"As the underdog, Clinton's positive message will not work unless she is able to undermine Obama's candidacy. The Illinois senator's success has been largely built upon his claims that he is a unifier who can work above partisan politics, that he will bring change to our government and that he will bring a new style of leadership to Washington. Without bringing a strong amount of skepticism to these claims, Clinton will not be able to make significant inroads in Obama's lead and cannot persuade the superdelegates to go against the will of the American people."

The layers of bullshit in this piece are quite breathtaking, I must say. But that last line really takes the cake.

In order for Hillary Clinton to win a democratic nomination, she must overturn the will of the American people.

I want to say that, again, slowly, to make sure you caught that.

In order for Hillary Clinton to win a democratic nomination, she must overturn the will of the American people.

For most of us, that would be illiberal and contrary to democracy. It would smack of the likes of Robert Mugabe or Fidel Castro, both likely role models for leadership for Mr. Schoen, undoubtedly.

For Douglas Schoen, this is what liberalism and democracy is all about. For Douglas Schoen, this is "progress."

Have you picked up on the theme, yet?

Progress for this Clinton campaign is Hillary Clinton getting power. And democracy be damned. You could dismiss such a strategy as the ravings of a mad and desperate political consultant likely to lose his number one client and most certainly to lose her access to the most powerful position in the world.

Except this is the Clinton strategy, at this point. And Mr. Schoen is right. She is likely making a turn for negative.

Which is all good with me, because it makes it clear as fuckin' day what this bunch is up to.

And, contrary to Mr. Schoen's concept of power, I have full confidence that the American people will see through it. And if Democrats were to somehow be weasled - which I see very little room for such a scenario to transpire; neither does Douglas Schoen, which is why he wrote this piece of kitty litter lining - the general electorate most assuredly would.

As will I. I'm already planning on voting for John McCain, at this point. Though I must that this most recent spate of bullshit from him and the Clinton campaign has me rethinking that.

Power doesn't just corrupt, as it turns out, as Lord Acton wisely observed. It makes one blind to the underlying reality.

If you doubt that, ask Robert Mugabe. Or better yet, ask Hillary Clinton.

A whiff of Waco

Does this situation seem a little concerning to anyone else?



There just seems to be a whiff of Waco to this whole thing.

Religious fundamentalists are easy to pick on, is the truth.

Four hundred simultaneous child abuse investigations? All of these kids are removed from their families until the investigations are over? All because of one abuse accusation?

Something doesn't seem right, here.

We're always just a little bit more careless with these things when it involves someone else's family, aren't we?

My family had a social worker visit us unannounced and uninvited when I was a kid. Nothing came of it. But it was scary as shit.

I can't imagine losing my child on the presumption that I had abused them because I happened to be one parent of 400 children in a compound where one accusation of abuse had been made.

It's all about the children isn't it?

Something has me doubting that more and more, these days.

Small Town

Having said all that, I have to say that John Cougar Mellencamp's (he'll always be Cougar to me) song always gets me up. Even when I might be feeling a little bitter.

In honor of John and small town life, and the big city record producers that restrict the ability to embed his video, enjoy.

One big small town

I have to say, watching not just this discussion about bitterness in small town America, but just watching the bitterness that animates much of the world, sadly, that I often feel, these days, like I live in one big giant small town.

I didn't grow up in a small town. I grew up in a mid-size city, Wichita, Kansas, but like many kids growing up everywhere, I wanted very desperately to grow up and get the hell out of dodge and get away from small-town attitudes.

I didn't do that. I actually went to college in my hometown. And had a fairly decent experience. In fact, one of my complaints about my university experience in a little university town like Lawrence, Kansas was that too many smart, liberal folks seemed to act like they knew more about the world than they did. Very similar to the complaint of Obama's critics, right now. I hated and still hate how intellectuals pretend like they have everything figured out, when there is no way on God's green earth that they or anyone could.

But what I definitely identified with, in my professors, was a desire to escape the narrowness and pettiness of not just small-town outlooks, but the outlooks of anyone and any community where fear of the big, bad world animated life more than understanding, thoughtfulness, and decency.

What most people, small-town or big-town, never seem to get figured out is that the big, bad world and all of its scary parts is a function not of the folks across the way, but of the fears and reactions of people just like you and me. Not small-town people. Not big-town people. Not religious people. Not areligious people. Not gun-owners. Not gun-control advocates. Not liberals. Not conservatives. Just people.

The "other" that everyone is so afraid of is their own goddamn shadow, much of the time. It's all of our own fears about ourselves and one another that suckers most of us, and it has only marginally to do with the stranger across the way.

