The Democrats hold on the House didn't last. Their landmark legislation will.
Hubris, the Greeks whisper.
Instant karma's gonna getcha, says the Brit.
Humble self-discipline beats bitter medicine.
And stinky tofu make for stinky adventure.
Ancient Chi-nese se-cret.
Where this is all going?
I definitely do. More often than I let on, honestly. More often than not, these days, really. I preach love and patience. And I practice, far too much, anger and despair. Lack of faith, I suppose. A lack I experience so often, I can't keep up with it. I don't know why, really. Other than everyone - family, friends, students, everyone I know and all the rest I do not know - trying to impress upon me that assholes finish first and that nice guys - my kind of people, meaning - finish last. Nice to know you're loved, huh?
It's a more than a little overwhelming for the heart, truth be told. No matter how strong we think we are.
But then I read exchanges like this. And I'm reminded why humanity just has a way of working these things out.
"JUSTICE GINSBURG: Is there — you’ve been asked questions about the vagueness of this and the problem for the seller to know what’s good and what’s bad. California — does California have any kind of an advisory opinion, an office that will view these videos and say, yes, this belongs in this, what did you call it, deviant violence, and this one is just violent but not deviant? Is there — is there any kind of opinion that the — that the seller can get to know which games can be sold to minors and which ones can’t?
MR. MORAZZINI: Not that I’m aware of, Justice Ginsburg.
JUSTICE SCALIA: You should consider creating such a one. You might call it the California office of censorship. It would judge each of these videos one by one. That would be very nice."
Honestly, do we really have any doubt where we are headed, long term?
More or less freedom? More or less love? Honest progress or not?
We shouldn't, I don't think. We doubt, I think, because doing the right thing does not always bring instant gratification. And doing the wrong thing often does.
But we also do really know how these things work out in the end. When we're not deceiving ourselves.
Doubt is among the choices while building faith, I suppose. And faith is a function of our efforts. Our successes and our failures.
I'm tired and feeling a bit cynical today. A function of bad choices, I assume. And a heavy and weary heart, these days.
Perhaps wiser heads should speak on this matter, today.
Perhaps one day I might be more like one of them.
Happy Meals banned in San Fransisco
Progress. Means never having to admit that you're wrong.
And no Happy Meals, to boot.
Unhappy meal. Happy, happy day.
This is not a Sandwich. This is Progress.
I do not understand French. I am sorry. But I want to love you.
- Jack Johnson
And the say of those who say different generally does not. Not really. When all is said and done.
There's good reason the masses are revolting
It is so funny and sad watching politics, this season. Every season. This season. Every season.
What none of the largely good faith and still too often bad faith major players in this tired, tragic great game of power can quite fathom, the American President included, almost identical to his predecessor, is that a politics that beats the life out of each another encourages all sorts of self-and-that-other-guy-deception. And ignores the bountiful unintended consequences of serious policy decisions. It is the very thing that Democrats and the American left keep engaging in up to the bitter end, and the very thing that lost their right-wing predecessors the U.S. Presidency and both houses of Congress, and is exactly what independents and citizens in my fair country, more broadly, are voting at odds with.
It is the most seriously disheartening fact of 21st century humankind. The most seriously disheartening fact of every century humankind. The will to overpower. The endless feuding. The impulse to dominance. The fear of a world without such obsession. The pride that animates it all. And the imitation it inspires among more repressive members of the species. And the countless dead and oppressed and too-terribly-frightened it leaves in its wake.
The great irony of the viciously partisan, and hence much more seriously self-enamoured and self-deluding, political and media wars of the early 21st century liberal democracies (not to mention the regularly pious political, cultural, and media manipulations of the illiberal world) is that it is average folks, or at least independents, in America, at least, who are deciding elections, these days, by and large, who have the least distorted outlook on questions of governance, in my all-too-distorted estimation, and the all-too-learned-and-self-important political intelligencia who are feverishly defending their very serious mistakes of policy, to anyone not defending them and their mistakes.
And the saddest fact of all, right now, is that various partisans, left and right and of every flavor and variety, have become so self-consumed that they would rather the other guy fail and their side and its policy positions be defended, right or wrong, without serious reservation - that they would rather watch American governance fail, in the broadest strokes - than to humble themselves and get honest about their failures.
