My too often nonsensical and forever unenlightened reflections on people and life and everything else I understand as well as I understand everything else. Not well at all, in other words. Love thy neighbor, is my motto. Unless something better comes along. Make sure to say so when you find it.
"Americans invariably do the right thing -- after exhausting all the alternatives."
As does every other homo sapien who has ever walked the earth.
When we give up the bullshit, that is.
Hence the resolute idiocy of trusting that someone else - government, especially - will keep us from doing the same. And the single most important reason to value our freedom.
Because noone is exempt. Especially those who covet power.
Perhaps we might finally learn that lesson. When all else fails, I suppose.
I hate politics, is the truth. And I hate it more the more time I spend with it, really. I'd give it up, altogether, if it didn't matter to have some more honest reflection on all of it.
I have this really strange, ambivalent relationship with politics.
I care a lot about keeping people alive. And safe. And unoppressed. Free. I care a lot about freedom. And liberal values. Liberal education. And the far better world it makes available. I care a lot about freedom and the better opportunities it offers. And I have always admired the courage of all the folks I read about and learned about in school who challenged us to make that realizable for me. And you. And all of us who take it for granted.
And following politics and governing affairs and such is just a logical extension of all that.
But the truth is that I would far rather be making something more beautiful, in this world.
Because the more I study the ugliness that humanity has to offer, including the foulness of almost all things political, the more I yearn for something more beautiful. More touching. More loving. More decent. Just for my own sake, I suppose.
Hence Jack Johnson. And Ingrid Michaelson. And all those folks who open hearts when the world would settle for something more heartsick.
I love people who make me laugh, too. The Stephen Colberts. The Matt Stones and Trey Parkers.
But I just really begin to yearn for something more beautiful in the world the more time I spend with the ugly. And every effort made to make it look respectable. Or honest. Or anything of the sort.
Especially when we blame the beauty for our ugliness. Our compassion for our mean-spiritedness. Our love for our indifference.
The more I hear jackasses blame decent folks for the mess they've made of the world, the more I yearn for such loving, decent, beautiful folks in my life.
I'm working on how to offer that up in more graceful trappings.
But I must say that it is the things that touch my heart that I live for the more I see the uglier side of human nature.
And the more I want some kind of contribution of my own to offer, in that vein.
To soothe the heart. I suppose. In a world consumed with jading it.
The embodiment of everything that is wrong with politics.
The notion that more aggression and dirty pool, on the part of the press, politicians, activists, and the like is progress and that honest discussion and more genuine concern for others is responsible for all our problems is the self-serving way for all these folks to say:
"We fuck everything up. Constantly. But we're not responsible for any of it. We just want the power to determine the choices of everyone else. Not because we've earned peoples' trust. But because we've put the fear of God into any more honest discussion that would have any more genuine concern for the people involved."
If you or anyone you know are wondering why people - including kids - have so little faith in governing and most major institutions, right now, this is the reason.
Power in lieu of all of our most honest values.
Because we said so.
The failed parenting, teaching, and governing philosophy of many a generation.
Progress being the movement away from all that. Perpetually. The powerful be damned.
My children deserve a better example. And to be well-loved. And an honest reflection on all this. That this is not honest. No matter how much hot sauce you put on that crap sandwich.
Back to work. On my example.
And the rest of what really matters when we're honest.
Ingrid makes me smile. And cry like a wee little girl.
Thank you Ms. Legg, Ms. Thomas, Marty Rothwell, Mr. Jestmore, Ms. Taggart, Ms. Bucci, Ms. Washington, Mr. Babich, Professor Ericson, Chris, Carson, and every teacher who ever believed in me like this.
Thank you for seeing me through the various and turbulent storms my heart saw. And making so many celebrations in my life possible, at all.
It also happens to be the most important question the President faces, right now. And a dead-on observation about the President's ambivalence, in the matter.
"What kind of commander in chief sends tens of thousands of troops to war while announcing in advance a fixed date for beginning their withdrawal? One who doesn’t have his heart in it. One who doesn’t really want to win but is making some kind of political gesture. One who thinks he has to be seen as trying but is preparing the ground — meaning, the political cover — for failure.
Until now, the above was just inference from the president’s public rhetoric. No longer. Now we have the private quotes. Bob Woodward’s book, Obama’s Wars, drawing on classified memos and interviews with scores of national-security officials, has Obama telling his advisers: 'I want an exit strategy.' He tells the country publicly that Afghanistan is a “vital national interest,” but he tells his generals that he will not do the kind of patient institution-building that is the very essence of the counterinsurgency strategy that Generals McChrystal and Petraeus crafted and that he himself adopted.
Moreover, he must find an exit because 'I can’t lose the whole Democratic party.' This admission is the most crushing of all.
First, isn’t this the party that in two consecutive presidential campaigns — John Kerry’s and then Obama’s — argued vociferously that Afghanistan was the good war, the right war, the war of necessity, the central front in the War on Terror? Now, after acceding to power and being given charge of that very war, Obama confides that he must retreat lest that very same party abandon him. What happened in the interim? Did it suddenly develop a faint heart? Or was the party disingenuous about the Afghan war all along, using it as a convenient club with which to attack George W. Bush over Iraq, while protecting Democrats from the charge of being reflexively antiwar?