And living in a world where everyone seems to be scared and pissed off and looking to fuck with one another, I sometimes get a little bitter having to put up with the irrational and stupid bullshit of everyone for whom fear and bitterness both shapes their outlook on the world and those who manipulate and exploit that fact for their own advantage and to validate their own fears and self-centered outlooks on the world.

And, like many kids growing up in small-town America and not-so-small-town America, I often dream of growing up and being able to leave this goddawful place for somewhere where the outlooks are a little broader, the people are a little friendlier, the conversation is a little more thoughtful, minds are a little more open, and things just work out a little bit better, as a consequence.

I live in Lawrence, Kansas, a little university town here in the Midwest and a little oasis of liberal-mindedness in this God-fearing state - I use that term broadly to mean people with more open minds more than people who vote Democratic, though this city is the one pretty reliable Democratic district in an otherwise red state; I am a life long liberal, now independent, who is leaning toward John McCain, at this point, but, as always, my mind is open on the matter - so you would think that I would have been happy having found this little liberal utopia of broad-minded fellowtravelers.

But a funny thing happened on the way to utopia. I figured out that the one thing that I had always wanted as a kid - to be surrounded by like-minded liberals and to remake the world in our own image - turned out not to be such a little utopia, at all.

Plenty of pettiness, suspicion, cynicism, bitterness, conspiracy theory, dreams dashed, dreams abandoned, and, yes, quite a bit of condescension, snottiness, intellectual snobbery, and otherwise boorish liberal-minded behavior in this otherwise open-minded, big-hearted town.

It is a bit much for me, often. Especially when I was in grad school. Some professors can be some of the most decent and thoughtful people you ever met. Some are just assholes who are too clever by half. I had enough of my fill of the latter and enough experience with a world where assholes came in all ideological flavors to know that liberal didn't mean to me, as an adult, what it had meant to me, as a kid.

As a kid, liberal meant people who were more compassionate, understanding, decent, thoughtful, openminded, loving people with outlooks that seemed to reassure me that the world was actually, generally, a pretty good place for all of its warts.

But as an adult, liberal often also meant scared, bullying, cynical, snotty, condescending, mean-spirited, at times, sadly - since compassion and understanding were always what had been the center of what it meant to be liberal, for me, when I was growing up - self-righteous, and, generally, too often just as shitty and sometimes shittier than the world that such folks spent so much time, often rightly, being critical of.

Not only that, but my experience in Lawrence and in Wichita, for that matter, and my experiences in Washington D.C., where I lived for a summer with a girlfriend while I was in grad school, and in Cancun, Mexico, where I taught English for a month in undergrad, and everywhere I've lived or travelled or read about, have all taught me that it really isn't some ideological or religious or otherwise homogeneity that makes life an interesting, thought-provoking, or decent place to live.

Progress doesn't come because all your neighbors are Democrats.

Progress is when we learn to appreciate the fact that we come at life from different experiences, with different outlooks, often, with different ideas, with a diversity of opinions and thinking, and when we learn to appreciate people as people, first, and not some collection of opinions that either we do or do not identify with. And progress is when people can genuinely learn to appreciate one another for those differences and not condescend them because we disagree or because we have the power or inclination to do so. Progress is not when we impose ourselves on our neighbors because we can, obviously, when we're not rationalizing different. Progress occurs as we learn to genuinely respect our neighbors and their differences and accept that all of us have choices to make with our lives and deserve respect for the choices that each of us have to make and the freedom to make them.

So, when people criticize Obama as being condescending to small-town America, it is strange for me. Obama looks small town, by my lights. The whole world looks small town, by my lights. That's not because I feel any contempt or condescension for the world. To the contrary, it's because I see a world that keeps running away from the very kind of understanding, thoughtfulness, compassion, decency, and other values that they all so desperately need if they are going to think bigger than their circumstances and solve, more decently and effectively, the problems they face.

Like a small town that feels left behind by big city change and big city attitudes, the whole world just seems stuck to me, most of the time. Stuck in their bitterness. Stuck in their fear. Stuck in their ignorance. Stuck in their hatefulness. Stuck in their self-pity. Stuck in their anger. Stuck in all kinds of feelings of helplessness and powerlessness that leaves them screaming out for more power, only to have it leaving them still feeling helpless and powerless no matter how aggressively rather than thoughtfully they deal with their problems.

That is and always has been the problems not just in small towns, but everywhere in the world. Big cities are sometimes a little quicker to change direction when they take a bad turn. Sometimes not.