All the while strong-arming the rest of us to become more responsible for the world.
It's all kind of mind-numbingly, still yet forgivably, and terribly, abundantly self-centered, after awhile.
And there is no amount of words that will ever talk us out of the wreckage.
The very impulse that drives partisanship - a failure to seriously consider that you and your side just might be wrong about any serious policy matter - is exactly what is sinking both American political parties, their ideological wings, and all-around confidence in government and the culture of politics as professional wrestling, at this moment. And for good reason. And will the next round. And the round after that. And the round after that. And the round after that. And the round after that, too.
The British Empire, similarly thought, after World War I, that it could coax and bully its way out of disgruntlement with the grabbing of British spoils following the First Great War.
They, too, thought that might would make right indefinitely. They, too, believed, cynically, that no new ideas about the world - self-determination and liberal democracy and freedom, more broadly, namely - could trump the force of military arms.
And they, too, were terribly, pitifully, tragically wrong. And failed miserably to maintain their overwhelming might. And much of the politics of the world, today, is a function of that very cynicism both during the height of empire and its various democratic corollaries, internationally and domestically, that were practiced following World War I and World War II.
And those democratic fellow-travelling power calculations are now falling apart, as well. And people begin to see the lie for what it is. And grow disillusioned with the ugly consequences.
Lord Acton knew what he was talking about. Power corrupts. And it does not matter if it is your side and you are convinced of the rightness of your cause. You are not original, in that thought. That thought has animated power and its wielding since the dawn of homo sapien as a social, political animal. And, by and large, though intentions have often been good, in limited ways, they have also been bad, in vastly more corrupting ways, long term.
Hence the skepticism of power in modern liberal democratic societies. The strongest societies in the world and the history of the world, in case you are keeping score. For good reason. Because power is used, more often, to hinder progress than to encourage it. So says honest observation.
And the early 21st century is but one additional iteration of that foolish, failed, perpetually self-unraveling notion.
It does not matter how much governments fight this reality. The impulse and need for freedom and self-determination for people to self-govern their lives is more basic and fundamental than any government could ever be. All governments can ever do is frustrate this need. They can never meet it. And hence why people perpetually find ways around masters and governments that frustrate their own real learning, growth, and development.
The Chinese government must liberalize, as the only means to face a failed and stagnating economy. There is no doubt that it was the freedom of the Chinese people, granted a bit more daylight when a Chinese government begrudgingly lifted its repression, that ultimately grew the Chinese economy and lifted 500 million people out of poverty. Mao's government had killed between 40 and 70 million people to establish its power and, in consequence, stagnate Chinese political, economic, and cultural development. Just as it is the repression of the North Korean communist government that is responsible for the starvation of its people. And the power machinations of the theocratic Iranian regime that has strangled its economy and halted its serious cultural development. And the opportunistic dictatorships in Zimbabwe and Myanmar that shut its people away from the light of the free world. It is liberalization, not Chinese totalitarianism, that created the strong growth we see in China, today. And it is liberalization that will be the genuine march of progress in China, North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Myanmar and in America, the land of the free, from here until the end of human history.
Because liberalization is the only and single possible direction for honest progress. Nothing else actually produces or leads to real progress. And every ounce of evidence in free and unfree countries points in this direction.
It is not the evidence that is the problem. The evidence is in exponential abundance. It is the agendas of those who seek to defend their favored policies and ideological commitments, left and right and otherwise, that is the most serious obstacle to real progress in America, in China, in North Korea, in Iran, in Zimbabwe, in Myanmar, in Europe, in Africa, in Asia, in North and South America, and in the rest of the known world.
Thankfully, our progress does not depend on any person in power, no matter how educated or not. Our progress has always and always will depend on our own self-determined efforts. No matter what anyone who happens to be in charge of the government at any particular moment has to say about the matter.
That has always been the case in America and the world.
That is just on stark and fast-forward display right now.
And no amount of talk will make it go away.
And thanks go to the Americans and people all around the world who are making that fact plain enough to their governments and governors, today.
No matter how much they might deceive themselves otherwise.
This is the most fundamental strength of liberal democracy.
What we are witnessing, right now - a country turning over its government as many times as necessary and as it takes to get us in the direction of more honest and liberalizing progress - is what living in a free country is all about.