Whatever the reason, is it not Obama’s job as president and party leader to bring the party with him? This is the man who made Berlin coo, America swoon, and the Nobel committee lose its mind. Yet he cannot get his own party to follow him on what he insists is a matter of vital national interest?
Did he even try? Obama spent endless hours cajoling and persuading individual members of Congress to garner every last vote for health-care reform. Has he done a fraction of that for Afghanistan — argued, pleaded, horse-traded, twisted even a single arm?...
...Senator Kerry, now chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, asked many years ago: 'How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?' Perhaps Kerry should ask that of Obama.
'He is out of Afghanistan psychologically,' says Woodward of Obama. Well, he may be out, but the soldiers he ordered to Afghanistan are in.
Some will not come home."
Perhaps a country trying its damndest to prove just how little it cares might consider the strong possibility that, the truth of the matter is, they, in fact, care too little. And a lot of soldiers' and civilians' lives are on the line in that quest.
The question remains.
Just how little do we care?
The decent folks stuck in the middle of this mess might just like to know.
Whether we have the courage to admit it or not, this is all about the macho attitude in both football and the culture at large and its inability to just face, honestly, that it just doesn't understand well enough the emotional undercurrents of the world that the tough posturing impacts. And many of those consequences are not good, often tragic, and squarely the responsibility of those doing the posturing and bullying and all of the ugly ways that people try to substitute aggression for understanding. And, in doing so, avoid responsibility for the same.
Even in football. And in baseball. And politics. And the economy. And everywhere, really.
It's time to face up. And to give up the bullshit.
After a discussion, yesterday, with a teacher, I'm pretty convinced that I have a relatively strong understanding of this dynamic. And that teachers and counselors and everyone involved are doing their darndest to work miracles to compensate for the failures of a culture, at large, on these issues.
Who's responsible for all of this?
Why don't we ask someone who knows.
Along with the thought process that tough guy posturing has nothing to do with any of this, a lot of folks suffer and die. All in the name of that pride.
Perhaps something more honest.
Translation:
Something that genuinely cares for everyone involved.
The question America needs to ask themselves, today, is are we going to trust guys like Bill who grow businesses for a living?
Or are we going to trust the plethora of politicians, economists, analysts, and the rest who talk a big game, but whose track record - as well as their words, if you have an idea of more sensible economic policies - demonstrate that they do not understand the day-to-day realities of growing a healthy economy?
Ironically, out of their envy and suspicion, many American politicians and plenty of average Americans perpetually kill this particular goose.
The smarter money bets on the goose. Not the hatchet.
Most people bet on the hatchet. And invest themselves in that decision.
Freedom causes poverty. And unemployment. And bad housing loans. And sin. And terrorism. And child rape. And every failure your life has ever known. Not to mention really bad cases of acne. And every other justification these fine gentlemen can glean from you to kill this man.
Thanks, folks.
For finally cleaning up the free market. And all the filth it inspires.
Stephen Colbert clowns Congress on their own home court. Is no home safe anymore? What will happen to the children?
John Conyers (D.-Michigan and world class dick) opens the show. By being himself.
Really? Is it possible for Democrats and their sad, red-state bedfellows to make themselves anymore thoroughly mockworthy? As it turns out. Si, si senor. Ariba, ariba.
But wait. Stephen calls Senator Steve King a pitiful cornhusking homo to his face. No I mean it.
Milwaukee's Best was wrong. It just got way better. With potential, one day, for substantially less shitty inebriants.
It takes courage to look at ourselves and the world honestly. It is courage that most folks, in politics, at least, but really, likely, in the larger world, as well, are avoiding, at this point.
But it is only this kind of courage that is going to get us through.
It takes no courage to see the splinters in our neighbors' eyes. Courage is looking at the beams in our own.
It is time for that kind of courage. For reals, homefries.
If the release of Bob Woodward's new tell-all book, Obama's Wars, confirms anything for me, it is that, perhaps my children should consider professions other than elected office, journalism or anything remotely political.
Jack clowns the rest of us and offers the best commentary on the music industry and what we've done to it I've ever heard.
This dude is literally incapable of making bad music.
You think you're having a good time. And then he gets you thinking. And maybe touches you. And makes you believe that perhaps, maybe music could do some good in the world. For something other than our pocketbooks.
As an active recycler in a town particularly friendly to recylcing, I must say that if environmentalists could choose one policy that would most undermine environmental commitments, mandatory recycling - like the programs Jeff describes in Brookline and Cleveland - is the one. For any recycler familiar with the recyling habits of most folks, to any thoughtful observer, this should be a non-starter right out of the gates. Unless you're angling for serious backlash, I suppose.
I also welcome the debate, Jeff is initiating, here. I recycle because I think it's the right thing to do. But, I have to say, that leftist activism in the last 10 years has made me far more skeptical of the left-wing causes I've supported in the past, not more. Ironic, but true. And the fact that they can't hear that makes me all the more skeptical and prone to give up their causes, is the truth.
