IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE...

... to help me with this blog? It needs entries from voices other than my own, and I'm open to any suggestions as to how that might be achieved. I grabbed the URL a few months ago, noticing that it was as yet untaken and thinking that it might become another rallying point for those of us who continue to support the President. Watching the ill-informed, self-serving madness of the current Republican slate of candidates and their absurdly irrelevant and pusillanimous debates, I feel more strongly than ever that the election of any one of them would be a disaster for the country. And yet... I have little faith in the wisdom and discrimination of a significant number of voters, who seem entirely willing to be led by the nose to vote against their own interests. This President needs our support. I respond as I can to appeals for donations, not only from the President but for all Democratic races and causes. But I still feel that's not enough. I'm no millionaire; nor am I a corporation. VO2012 is a way for me to do what I can to support what I believe to be right. I know there are many who agree with me, good writers, who could contribute to this effort. I'd be grateful to hear from them.

Good Marks, Bad Marks.

I take issue this morning with Matt Lauer, of NBC's "Today" show. Not only does he choose to interview that great sage, Donald Trump, about his view on the current Republican candidates for the presidency, he allows to pass without comment Trump's assertion that the Obama presidency has been "a disaster." You would think that an interviewer, confronted with such a blanket condemnation, would pause to ask what he meant by that description. Lauer, however, did not so much as blink, let alone challenge the remark. It was as though the point was inarguable. His meek acceptance of Trump's absurd charge allowed his millions of (equally meek?) viewers to pass over it as an accepted truth. Bad marks for Matt Lauer.

Switching channels, I found myself watching Michelle Obama doing a great job with a military audience, announcing a new program which she and Dr. Jill Biden have spearheaded. Called "Joining Forces," it has brought together American companies, large and small, in the effort to provide employment for returning veterans and their spouses. Following his wife, Obama took the opportunity to once again slam the Republican-led Congress for inaction on his jobs bill. The couple spoke with intelligence, grace, and not a little humor, and with genuine concern for the most severe and pressing of issues the nation faces today. Good marks for them.

BACK TO WORK

Okay, it's time to get back to this blog. It has lain idle for a couple of months, in the doldrums of the summer. Fall, I note, resurfacing, is pretty much doldrums too. In Washington, the same fractious inaction in the US Congress, the same bickering, the same obstinate refusal to even consider or debate what's needed for the country. In the media, an obsession with what's going to happen a year from now.

Meanwhile, President Obama has produced a credible plan for addressing the country's direst problem: not the deficit, but jobs. Nothing will happen to solve the economic crisis without them. I credit him for persisting, despite all obstacles. I'm glad to see him focusing on the problem with appropriate intensity and unsparing criticism of those who seem to embrace inaction as a political strategy. The single issue worthy of Republican attention, it now seems, is to defeat Obama next November.

I watched with incredulity as candidate Rick Perry's wife whined to the media about the ill-treatment of her husband, even while happily joining the chorus of those heaping scornful blame on the President. It would take, she lamented, forty years to undo the damage that Obama has wrought. As I see it, he has only just begun to work on undoing the damage Ronald Reagan wrought--and that was quite a number of years ago. It's my belief that a second term would allow him to continue that work; and, if given at the same time a more powerfully Democratic Congress, to set the country back on the right course.

ANIMOSITY

(Cross-posted from The Buddha Diaries)

In the daily metta practice with which I start my meditation, I reiterate the wish to be free from animosity. It's easy enough when it comes to those I like, and with whom I generally agree; the hard part is with the people I dislike, and those with whom I disagree. They include, most recently, the politicians who have in my own view seemed bent on destroying this country. The dharma teaches me, wisely and I think correctly, that the animosity that arises serves only to introduce toxin into my own veins. It certainly does nothing to change those against whom it is directed.

These thoughts were stirred in part by the comment to my entry in The Buddha Diaries yesterday. I was writing about gratitude, concluding with a note about the surprise and plucky appearance of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to cast her vote on the debt ceiling bill in the House of Representatives, and my gratitude to her for reminding me of the importance of the vote. Not a word about Obama. But my entry somehow triggered the response you'll find if you check inthe comments section, filled with anger directed at "Obama the Eunuch."