You might thank Baron de Montesquieu and James Madison for that, when you get a chance. They are quite dead. But they still deserve your thanks.
Real progress does not need permission. What it needs is freedom. And and love for one's neighbor. And a more honest appreciation for the fact that the one goes quite naturally with the other.
If you are still not quite sure of that notion, you might take a moment to consider something. You might consider your daughter, for a moment. And just how, exactly, you want her to be treated. By the man, or any man, she falls in love with.
You might ask yourself. Do you want that man to be one who will bully and control and attempt to scare her into submission? Do you want a man who will intimidate and hurt and cower her in fear? Or do you want a man who treats her with love and respect for her, her life, her choices, and her heart.
Because if its good enough for your daughters, then, perhaps, you might consider that it might be good enough for the rest of us, too.
And if you are the type of parent or man who would bully or control or cower your wife or children into fearful submission, perhaps they should be doing exactly what they, generally, will end up doing, most of the time, anyway, regrettably. Sometimes not-so-regrettably.
Looking for someone else to love them. As soon as the opportunity arises.
What each and every single one of us should be doing in all of our relationships in life, if we cannot find the courage to turn back from that dark path.
Matters of power and governing being just one more minor variation on that eternal and eternally human theme.
I am looking for someone who loves and respects and cares about me, my life, my choices and my heart. I'll be looking for the same for my daughters, one day, I hope. And I just as surely will be looking for the same from my government. And choosing as many times as necessary until I find one that will.
That sort of choosing is what real progress looks like.
My daughters, I will hope, should expect no less.
There really is literally no end to this circus.
4-Year-Old Can Be Sued, Judge Rules in Bike Case
Presidents are not responsible for their policy failures. Ever. In any administration.
But 4-year-olds are perfectly and legally culpable.
How in the world could young people come to the conclusion that they cannot trust their elders, I wonder?
Perhaps because they can't.
And perhaps we have no plans to ever earn back that trust.
Perhaps.
I think, at this point, watching the stupidity of aggression and arm-twisting, how it inevitably fucks things up, and how little anyone takes any responsibility for it.
Perhaps this really is the world we want.
We seem dissatisfied. But when you talk to anyone about how it got this fucked up, they all defend all the bullshit that got us here. Against everyone else, of course. They hate how their own arms get twisted. But they love twisting someone else's arm.
Perhaps our entire lives are just one long unhappy marriage. And if we all pretend like this is the way things are supposed to be, we can all, maybe, pretend, as well, just how happy we are with life as it is.
Perhaps a world that is fucked up and unhappy and with no potential for anything better, as long as we continue down this same road, is just too comfortable to ever give up.
All I know is that all this pride costs us something.
A life we love, namely. And one that's safer, freer, more decent, more full of opportunities, and where more people more genuinely get their needs taken care of.
That's the choice, I suppose. The same unhappy mess. Or something better.
Difficult choice, I know.
And it's not a political party that offers us a path out.
It's not anything that any politician can offer us at all (other than getting out of our way).
It is whether we are going to give up the pride that if I could only step on the neck of that other motherfucker, then and only then, the world will finally be made right.
The long, dark nightmare that is human history, that is.
Perhaps one day we might wake up from that grim reality.
For now, it is our own little plot of mutually assured misery.
Yay us.
Pride. It's a helluva drug.
As I read the coverage of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive, I am reminded of a deeper truth of people and politics and all the rest, today.
'Rally to Restore Sanity' Unite to Offer Pretensious Whining
I find the criticisms of these rallies as whiny and self-involved and disingenuously serious as I did the criticisms of Stephen Colbert's brilliant performance for Congress on matters of immigration.
The truth is these assholes hate the fact that these guys are clowning them. And, worse. That they are dead on in much of their satire. It bothers them that John and Stephen have their number. And even when I disagree with these guys, which is often enough, they get taken more seriously exactly because they don't take themselves so seriously. And bring some needed humility to political discussions, right now.
I love these guys. I disagree with them often. But I love the much needed humbling and levity that they bring to a political world all-too-seriously-committed to its various worldviews and policy positions.
What I love about Stewart and Colbert - Stephen a bit more, just for the record, because he's goddamn brilliant as all shit and has some of the more thoughtful conversations taking place anywhere that anyone else can see, right now - is exactly that they do not take themselves so seriously.