But, the truth is, I'm more committed to doing the right thing than just telling leftists to fuck off. So I want to hear what Jeff has to say.
Like so many issues, this is a discussion that deserves a more honest debate and assessment rather than the mindless bullshit that has passes for politics, these days.
Perhaps it's about time we learned some of our lessons.
Truth is, we'll always have excuses for ourselves. For our animus and recrimination. For our fear and desire to overpower. For our greed and our selfishness. For our dishonesty and our cruelty.
One thing we really will always have plenty of is excuses.
And we can always act on those excuses. Or we can take some more honest responsibility in the world. Fundamentally, those are our two most important choices we have.
And the world will now and forever be a consequence of our taking responsibility for the choices we make with this one shot at life's adventures we have or our making excuses for why we cannot.
Me, especially. Says the now and future king of excuses.
That's what the world is, these days. And always. That's a fact.
Whether we want to take responsibility for that fact or not.
But what tomorrow is depends entirely us.
Whether our excuses have anything to say on the matter or not.
"'It is for these reasons that I have made the difficult decision to forfeit my title as Heisman winner of 2005,' the statement read. 'The persistent media speculation regarding allegations dating back to my years at USC has been both painful and distracting. In no way should the storm around these allegations reflect in any way on the dignity of this award, nor on any other institutions or individuals. Nor should it distract from outstanding performances and hard-earned achievements either in the past, present or future.
'For the rest of my days, I will continue to strive to demonstrate through my actions and words that I was deserving of the confidence placed in me by the Heisman Trophy Trust. I would like to begin in this effort by turning a negative situation into a positive one by working with the Trustees to establish an educational program which will assist student-athletes and their families avoid some of the mistakes that I made. I am determined to view this event as an opportunity to help others and to advance the values and mission of the Heisman Trophy Trust.'"
This is the serious gap between younger and older generations, I'm convinced, right now. A much greater appreciation that mistakes don't make the man. And a focus on moving forward over the ugly, foolish, nasty recrimination that has been so dominant in the media, as of late. And responsible for so much of what is wrong in world, at this point.
For all of their bluster about being grownups, it's a sign of their immaturity, ironically.
And Reggie Bush, here, outclasses them all. Past and all.
A lot of Bush's critics have much to learn from this talented young man, right now. I have serious doubts that they will learn their lessons. But they won't be around, forever, either. And a younger generation, as always, will bring a more forgiving attitude and more real life to this life we live.
And no matter what the news media has to say, Reggie. Fuck 'em. They have their jobs. You have yours. Just keep outclassing them. And let them get things figured out. Or not.
World needs more progress like this young man has to offer. Quite enough of the alternative. Source of the most of the world's fucking up, is the truth.
Nice to know that some people, at least, actually learn their lesson.
All Americans say things with which I disagree. Faisal Abdul Rauf is but one of many of them. Though, generally, I must say, I have much more to praise about this man than disapprove. And, in this matter, he is right. Is the bottom line. There is much for America to learn from this very decent imam.
This man is right that the central problem in contemporary politics is not of one group against another. It is not right versus left. Or Christian versus Muslim. Or the West versus the rest.
It is all of us finding the courage. To live our values. To be our best selves. And to stare down the radical impulses among us.
And he is right about the stakes.
Radicals of all stripes - terrorists just being one brutal variation - will only be effectively neutralized when moderates find the strength to tell them to fuck off. And that bullying will not be the way of liberal democratic politics. Which is appropriate since bullying is the opposite of liberal democratic politics. For those who actually care about liberty. Or democracy. Or any of those things we pretend to care about. When we're not pretending to be everything we pretend in our lives.
And for those who genuinely care about people. For real. Of which radicals do not count themselves. And neither should they be counted seriously. In matters of right and wrong, that is. Or anything serious, for that matter.
And all radicals - radicals of the right, and those waging this campaign to move this mosque, in particular and all hateful bullies for purposes of religion or national pride; radicals of the left, and those waging the campaign to stop engaging terrorists and violent fanatics with military force, especially, and all hateful bullies for the purposes of envy and equality or any variation of secular causes; radicals of Islam, terrorists, namely, and all of their cowardly supporters; radicals of Christianity; radicals of Zionism; and radicals of every variation - will only stop dominating contemporary liberal democratic politics and it's infinite illiberal bastardizations when honest people - moderates, we call them - step forward and stop letting these assholes dominate.
And the only way to stop letting radical assholes dominate is to take liberal values seriously. Liberal meaning liberty. Freedom. For the not-such-irredeemable-assholes among us.
And to stop letting radicals bully and manipulate those same not-quite-irredeemable assholes into being much bigger assholes than those still small quiet voices, our more honest consciences, might otherwise suggest.
The assholes, in other words, need to be stared down. Real courage must lead. And cowards follow. And not the other way around.