But everyone seems a little slow, to me, to making the changes in the directions that are needed when their hearts are stuck in slow motion from all of the pain and disappointment that life perpetually has to offer to every generation and to all of us, no matter where we live.

I don't know why we get stuck like this, except that facing all that pain, which is the only way to let it go and start fresh, just seems too difficult a challenge for some people. The bitterness feels comfortable. So much so, that they begin to forget or try to ignore that it sits on their hearts.

And when some big Harvard Law School graduate comes along and tries to remind people of all of those sore feelings, it just makes everyone a little grouchy. And, for awhile, it leaves a lot of people wanting to hold onto all of that bitterness for fear that letting it go might be too painful for them to bear. Some pain is just meant to sit on your heart your whole life, they rationalize. Some disappointments or heartaches you just never forget, they tell themselves. Some bitter feelings you just have to avoid dealing with honestly. Some pain just never goes away, they reason, since it's probably too hard to try to make it go away anyway, they justify.

And so we stay stuck.

And I feel like just lighting out of town and trying to find some illusive big city or small university town where the minds are more open and the hearts are not full of so much pain and bitterness.

But, alas, we have only this world. Only this big small town.

And I'm left realizing that it is not the bitterness on the hearts of everyone else that is bothering me. It's the bitterness on my own heart that pains me. And it is that bitterness that is the one that needs my attention.

Some upstart young guy 2000 years ago talked with people about this very thing. How much easier it is to see the sin, the vulnerability, the weakness in others than it is to see the same in ourselves.

Sometimes this world seems like one long neverending loop of this principle in action. Better aphorism than approbation, I think. Better we learned the lesson than keep making the mistake, I keep thinking.

Maybe I should give some of this bitterness some of my attention.

Hillary Cinton is a shameless monster

This woman has no shame. She is the biggest fuckin' liar, the most intellectually and otherwise dishonest candidate for President, since, well, her husband, to run for President. They are pathologically dishonest, at this point. I have zero respect for this woman, at this point. And her husband, too. Fuck 'em both. I will never vote for a Clinton, again, for any office for the rest of my natural born life. I cannot even begin to fathom the intellectual dishonesty she is engaged in, right now.



Is someone who lies this baldly to your face the person you really want for President?

If you, so fuckin' deserve her, you fuckin' dipshit.

Anyone who votes for Hillary Clinton, at this point, is either too rationalizing of power to be trusted or too stupid to be taken seriously.

Either way, you vote for Hillary Clinton, at this point, you lose my respect, too.

This woman is a fuckin' train wreck. The only good that could be done for her and for the country, right now, is to have her sit the bench. That's if people even want her on the team, anymore.

She makes me ill.

I finally figured it out

I don't know how I thought of it. But it's not 2000 or 2001. I keep thinking, "Is it the 2000 election?" or "Is it 9/11?"

But it's neither.

It's 1999.

It's the pedophile crisis in the Catholic Church.

That's what started all this shit. And that's what has us locked in this seriously fucked up direction. We went crazy around 1999, when John Geoghan was first being discovered (later murdered that year, in prison) and the roof was coming off of the U.S. pedophile priest scandal.

And we've just been a little nuts since that time. So much so, that we can't just see what is right in front of our fuckin' faces.

Somehow people missed that the Catholic Church is one of the most rules-dominated, repressive, hierachical institutions in the world and we fell into this stupid belief that the problem was not enough rules. I know, I know. Mandatory reporting to police. But the underlying reality is still the same: either people follow their consciences or not. It has always been so and it will always be so. And all the repression just makes it more complicated and difficult, not less so. Because it shuts down the necessary conversations which help clarify consciences.

We're just too foolish to see it squarely. And we don't have enough courage to do both of the things that are needed, even in that situation: to face our failure on this one, honestly, and to forgive, ourselves and others, for our failures.

We're too scared. But that's what created all the repression that has fueled all this shit from the beginning of civilization, in the first place. We're just too scared and not honest enough, with ourselves and with each other, to face up on this one.

But the bottom line on this is, there really is only one direction forward. You can call any direction progress all you want, but if it doesn't take us forward - as this direction clearly has failed to do - then it's not progress, no matter how much we mouth the words. It's only progress if we make forward movement. And this tragically hubristic route of force as a means to progress in a liberal society - a complete and utter contradiction in terms, if we could only face ourselves squarely, on that one - is clearly not taking us forward.

We need to come clean on that. And face this honestly. Because the reality is that we make all of our problems, including this one, more pronounced, not less, generally, with greater repression.

And that can only happen with a more honest conversation.

That's what we have in front of us.