This world would be a far better place if more people - Jesus and Buddha and Mill and Twain and King and Ghandi and all the rest included - did not take themselves and their random opinions so goddamn seriously. It is mindboggling, sometimes, just how ugly and foolish we all behave, this strange, self-involved, solipsistic species, in the name of our all-too-certain opinions about this and that and whatever tickles our momentary fancy.
The goddamn tragedy of the world is that people are so unrepentantly and self-centeredly serious about All Matters That Make Them Look More Important Than They Or Anyone Deserves.
And that so many people are killed or imprisoned or variously bullied and treated in ugly fashion because of this perpetually irrational attachment that the whole goddamn species has to its various thought processes.
It's a goddamn tragedy. And you can either cry about it. On end.
Or you can laugh. Big and hearty, if you can.
At what a sad, stupid, lame, oft-self-centered and mean-spirited, always bumbling and foolish, species we so often choose to be.
All in the name of pretending to be smarter and better and whatever else that any of us could possibly ever be.
All of which only further demonstrates just how stupid and petty and small-minded and everything else that we all really are.
And, the sad, comic irony of the whole thing is that it's still all OK. We just have to pick up from there.
Because what the fuck else are any of us going to do, for God's sakes?
Other than maintain this mindless, mean, damn fool mess of an existence.
An existence that would be far better, for everyone involved, tragically and ironically, the more love and freedom - the very virtues that our fears persistently betray - we make available in the world.
About goddamn time we finally faced up to that little tidbit of life as we know it.
A little sanity never hurt anyone.
Least of all any of us.
Democrats are the unbeloved, if pitiful, heroes of their own Greek tragedy, this year.
And David Brooks knows hubris is just another way of saying:
"Noone likes me because I am so much undoubtedly better and smarter than you."
No Second Thoughts
"When times get tough, it’s really important to believe in yourself. This is something the Democrats have done splendidly this year. The polls have been terrible, and the party may be heading for a historic defeat, but Democrats have done a magnificent job of maintaining their own self-esteem. This is vital, because even if the public doesn’t approve of you, it is important to approve of yourself...
Democrats are lagging this year because the country appears incapable of appreciating the grandeur of their accomplishments. That’s because, as several commentators have argued over the past few weeks, many Americans are nearsighted and ill-informed. Or, as President Obama himself noted last week, they get scared, and when Americans get scared they stop listening to facts and reason. They get all these crazy ideas in their heads, like not wanting to re-elect Blanche Lincoln.
The Democrats’ problem, as some senior officials have mentioned, is that they are so darn captivated by substance, it never occurs to them to look out for their own political self-interest. By they way, here’s a fun party game: Get a bottle of vodka and read Peter Baker’s article 'The Education of President Obama' from The New York Times Magazine a few weeks ago. Take a shot every time a White House official is quoted blaming Republicans for the Democrats’ political plight. You’ll be unconscious by page three...
As Nancy Pelosi put it at a $50,000-a-couple fund-raiser, 'Everything was going great and all of a sudden secret money from God knows where — because they won’t disclose it — is pouring in.'
Even allowing the menace of secret money, embracing this Paradise Lost epic means obscuring a few inconvenient facts: that Democrats were happy to benefit from millions of anonymous dollars in 2006, 2008 and today; that the spending by Rove’s group amounts to less than 1 percent of the total money spent on campaigns this year; that Democrats retain an overall spending advantage.
But legend rises above mere facticity, and this Lancelots-of-the-Left tale underlines a self-affirming message — that Democrats are engaged in a righteous crusade against the dark villain who tricked Americans into voting against John Kerry.
In short, it’s hard not to be impressed by the spirit of self-approval that Democrats have managed to maintain this election. I say that knowing it may end as soon as next Wednesday, when, as is their wont, Democrats will flip from complete self-worship to complete self-laceration in the blink of an eye."
Poor pitiable progressives. Does no one in America realize that all of this is for them?
Such an ungrateful lot, these American suckers. We offer up our best sales pitch. And all they can bitch about is how everything has gone to hell.
How can they know how much smarter we are when noone will listen anymore to just how much smarter we are?
It's enough to make a grown man cry.
Perhaps a little love is in order, even for the loveless, after all.
The salvation of the humble is that hubris knows no limits.
Washington referees face ban for charity pink whistles
Bring the pink.