I am tired of watching bullies and cowards dominate. And the only way for that to change is for rest of us cowards to find the courage to challenge them. And to be bigger than our cowardice might otherwise suggest.
Translation: Step up, America. And everyone else, for that matter. Now is your chance.
If you give a shit about anything that really matters, that is.
Jack says it as well. Perhaps he might help you find the courage. Someone needs to. That's for sure. Perhaps it may just be you.
With all due respect to the New York Times and Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man heading up the Cordoba House, I am reposting a substantial portion of this enormously thoughtful piece:
"Cordoba House will be built on the two fundamental commandments common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam: to love the Lord our creator with all of our hearts, minds, souls and strength; and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We want to foster a culture of worship authentic to each religious tradition, and also a culture of forging personal bonds across religious traditions.
I do not underestimate the challenges that will be involved in bringing our work to completion. (Construction has not even begun yet.) I know there will be interest in our financing, and so we will clearly identify all of our financial backers.
Lost amid the commotion is the good that has come out of the recent discussion. I want to draw attention, specifically, to the open, law-based and tolerant actions that have taken place, and that are particularly striking for Muslims.
President Obama and Mayor Michael Bloomberg both spoke out in support of our project. As I traveled overseas, I saw firsthand how their words and actions made a tremendous impact on the Muslim street and on Muslim leaders. It was striking: a Christian president and a Jewish mayor of New York supporting the rights of Muslims. Their statements sent a powerful message about what America stands for, and will be remembered as a milestone in improving American-Muslim relations.
The wonderful outpouring of support for our right to build this community center from across the social, religious and political spectrum seriously undermines the ability of anti-American radicals to recruit young, impressionable Muslims by falsely claiming that America persecutes Muslims for their faith. These efforts by radicals at distortion endanger our national security and the personal security of Americans worldwide. This is why Americans must not back away from completion of this project. If we do, we cede the discourse and, essentially, our future to radicals on both sides. The paradigm of a clash between the West and the Muslim world will continue, as it has in recent decades at terrible cost. It is a paradigm we must shift.
From those who recognize our rights, from grassroots organizers to heads of state, I sense a global desire to build on this positive momentum and to be part of a global movement to heal relations and bring peace. This is an opportunity we must grasp.
I therefore call upon all Americans to rise to this challenge. Let us commemorate the anniversary of 9/11 by pausing to reflect and meditate and tone down the vitriol and rhetoric that serves only to strengthen the radicals and weaken our friends’ belief in our values.
The very word 'islam' comes from a word cognate to shalom, which means peace in Hebrew. The Koran declares in its 36th chapter, regarded by the Prophet Muhammad as the heart of the Koran, in a verse deemed the heart of this chapter, 'Peace is a word spoken from a merciful Lord.'
How better to commemorate 9/11 than to urge our fellow Muslims, fellow Christians and fellow Jews to follow the fundamental common impulse of our great faith traditions?"
If there is one document to read in this entire debate, this is the one. For the sake of the New York Times advertising department and a thoughtful understanding of what a powerful stand for American values looks like, I highly recommend reading the remarkably engaging original column.
How ironic that America would become so inflamed about something so resolutely American.
But that is the long history of humanity, isn't it? To aggressively take after that which is our best selves. To bear weakness against our strength.
Perhaps knowing that history might offer a path to genuine progress, after all.
"In the middle of the 20th century, Americans, impressed by the government's mobilization of society for victory in World War II, were, Mead says, 'intoxicated with social and environmental engineering of all kinds." They had, for example, serene confidence that 'urban renewal' would produce 'model cities.' Back then, environmentalism was skepticism.
It was akin to the dissent of Jane Jacobs, author of the 1961 book 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities.' She argued that ambitious social engineers such as New York's Robert Moses were, by their ten-thumbed interventions in complex organisms such as cities, disrupting social ecosystems. The apotheosis of technocratic experts such as McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara gave us 'nation-building' in conjunction with a war of attrition -- the crucial metric supposedly was body counts -- in a Southeast Asian peasant society. Over time, Mead says, 'experts lost their mystique':
'An increasingly skeptical public started to notice that 'experts' weren't angels descending immaculately from heaven bearing infallible revelations from God. They were fallible human beings with mortgages to pay and funds to raise. They disagreed with one another and they colluded with their friends and supporters like everyone else.'
And expertise was annoyingly changeable. Experts said margarine was the healthy alternative to butter -- until they said its trans fats made it harmful.
Environmentalism began as Bambi doing battle with Godzillas, such as the Army Corps of Engineers. Then, says Mead, environmentalism became Godzilla, an advocate of 'a big and simple fix for all that ails us: a global carbon cap. One big problem, one big fix.' Mead continues:
'Never mind that the leading green political strategy (to stop global warming by a treaty that gains unanimous consent among 190-plus countries and is then ratified by 67 votes in a Senate that rejected Kyoto 95 to 0) is and always has been so cluelessly unrealistic as to be clinically insane. The experts decree and we rubes are not to think but to honor and obey.'
