POLITICS AND RELIGION

In the coming days before the election, I intend to devote my daily Buddhist meditation practice to sending wishes of goodwill to American voters on both sides of the political spectrum, from far left to far right.  May they base their decisions on the principles of compassion, justice, wisdom, and a dedication to the truth.

In yesterday's, Sunday New York Times there appeared a full-page advertisement purchased by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.  In it, the Reverend Graham admonished voters "to cast their ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel."  "I urge you to vote," he continued, "for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman."

I want to ask the Reverend Billy Graham which biblical principles he refers to, but I think I already know the answer.  They are the principles of the Old Testament, the principles of "thou shalt not," whose angry, vengeful God found it proper to smite the enemies of Israel--and all those who opposed his will.  I want to ask the Reverend why he advocates for those ancient principles, rather than those of the New Testament--the principles of compassion, mercy, justice for the meek and health for the sick, the principles that drove Jesus to turn over the tables of the money-lenders in the temple?  These are the principles out of which I myself would wish Americans to cast their vote.

As regards the "sanctity of life," to which the Reverend Graham refers, I'd refer readers to the excellent op-ed piece by Tom Friedman, Why I Am Pro-Life, also in yesterday's New York Times, in which he points out that, for many of Graham's evangelical persuasion,  the "sanctity of life" appears to apply solely to the period between conception and birth.  Post-partum, you're on your own to face, perhaps, a hail of bullets from a madman with an unregulated assault weapon or survive, unprotected and unaided, the ravages of poverty or disease.  In Buddhist thought, as I understand it, the principle of compassion applies not only to your fellow humans but extends to every living being--from birth to death.

I have been wondering, too, this week, how it must feel to know that you are the recipient of projections from literally billions of your fellow human beings.  The Jesus of the New Testament was the recipient of those projections: the adulation of those who found in him their need for compassion and understanding, the hatred of those who saw in him a threat to their old ways of thinking.

Where, I have been wondering--no comparison intended!--does President Obama find the strength and wisdom to deflect those billions of projections and maintain his sanity?  It must come, I suppose, from the realization that projections have more to say about the sender than the recipient: as readers of The Buddha Diaries know, I try to make it my practice, when I make a conscious effort to examine the judgments that come up, to learn what they have to teach me about myself, not the person about whom I make them.  The latter is most frequently merely a mirror for those things I dislike--or like!--about myself.

So I send metta to the American voter in the coming days, hoping that those many who hear the voices of evangelists and vote on biblical principles will vote on principles of the New Testament rather than the Old.

INTEGRITY

Integrity is as simple as saying what you mean and meaning what you say.  It’s what you’re known by and what you’re trusted for, if you are trusted; or what you are rightfully distrusted for, if you lack it.  

In my book, a man who changes what he says he believes in order to please or conform with those he’s speaking to is a man who lacks integrity.  I cannot trust what he tells me when I know that he will say something different when addressing someone else.  By the same token, a man who fails to disavow public statements made on his behalf that conflict with his own professed beliefs is a man who lacks integrity.  He does not earn my trust.

It has come down to this.  We should have known it all along.  In fact, we did know it.  From the start of his campaign, Mitt Romney has manifested a stunning absence of integrity.  If he has core beliefs, as he would have us believe, he has shown himself ready to cast them to the winds at the least contingency.  It is what he is known for.  The “etch-a-sketch” reputation is not unearned.  Watching the early Republican debates provided us with ample evidence of this propensity. 

I do no assail a man’s integrity easily.  It’s an uncomfortable thing for me to do, because a man’s integrity is his most valuable—and vulnerable—asset.  I would like to honor a man’s commitment to his religious beliefs, his uprightness, his constancy.  But in Mitt Romney’s case, all this rings hollow, it seems a sham when he fails to step forward and condemn the kind of outrageous bigotry and ignorance we have seen from his supporters and surrogates in recent days: to wit, Gov. John Sununu’s overtly racist slander of Gen. Colin Powell—a man, by the way, whose considerable integrity was mercilessly exploited by the former Republican president—following his endorsement of President Obama; and the unconscionable comments about rape from several prominent Republicans…

Even should he step forward now with forceful condemnation, we could not believe him.  We could believe it only another matter of political contingency.  It does not speak well for a man who would be president, that he sacrifices his integrity with a smile on his face, a joke, and a dismissive wave of the hand.  No last-minute pretense of compassion for the poor, of respect for women’s rights, of concern for the middle class, of peaceful global intentions rings true, when it comes from a man who makes no bones about publicly shredding his personal integrity in this way. 

Reason #38: Obama has made the world safer from the threat of Nuclear War

50 Days, 50 Reasons to Vote Obama — Reason #38

In contrast to Mitt Romney's sabre-rattling, President Obama has taken clear steps to make the world safer from the threat of nuclear weapons, including signing a landmark New START treaty with Russia in 2011.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/02/02/new-start-treaty-signed

Reason #39: Obama Established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

50 Days, 50 Reasons to Vote Obama — Reason #39

While the Congressional Republicans have done their best to render the President's new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau impotent, its founding lays the groudnwork for an important new set of protections for consumers against the unchecked greed of financial institutions. We can only hope that the silver lining in Elizabeth Warren's blocked appointment as the CFPB's head is her taking back Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat for Massachusetts.

http://www.consumerfinance.gov/

Reason #40: Michelle Obama's Whitehouse Kitchen Garden

50 Days, 50 Reasons to Vote Obama — Reason #40

The First Lady's vegetable garden is the most expansive to be planted at the White House, building on a long tradition of gardening at the President's residence. The garden sets an important example for the country, illustrating the connection between access to fresh fruits and vegetables in America's kitchens and the living healither, better fed lives.