For every last unrepentant cheerleader of might begetting right:
Do you really wonder how this thing ends?
The suspense is killing me.
And, Tom Friedman.
You cross my path and rationalize these mass murderering thugs to my face, pray I have strength that chance encounter.
Because, in the dark corners of my heart, I furiously want you to witness what real weakness looks like.
This is the song that plays over and over again in my CD player and my heart, these days. I asked myself, reminded by a friend, today, why I like this guy's music so much.
And I guess what I like it about it, I suppose, is that in a world - and, in this song's case, a music world - that seems so driven by so many cynical calculations, Jack offers hope of something better.
Jack's music is heart balm for a world obsessed with jading itself and one another. And pretending that it has no consequence, outside of our various petty and self-centered agendas. He keeps my heart in the game. When most everyone else would kick it in the aortal teeth. He offers hope that the last say on the world is not what shitheads we can be in the name of our various causes and agendas. That maybe someone is making an effort to keep hearts and minds open. In a world full of efforts to twist and manipulate and otherwise wear down the heart.
All in the name of justifying the jaded hearts of cynics.
Something honest. In a world of ever self-justifying ego. Perhaps there just might be more to this world than meets the eye.
This is the bottom line for the left (and right), at this point.
NPR's Schiller Says Juan Williams Was Fired Because of Ethics Guidelines
Are we all going to keep following shitheads like Vivian Schiller (and Roger Ailes, for that matter) - I was always ambivalent about defunding NPR in the past; I am no longer ambivalent, in my personal funds or in Federal funds, at this point - who think enforcing leftist newspeak and bullying decent people like Nina Totenberg from saying what they really think about this firing - or are we going to get honest about what thuggishness dominates the left and right, these days, and do better?
I have never in my life been so fucking embarrassed to have been associated with such self-centered slimeballs like Ms. Schiller for the largest bulk of my life. If you are honest, you know this shit is wrong. And if you don't, what comes around, goes around. At least until you can face up.
The left has some cumuppance coming it's way. Let's hope they learn the honest lesson.
The embodiment of Democratic conceit and that of the established political universe, left and right, right now.
Reid: But for Me, We'd Be in a Worldwide Depression
Every interpretation around the stimulus and the economy center around Mr. Reid's self-centered interpretation, here.
It's never quite occurred to a lot of folks that maybe, as a matter of fact - not as a matter of partisanship, not as a matter of politics, not as a matter of expression of faction in any remote sense - Mr. Reid and this interpretation just might happen to be wrong. The fear being that to say it is wrong is to rethink the entire New Deal legacy. That, just perhaps, Franklin Roosevelt's greatest legacy as it concerns the economy was offering temporary help when our fear had resulted in genuinely desperate times - versus the "I have to move out of my house and stay with family or move into an apartment" variety of today - not rationalizing desperation and fear of hard times as the centerpiece of thinking about the economy and government and humanity from now into eternity.
Rethinking, though, is for the other guy. Because to say otherwise is to assume that I might, Heaven's to Betsy, be wrong about any one thing that has ever passed through my otherwise infallible frontal cortex.
The sin qua non of this political period is that anything that comes to mind and perhaps out of my mouth or my keyboard must, in fact, be true. Because otherwise it would mean that I might be wrong. And wrong is for that other shithead. Not for me. Because anything else would leave me feeling like a damned fool. And it is everyone else who is the fool. Worthy of firing or criminal sanction, no less. Because that'll finally teach those weaselly bastards who have the gall to think that I might be wrong.
Right.
Perhaps Harry Reid, like Newt Gingrich, like every person who has ever held power are all right about one thing.
Perhaps it is power and not genuinely caring about people, engaging thoughtfully, and acting in accordance with one's conscience that really matters in this world. Perhaps the future is getting our way. And blaming the other guy when it doesn't turn out well.
Because how on earth, you ask, could anyone possibly argue with that kind of logic?
Not this goddamned fool, no doubt. Far, far too clever for me. Far, far too clever for this world of fools, I'm sure.
Talk of the Nation: NPR Fires Political Analyst Juans Williams Over Muslim Comments
Gotta wear some motherfuckin' blinders.
All kinds of naked emperors up in this joint. Don't look behind that curtain.
It's a parade of ugly in that goddamned city. Clothing not required.