The essence of progressivism, of which environmentalism has become an appendage, is the faith that all will be well once we have concentrated enough power in Washington and have concentrated enough Washington power in the executive branch and have concentrated enough 'experts' in that branch. Hence the Environmental Protection Agency proposes to do what the elected representatives of the rubes refuse to do in limiting greenhouse gases. Mead says of today's environmental movement:
'It proposes big economic and social interventions and denies that unintended consequences and new information could vitiate the power of its recommendations. It knows what is good for us, and its knowledge is backed up by the awesome power and majesty of the peer review process. The political, cultural, business and scientific establishments stand firmly behind global warming today -- just as they once stood firmly behind Robert Moses, urban renewal and big dams. They tell us it's a sin to question the consensus, the sign of bad moral character to doubt. Bambi, look in the mirror. You will see Godzilla looking back.'
Mead, who says that he is a skeptic about climate policy rather than climate science, says that the environmental movement has 'become the voice of the establishment, of the tenured, of the technocrats.' This is the wrong thing to be in 'Recovery Summer' while the nation wonders about the whereabouts of the robust recovery the experts forecast."
Perhaps it is time to humble our notions of power. And how it can solve all. Perhaps we are not wholly imcomparable with those who have known how to overpower problems of yore. Perhaps the temptation of pride and power is unremitting. Perhaps honest humility is patient effort.
Jeff Jacoby, like George Will, confuses piety, disillusionment, and skepticism with wisdom in his otherwise thoughtfully composed column in today's Boston Globe.
"But far from opposing a 'peace process’ meant to push Israel into ever-deeper concessions, retreats, and self-endangerment, terrorists — whether affiliated with Hamas or with Fatah — seek to accelerate it. The two Palestinian factions may be at war with each other, but they have always been as one in rejecting Israel’s existence as the sovereign state of the Jewish people. So long as they refuse to budge from that position, Israeli-Palestinian peace is impossible."
It's a tempting and clever interpretation of events. Too clever by half.
There is no hope for peace. If I don't acknowledge what's at stake. What people involved are really pained about. If I can reframe them as whatever I please. To ignore honest concerns.
The Palestinians, you see, by this interpretation, are not peoples angry and embittered about being expelled forcibly by Israelis from their homes and lives when Israel was founded. They are not a people tired and fed up with Israeli occupation and the restrictions and real fears for safety it persistently imposes on their lives. They are not peoples genuinely grieving the loss of lives that have taken place over the course of this long, bloody, foolish history.
The Palestinians, you see, are heartless murderers. All of them. They are systemactically unwilling of humanity, you see. Which justifies all of the rest, you see. And justifies why only military strength can put the thumb firmly on the trigger fingers of those who would otherwise murder innocent Israelis.
It's a tempting interpretation. A clever one. And a thoroughly self-righteous one. That maintains the bloodletting.
One very much similar to the tempting, clever, self-righteous interpretation of Palestinians that Israelis have murdered their way into a Jewish state meant to oppress, occupy, and let the blood of innocent Palestinians who want nothing other than to live their lives in peace.
They are both patently untrue, of course. And involved, sophisticated, and deceptive means of avoiding the responsibility that each party has in the bloodshed and bitterness of the last 100 years in this region.
And people like Jeff Jacoby and George Will make life difficult for those who would unravel that ugly and self-deceptive legacy.
And so they do.
And so would-be statesmen like Benjamin Netanyahu and would-be leaders like Mahmoud Abbas (who has a long journey, to be sure, before he is a responsible leader for the Palestinian peace and a more trustworthy partner for peace) move forward and let the Jeff Jacoby's and George Will's of the world wring their hands and predict failure. Because they were never really committed to a peaceful resolution of this unrelenting human tragedy, in the first place.
And so they weren't. And so they are ignored until they can offer a vision of something other than unflagging war.
Plenty of figures in this tragedy who will die never accepting peace. And so they will. Some of them, those who murder, against their will. And so it goes.
In the meantime, the rest of us have work to do.
There's too many lives at stake to stand around pretending that they can't be saved for good. Because Jeff and George say so.
"In an early sign of promise, Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledged Thursday in a cordial first round of talks to keep meeting at regular intervals, aiming to nail down a framework for overcoming deep disputes and achieving lasting peace within a year."
The genuine commitment is what will either make or break this and every round.
The bottom line in this process has always been:
Either Palestinians and Israelis want peace and are more committed to ending senseless deaths than leveraging for concessions or not.
Sadly, for all the lives lost, this is the only thing that ever mattered anyway. And the only thing most future Palestinians and Israelis will ever really remember.
How tragic all those who have died in the name of that pride. How sad that so many in the West and the Middle East have contributed to those deaths by supporting the leveraging.
How hopeful that we may, perhaps, finally let wither the bitter fruits of that sanctimony.
"I didn't come here to make an argument. I came here today to make peace. I didn't come here today to play a blame game where even the winners lose. Everybody loses if there's no peace. I came here to achieve a peace that will bring a lasting benefit to us all. I didn't come here to find excuses or to make them. I came here to find solutions."