American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307956024/

Reason #41: Obama believes goverment can be better

50 Days, 50 Reasons to Vote Obama — Reason #41

Government, to be sure, is no panacea. It can be overwrought, byzantine, inefficient, and burdensome. However, it is the only institution which can ensure that everyone gets a fare shake, that our environment is protected, that the needs of the whole country aren't eclipsed by the wants of the privledged. Obama isn't a blind champion of government, but instead a steadfast advocate for a better, more effective more efficient government. He's cut down on government waste, fraud, and excess, including: limiting lobbyists'  access, dismantling the Minerals Management Service, and freezing White House Salaries.

Reason #42: Aloha

50 Days, 50 Reasons to Vote Obama — Reason #42

As everybody knows — Donald Trump notwithstanding — the president was born in the United States. He has a remarkable story, but not only is he the first African American elected president, he's also the first citizen from Hawai'i to become president. Our country — our contentious, polarized nation — can use a little bit of Aloha.

Link: "Obama’s Hawaiian state of mind"

Reason #43: Obama is Steady, Determined, and Deliberate

50 Days, 50 Reasons to Vote Obama — Reason #43

There are plenty of quantitative policy reasons to vote for the president's reelection, but Obama also possesses a particular qualitative attribute which make him a great leader: his calm collected focus. Whether its his leadership in the pursuit of bin Laden, or his shepherding of the Affordable Care Act through congress, he has demonstrated himself as a leader who deserves our trust.

THE REAL ROMNEY

(Cross-posted from The Buddha Diaries)

I can't help myself.  The Buddhist in me tells I should be equanimous, but I woke angry in the middle of the night and, breathe as I might, I have not been able to dispel the anger.  

The pundits were telling us, before last night's Great Debate--as they had billed it: the most important political event in living memory, if not in the entire history of the country, perhaps the world!--they were assuring us that such occasions reveal the real man.  In Romney's case, that proved disastrously true.  And the real Romney turned out to be a steroid version of the same man we have been watching all along: a man so desperate for the power of the presidential office that he will do anything, say anything to achieve that end.

They had rebooted him in aggressive mode for the debate.  We in the television audience were subjected to his (pace, Buddha!) oily smile and self-righteously confident harangue for what seemed like a great deal more than his time share.  We have become familiar with his eagerness to backtrack on any previous action, position or policy proposal to suit his present purpose, and last night was no exception.  He dodged and ducked expertly, loudly and glibly disavowing much of what he has embraced publicly in the the course of years of campaigning, denying that his words meant what he once said they did, affecting new positions to compensate for those that had provoked justified public outrage.  He transformed himself, with a heavy dose of rhetoric, into a middle-class loving, poor-embracing, deficit-cutting magician, able with a turn of phrase to reduce taxes for everyone, increase military spending, and at the same time avoid cuts in anything, it seemed, but funding for Jim Lehrer and Big Bird.

Republican pundits may gloat over his overbearing performance and promote it as a demonstration of "strength" and "leadership."  I saw a man exposing an inner character that lacks both pity or remorse, a man whose ruthlessness knows no bounds--but who cloaks that harsh inner being in unctuous expressions of empathy.  I call his performance the most breathtaking, hectoring display of political mendacity I can remember, and can only hope that the American electorate will not be fooled by the deceptions, distortions and outright lies with which we were bombarded last night.  And yes, I'm angry.

Reason #44: Obama Knows that Wealth is Created by Shared Efforts

50 Days, 50 Reasons to Vote Obama — Reason #44

The notion that wealth "trickles down" is widely debunked. Yet, we hear the same theory again and again as an excuse for giving the most fortunate among us advantages which the majority do not enjoy. The differences between Gov. Romney and President Obama couldn't be more clear when it comes to this basic moral framework — Obama believes that our wealth and success as a nation is measured and created by opportunity and success for all people of all means, whereas Romney would hold that the work of the majority is there to fuel the success of the few.

Reason #45: Obama supports equal access to higher education

50 Days, 50 Reasons to Vote Obama — Reason #45

Republicans are fond of labeling Obama, and liberals in general, as "arrogant" and "elitest." Our country's academics and university faculty come under particular criticism from the right, despite the fact that our much of our country's intellectual property is invented and developed through academic instituions. This notion that higher education is somehow an arrogant pursuit, rather than a vehicle for personal betterment and societal advance, was crystalized in Rick Santorum's claim that Obama was a "snob" for supporting the notion that higher eduction should be accessible (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/03/news/la-pn-santorum-college-remarks-20120303).

While the GOP would look at higher education as a privilege, Obama has worked to make education more accessible, by expanding the Pell Grants program, giving more low income students the opportunity to go to college, signing the GI Bill 2.0, and shoring up student loan programs, making it easier for students to refinance and qualify for student aid.

Reason #46: Obama halted the XL pipeline

50 Days, 50 Reasons to Vote Obama — Reason #46

While the future of the XL Pipeline remains uncertain, it's clear that if Mitt Romney is elected, that the pipeline will get fast-tracked. The only hope that environmental groups have in convincing an administration that this is the wrong direction for solving our energy challenges is to elect a president who takes the needs of the environment into consideration when formulating energy policy.

Reason #47: Obama Stands Against the Definition of Corporations as People

50 Days, 50 Reasons to Vote Obama — Reason #47

We've already seen the damage that Citizens United has begun to inflict on our country — unchecked and undisclosed corporate donations have created a flood of Super-PAC-created "free speech," which does nothing but buoy the interests of corporations against the public good, and drown out the ability of (actual, living, breathing) people to have their voice heard.

President Obama stands firmly in support of the reversal of Citizens United, either through new litigation or a Constitutional amendment:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/29/barack-obama-citizens-united-ruling