The more I think about it, the more I think that it's not power that is at the heart of our most serious and needless human tragedies. Though our thirst for power is at the heart of our most consequential failures of humanity.
It is not money. Though we have done plenty harm in the world in the name of our greed. Or our lust. Or envy. Or wrath. And they certainly have their part in all this.
It is not even our pride. Or any of our sins, for that matter. Though pride and sin and their wages center in most of the avoidable harm that we do to one another.
What sits on the heart of all of this. Is cynicism. Our unresolved discontent and disappointment. About these and every last feature of our human nature that figures largest in the mess that is the human race. Our disappointment in a world that cannot ever be as perfect or predictable or controllable as we wish it might be. And our failure to account for our own trespasses. Especially our own foolish pride.
But, more importantly, it is our failure to acknowledge our responsibility for the climate of fear we create that makes it so difficult to acknowledge our missteps. And our cynicism, borne of disappointment, around matters of responsibility, and our failures to facilitate honest conscience. Our own and with each other.
It is the cynicism that reflects that unresolved disappointment sitting on our hearts like an unwelcome friend who never seems to leave and who we would rather not face, if it can be at all be avoided.
And it is the ways that we talk around the consequences of that cynicism. And our responsibility for the consequences that flow from that lack of faith.
This is the heart of most preventable human tragedy.
Our sad, sad hearts.
Unwilling to let go. And to face the world as it is. And finally to appreciate humanity. For all its beauty. And failures. And everything in between.
And the ways that this cynicism leads us to choose fear over faith when it comes to matters of the heart. And be blind to its repercussions.
The wages of this pride and fear and cynicism are most certainly death.
But fortunate for us, it is a preventable death. Dependent only on our willingness to face our flawed humanity. Honestly. In other words, without fear.
Our own humanity, primarily. And our failures to humble ourselves in the face of those failings. And the ways they justify our consequent scarcity of understanding of everything else.
The wages of cynicism are a world more bleak and hopeless than need be. And that fact being true and further resting in our hearts, whether we choose to face that fact or not.
Perhaps something more decent. And honest. And everything that we value.
Perhaps therein lies hope for humanity, after all.
And correction for all the rest, in the meantime.
As I look out at the very sad, pious, foolish lot that the world has chosen to degenerate into in these first few years of the 21st century, I'm struck by what a stupid, useless spectacle most people would allow the most important matters in the world to devolve into.
All to avoid rethinking it.
The ultramodern twist, in this bubble in a boiling pot, is that people will do it with utterly reckless abandon. Pretending, all the while, to do so as a matter of stalwart, unwavering principle.
Principle. That's what we call this ridiculous carnival of ego, these days.
Because it's easier than saying the truth.
"I just really haven't thought about it, enough, really. And I certainly haven't listened very well to everyone else. Especially the snakes on the other side of the garden. And I'm too scared to admit to myself, as much as my neighbors, just how little I really have figured anything out. I really couldn't tell you what valuable insights people have to offer, out there, other than the ones that come off of my own self-enamoured lips. Because those are the only ones that really matter to me, anyway."
It's very sad to watch this thick-headed pageant of heated and willful ignorance, from the left and the right, from Christians and Jews and Muslims, from Americans and Europeans and from the far reaches of the entire globe, from liberal democratic peoples and illiberal peoples hostile to democracy. All of us created equal in our bumbling absurdity. All in the business of killing and attacking and intimidating and scaring and otherwise strong-arming one another in the name of own own brand of irrational and child-like pigheadedness and pronounce once and for all for the world:
If that doesn't prove just how much I have finally got everything figured out, I just don't know whatever will.
How terrifically pathetic, this human race.
What a poor, petty, pitiful mess we have become.
Poor, poor, petty, pitiful homo sapien.
Pray forgive this hopeless sinner.
Cowardice is more common, is the truth. And out of our desire to escape responsibility, we call it courage.
Because it is easier than calling it what it is.
For all us helpless cowards, that is.
Sumo wrestling with federal deficits
"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.
You want to know a dark, dirty secret in my life?
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 meant the world to me. It really did.
It's so funny and sad to see a world obsessed with proving how little it cares, simultaneously obsess about how too little it cares.
Why is He Sending Them?
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.
Kathleen Parker kills it.
When do rules for the common good cross the line?