That's what it looks like to be responsible. A peace agreement will happen when all parties make this commitment. It will not happen with any of us, including those making their observations public, dropping that ball.
Make peace. Stop making excuses. And if you can't, be prepared to not be taken seriously until we get there.
That's what leadership looks like in this region.
Ignore the whining. Commit to peace. Fulfill the agreements to establish security for both Palestinians and Israelis. Build a commitment to peace within populations over time.
And ignore the naysayers. Including the ones killing civilians. And capture or kill those folks, in the meantime.
Watching the reactions in the American press - one of the pettier, more self-centered, self-glorifying groups of people I've ever followed in my life - to President Obama's speech on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I am so goddamn glad I never went into politics as a profession.
Watching these assholes at work - Rachel Maddow, on the left, Charles Krauthammer, on the right, and all the rest of the assholes I had the misfortune to watch advance their petty, little self-centered agendas - I've definitely come to the conclusion that these dicks do not deserve as much attention or seriousness as they inexplicably get.
I am without doubt, anymore, that these are the last people on earth - outside of terrorists and despots, perhaps - with whom I would ever want to spend any substantial period of time.
The President is not without his flaws. The military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been without error. Nothing is. That's the reality of life we likely most need to come to terms with, today.
But the last people any of us should be listening to for any serious reflection on anything in America, I think, are the assholes who are constantly sharing their opinions on television for a living. They are a small-minded, self-serving class of people, generally, all too proud of their sad, small-minded little opinions. And it's all I can do to hold my stomach listen to them take themselves so seriously when they've done so little of any real import to warrant such seriousness.
You know who else has figured that out?
This guy.
I think he says it better.
You know why those assholes hate nice guys like Jack?
A very nice summation of the hubris and folly of the left, as of late. And the vibrant contribution that conservative thought, as much as liberal thought, has to offer our democratic discussion and debate.
Democrats will be paying the price for that hubris soon enough. Just as Republicans did here recently. And so it will go until they learn their lesson. Or don't. And so it will go.
I appreciate fully, now, why I respect the marketplace of ideas more than any one participant. Because the marketplace sorts these things out, eventually. Even sluggishly and less than ideally. Until we get to better ideas.
And it's the surest way to humble the arrogant.
Instant karma's gonna get you. All of us, eventually.
Successful people, like successful ideas, are the products of lessons learned.
After a night with Middle Eastern history and too much beer and too much food, I came to a certain enough conclusion, this morning.
All of the bullshit we tell ourselves. About how we're too good. Too nice. Too decent. Too loving. You know. That bullshit.
What a load of shit. Myself included.
The truth is our egos are gratified more than enough, is the truth. Too much, probably. All of us. We have instant gratification coming out of our asses. No matter where we are on the economic ladder. In America and the West and everywhere where we are fortunate to take a free and strong economy for granted.
The truth is we have enough ego gratification to last us to eternity. And it's not even good for us, is the truth.
The truth is that we don't do nearly enough good in the world, is the fact of the matter.
Least I don't.
So I'm done with pitying myself for not having more ego gratification. More for me. More to make me feel better or more important or more enviable or more whatever.
My life, at this point, is about doing good. As much as possible. As often as possible. And with little attention to what I get out of it, anymore, except insofar as it can make plenty available for me and my family and then go do some more good in the world.
I'm tired of the bullshit, is the truth.
And the answer to the bullshit is not more bullshit. It's to do more real good in the world. And let everyone else get their bullshit figured out. Or not. The end.
Speaking of which. I've got plenty on that particular to do list to last several lifetimes.
I've been thinking a lot, today, as I can't help but feel not much but a persistent disappointment with the petty and self-centered squabbling in Washington, these days, about how toxic that city has gotten.
I do wonder if anyone in that town really believes in genuine common cause or common sacrifice or common values or common anything, these days.
If all of it is just one long game of chicken and leveraging and bargaining position?
If any of them actually believe in anything beyond their own egos, these days, given all the sanctimony and hubris strutting itself around like proud principle?
And, if not, do they care that noone outside of Washington feels very much in common with them, either?
Perhaps not. And perhaps they don't really care what consequences all that bullshit and mistrust and rationalization creates for the country.
Perhaps none of us do.
What I do know is that there is noone in Washington that I could follow in good conscience, these days. And all the coercion in lieu of leadership just makes it all the more obvious how bankrupt the thinking and caring about anything other than the enormous egos in that town have become.
And it's not just there. It's everywhere.
What a sad spectacle we have all become.
All in the name of principle. So called. And bargaining position.
It's really kinda lame, when you take a step back from it.
Maybe some beer and chicken wings will cure my Beltway blues.
One thing's for sure.
There no one in that town I look to for leadership on anything that matters in my life anymore.
From here on out, I am the man that I look to for leadership in my life.
"Of all the offspring of time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome."
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."
- Charles McCay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Really beginning to appreciate, these days, how much all people, and all kids, live with the insecurity sitting on their hearts of whether they're good enough, smart enough, whatever enough. In school. In church. In life.
The kids and I spent the first week of school just getting to know one another and talking really honestly about this insecurity. About how we all have it. And about how we're valued for just who we are. And about how out of that kind of love for ourselves, we learn to be 100% responsible for ourselves and our lives.
It's a message that clearly resonated. The kids were much better behaved this week than any first week I've ever taught. At any school. Nevertheless at Cap City.
Only one academic task this week. Analyzing a historical document. Being real life historians. It was a blast.
I never cease to be amazed at how the toughest characters always respond better to kindness. That doesn't guarantee a better life. Only better choices can do that. But it's the foundation on which everything else rests.
If you doubt that, you probably have a mom to go thank. Or a dad. Or a grandma or a grandpa. Or someone who loved you. No matter how shitty you turned out:).
Love is more powerful than fear. It just is. Though it appreciates your opinion to the contrary.
Only a fool, when you take a step back from it all, could think that what's wrong with the world - nations and cultures, religions and ideologies, husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors and friends - is too much love.
Only a damned fool.
And an unoriginal one, at that. Same thought likely passed through the minds of the crowd who crucified Jesus. Even as they hammered those nails through his limbs.
Thank goodness there's plenty of love for all us damned fools.
The plain jane, no-bullshit reason why people have never really trusted politics.
Avi Beker makes an excellent argument about the situation between Lebanon and Israel that illustrates it well and really extends far beyond the Middle East.
"FOR SEVERAL Islamist fighting groups and terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza, the humanitarian principles of the Law of Armed Conflict had become the major source of inspiration and guidance. These methods of legal maneuvers in the battlefield are viewed by Islamists as a critical component in their strategic and tactical planning.
They are well aware that Israel and other Western countries are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it, and they exploit it in a very cynical and brutal fashion.
It is wrong to argue, as many legal experts claim, that existing international law is ill-equipped in dealing with the so-called 'non-state' entities. It is true that traditional Law of Combat was built on the assumption of a conflict between two states which are striving for international legitimacy and would, therefore, abide by some measures of legal restraint. However, existing instruments of international law contain ample references which can cover acts of self defense and measures taken in the war against terrorism. The problem lies only with the politicization and selective interpretation of covenants which follow some more fashionable post-modern trends and are often inclined to glorify acts of terrorism.
It becomes worse when a United Nations voting bloc comprised largely of undemocratic member states continues to dictate international human rights norms and can hijack, against the rules of the Charter, the debates and agenda relating to international peace and security.
A fair reading of Hizbullah’s threats against the civilian population in Israel coupled with its brutal abuse of humanitarian rules can be easily recorded as systematic war crimes in their making. In addition the group continues to violate resolution 1701 of the Security Council which forbids the arming of groups outside the Lebanese Army. Thousands of missiles, rockets and huge ammunition are being smuggled to South Lebanon with the full cooperation of Iran and Syria and the blind eye of the government of Lebanon.
The fallacy and the serious omission by diplomats and legal experts lies in their disregard of the explicit responsibility of each party in armed conflict, including the defender, to protect its civilian population and remove it from military targets. The duty of “distinction” goes both ways and article 51.7 of the Geneva First Protocol emphasizes that while civilians are protected by the principle of distinction, no party can use its civilians as shield for its military objectives. It reads: 'The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favor or impede military operations.'
Hizbullah, which is today a full-fledged member in the Lebanese government, can no longer hide behind another distorted interpretation of humanitarian law and claim 'non state' status. It should be emphasized: there are no restrictions in article 51 of the United Nations Charter regarding the exercise of the inherent right of self defense against non-state entities.
Last week’s provocation by the Lebanese Army makes it even more responsible to the Hizbullah violations of humanitarian law and will nullify future claims that Israel violates the principle of proportionality in attacking targets inside Lebanon. When the enemy makes it a clear strategy of using civilian shields in its war effort it is permissible to use a large degree of force against multiplied targets, including infrastructure, as long as the force is intended to remove the continuing risk posed by its rockets.
Lawfare has become a major arena for the delegitimization campaign against Israel. In the past Israel had to incorporate a doctrine of pre-emptive or preventive strikes to compensate for its very narrow margins of defense against variety of threats. While Israel should always maintain its high standards of moral and humanitarian behavior in combat it must tell the world that no army can endanger its soldiers in order to avoid hitting targets which are using civilians as shields. Israel must develop a “lawfare” preemptive strategy which will alert the world on the misuse and the moral collapse of international humanitarian law."
The truth is that this strategy of using the law for whatever purposes one desires is not limited to Hizbollah and terrorists. They certainly use it to more brutal ends, as they do with almost every weapon in their arsenal as they rationalize their power claims.
But the truth is that the law has now and always been a political football for people to rationalize whatever sort of power they desire. Good or ill. That's the reason why liberal thinkers have taught us to be so skeptical of power and claims on it. Because it, and the law as a function of that on-going battle for power, is rationalized for almost any purpose.
That is the foolishness of romanticizing law. Like somehow it has always stood for justice. For what was good and right.