This woman is fucking genius. And not bad on the eyes, either.
Nice to see a little courage in the national media.
Time for everyone to step up and face the more honest music.
But I've got Jack Johnson to tend to.
I met someone. I know it's not by the book. When you first meet. But I think I'm in love. Until I hear different, at least.
It's a great feeling.
And when you feel that, who gives a shit about anything else, frankly.
Brilliant as all shit, Kathleen.
But I hope you can forgive me.
I got bigger things on the mind, at the moment.
There is far too much I could speak to in this story to do so in one sitting 20 minutes before kids arrive.
Despite resources, players reluctant to seek help
But here's the bottom line:
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.
For all of our sakes.
What real balance in the world sounds like.
Those who say it doesn't exist wouldn't know any different.
Prove them wrong.
With all the love in our hearts.
About time someone looked out for the geese.
Can we save the goose that lays the golden eggs?
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.
With only one logical result: dead goose.
About time we switched up our investments.
The logical consequence of postmodern nihilism. And any culture that stops giving a shit about honest discussion and debate.
Suicide Note
Too clever, aren't we?
All, all too clever.
Congratulations, everyone. It's finally happened. Freedom, it seems, is finally in retreat.
Canadian 'Blogfather' faces Iran death penalty
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.
Americans looks more and more like the Taliban the more we hate them. Only slightly fatter.
Texas ed board adopts resolution limiting Islam in textbooks
Texas: Makin' Al Queda look classy since they lost all that weight.
The most solid analysis of the current economic malaise and its causes that I have read to date.
A Nation of Peasants?
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.
For all our sakes. Our own, especially.
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.
Woodward Lifts Lid on Backbiting
Woodward Book Centers on Dissention, Infighting
And that these people are hardly the folks that any of us should be taking orders from.
And, much more importantly, these are not folks I'd want my kids looking up to. Or any of us, for that matter.
I want my kids to look to the only people they can really count on in life. People who genuinely care about them.
How sad that I once thought that might be found among folks in politics.
How completely clear to me, today, just how wrong I was.
More than any of the rest, I hope they become people who really care.
Because, truth be told, those are the only people I do, or ever will, really trust.
For those of you who blame your freedom for your woes in life.
Ahmadinejad blames capitalism for poverty
You're in good company.
Thanks for selling us all so short, by the way.
And thanks for giving this guy exactly the ammunition he needs to justify his tyrannical rule.
What would we ever do without that kind of wisdom?
The opposite of this guy, I suppose.
What a damned shame that'd be.
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.
Makes me want to fall in love, in the meantime.
And do good, for real.
Lady Gaga can have her money.
Jack Johnson is what music was made for.
The kind that really matters, that is.
In stark contrast to politics. Left and right.
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh Happy Making $36,000 A Year Working for Amazon
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.
Get excited about recycling? Not me.
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.
Facts, as it turns out, are more stubborn than people. Or their power. Or anything else, for that matter.
But love matters more.
What's the use, really, of stubborn facts, after all, without love enough to do any real good with them?
Not a damn thing. Says the student to his teacher. The man to his wife. The mother to her child. The child in her own heart.
Not a goddamned thing.
The reason I don't trust people in power in any government in any time to get questions of liberty right.
Justice Breyer: First Amendment Probably Doesn't Protect Burning The Koran
Because they get it wrong more often than they get it right.
And then they pass on. And future generations always liberalize. Always. Without exception.
And that is the long established road of progress. No matter Stephen Breyer's or anyone's opinions to the contrary.
Or anyone in power. Or anyone else, for that matter.
No matter how infallible we might otherwise wish we might be.
It never ceases to amaze me how younger generations, for all their often serious and copious faults, so frequently outclass their elders.
Bush Forfeits Heisman
"'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.
The bottom line for humanity.
"It was you, it was me, we've all got the blood on our hands. We only receive what we demand. And if we want hell, then hell's what we'll have."
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.
Ground Zero Mosque Imam: "Had I Known This Would Happen We Would Never Have Done This"
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.
How eminently American to have good and decent Muslims show up their fellow non-Muslim Americans in their faith in our core American values.
Translation: Step up, America. You're gettin' schooled.
Building on Faith
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.
And then George goes and buys me flowers.
The environmental movement in retreat
"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.
But perhaps we can learn to tell the difference.
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