Tell African slaves that. Or Jews during the Holocaust. Or Jesus or Socrates. Or the vast majority of people in our history who were oppressed by religious rule or under empire. Many of whom still are today. All under the cover of the rule of law.
It's laughable, really, to have an honest reading of history be one that validates the law as an anything but a tool used for bad as much as for good. Many of the most serious evils in human history have had the cover of the rule of law.
The Holocaust and Nazi rule. Soviet Communism. Chinese Communism. Religious oppression. Empire and the general principle that might makes right. Slavery. The oppression of women and any dominated group. In fact, our notion of minority groups in Western culture is explicitly a function of the dominant power position of majority groups.
We know this. Deep down. But like slave-owners and Nazis and Communists and popes, we also like our power. The benefits it offers. The status is confers. And the ability, at base, to get our way.
That has always been the appeal of power. The ability to get your way. Even when you're wrong. Might makes right has a long and persistent history. It is one of destruction, tragedy, and gross injustice. It is also the most looming history for almost every organized human society. The rule of law is intended to distinguish from the rule of the jungle. But, in reality, it is and always has been used to cover for the rule of the jungle. Even as it has always claimed to be its alternative. Often it is. And just as often it is used for the very same coveting of power that makes us so rightly skeptical of jungle monarchy.
So the notion that this tragic, ugly legacy that humanity has spent almost all of its civilized existence trying to leave behind would somehow consitute progress is really the most foolish and absurd rationalization of all.
And like every other variation on that theme that has ever polluted the heart of humanity, this one will fall apart just like the rest.
Because everyone wants to exercise power over everyone else, at some point, likely. We are a predatory and aggressive species by nature, after all. Noone would have a problem with the rule of the jungle if they could be its king. That is the fantasy that has always animated power. It's just an instinct that persistently betrays us. Because while most people want to exercise power over others, almost noone wants to have power exercised over them. Not really.
And humans are social animals. Enormously intelligent and creative social animals, at that. Who, unlike hyenas and jackles, and lions and tigers and bears (oh my) find any number of ways to escape and challenge the dominance of competing groups and members.
And their history is one long challenge to the dominance of any one group or individual, each one assuming, foolishly, that they can do just that. Only to be leveled by competitors. Every time. Without exception.
If there are rules that humans actually abide by (and there really are not, for the bulk of human experience, except when they so choose), the one rule that is without exception is that every effort to dominate their fellows is challenged. And, in the long run, successfully. Every single time.
And the rule of law is typically a weapon in this battle. But never a final resolution of that battle. Ever. And that will never change. No matter how much we assert it otherwise.
And every effort that has constituted more genuine progress in human history has been a recognition and attempt to account for this fact of human existence.
In fact, the more we assert it otherwise, the more obvious it becomes how little is actually resolved. And how the effort to use the rule of law, and the force inherent in its use, to resolve differences between people, except when real danger is involved and people must be contained to contain that danger, resolves almost nothing. And is the source of much of the conflict, truth be told.
Which is why the long road of progress in human history is now and always has been a road toward greater and greater respect for conscience and the freedom to exercise it by each individual. Because it is the only path that better resolves such conflicts. And makes clearer the tragic consequences of a history obsessed with power, and the pride that animates it, to coerce the conscience of our friends and neighbors.
Lawfare has another name.
It's called politics.
And it is exactly why so many people distrust this enterprise. And should.
Because it is clear to any objective observer not defending any of the participants just how dishonest and ugly and unworthy of trust that enterprise typically is.
Even as power remains necessary for limited and important purposes. But which important purposes are undermined by the mistrust bred by those who would use power to dominate their neighbors.
Rather than appeal to their consciences.
And the cynicism that often circulates about humanity - that no man can be trusted - is often both a function of and a rationalization of power. Divide and conquer, writ large.
The bottom line for humanity is this.
If we choose not to end that legacy, not to end the endless rationalizations of power, the war of humanity on itself, for no productive purpose whatsoever except to acquire and maintain that power, for good and so very often for ill, it is not because we could not do otherwise. It is not because otherwise is not possible. Or naive. Or destined for chaos. Or any of the excuses given for the coveting of power.
It is because we choose not to do otherwise.
And no amount of deception or self-deception will make that not be so. No matter how much we talk our way around that fact.
And the only way genuinely forward is to face and acknowledge that fact. And the ways that our rationalizations - in the liberal and illiberal world - for power feed one another. And the tragedy they are responsible for. Even as we lack the courage to face that tragedy. And our responsibility in it.
Sadly, at some point, we will only be able to look back on the vast majority of this long history of power and its obsession as pointless and tragic folly. A tragedy of the most dominant and predatory of species on Earth determined to dominate and kill and oppress one another. All in the name of their fear of being dominated and killed and oppressed by the other.
And that legacy will and already has begun to slip away from us long before most of us take to time to reflect on its consequences. Some people may rarely if ever reflect on its consequences. But they will be free to not reflect as much as they will be free to reflect.
And that kind of freedom is the essence of any sort of real progress. Take that to the bank.
Or you could ignore all that bullshit and just get the prettier arrangement from Jack.