I was aware of my own distress as I read and re-read the comment. Some of it came from that part of me that is uncomfortably close to agreement with the content of the writer's argument. It's clear that Obama has been weakened by the unmitigated hostility and adamant rejection with which every part of the agenda on which he was elected has been opposed. It has been relentless and unappeasable, from his first day in office. In my view--perhaps incorrectly--there are many of his supporters who have allowed themselves to be swept up in that hostility, too readily co-opted by the powerful tide of rejectionist action and propaganda. With the erosion of support on his own side, he becomes still more exposed and vulnerable. As I've written before, we on the left, who have learned to distrust authority whatever its source, are prone to the heady delights of king-killing.

That's my view. I find that I hold on to it even more tightly when I myself feel the beginnings of mistrust in it; or, particularly, when I feel it under attack. I pull back in, defensive. Intended or not as such, my correspondent's initial sarcasm and subsequent anger felt like personal animosity, and I withdrew into my shell to mull over its implications. This morning, as I suggested, I paid more than usual attention to my own animosities. I did my best to observe them and then let them go, along with the anger that accompanies them.

I was wondering aloud, at the Buddhist Geeks conference just a few days ago, whether anger ever serves a useful purpose. I believe it can, when it is directed with clear intention and used skillfully; to do so, I must understand what part of the anger is about me, and what part is genuinely about the injustice or malpractice that aroused it. Warrior energy is a necessary part of political action--see Sun Tzu's "The Art of War"--but used indiscriminately and tainted by personal animosity, it can be counter-productive.

The image of a solitary Obama signing a bill which clearly fell far short of his objectives--and equally short of my own sense of what is needed in our current economic crisis--filled me with sadness for both the man and the country that he seeks to serve. He is the target of so many millions of deeply divisive projections that he can scarcely hope to live up to more than a handful of them. There are those, of course, many, who wish him nothing but ill. And there are those, many, who feel that he has let them down; that he is not the man they took him for. I'm only surprised that he manages to tolerate with a semblance of grace the generous heapings of scorn that are dumped on him from both left and right.

I personally think that this would be a good time for us all to take a thoughtful look at our projections: if we think of Obama as the mirror, what is it that we see about ourselves when we look at him? The projection of blame is too easy an answer for our troubles. We have our own share of responsibility for the dreadful mess in which the country finds itself. As another correspondent wrote to me in an email today, "I'm highly disgusted with what's going on in Congress right now, [but] I have to keep reminding myself that we DO live in a democracy, don't we?"

We do. Well, I sometimes think rather that we live in an oligarchy that survives by successfully disguising itself as a democracy (I first typed "demoncracy"!) But, yes, we do. So we do not further our cause by trying to wish away or ignore the existence of the deep and powerful strain of conservatism that has been changing the balance of the American political system, not just in Obama's time but, with increasing power, these past several decades. Like it or not (I don't!), it's impossible to move in any direction without taking it into account. All very well to stand by and jeer at Obama's perceived lack of leadership from the sidelines. He's trying to quarterback a team that plays by the rules of human decency and fairness against bunch of steroid-powered thugs who don't care what tactics they use--or how many injuries are incurred--so long as they dominate the game. (Is this animosity? Or simple realism?)

I know that I'm in a growing minority in a cacophony of voices noisier and I'm sure far more effective than my own. I suspect, though, in a less demonstrable way, that I may be a part of a new "silent majority" that continues to support the President despite the ferocity of the attack. I will not yet surrender the "I Back Barack" bumper sticker on my car. Nor will I cease sending daily wishes of good will to both him and his opponents. And the same to my "anonymous" correspondent, whom I thank for challenging me to think again, again. I send out metta in full consciousness of the adverse circumstance, if only to preserve my own health, and sanity, and self-respect! May all beings be free from animosity...

ADDENDUM

( … to the letter I posted yesterday)

You remember that Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell pronouncement, at the very start of the Obama presidency, to the effect that the top priority of Republicans must be to get rid of him?

It seemed like an outrageous statement at the time, only hours into the new President's tenure, but his party has remained faithful to the literal word of that injunction. Since then, they have proved adamantly obstructive to every initiative and every nomination that the President has made. They have embraced every procedural trick in the Congressional rule book to thwart his legislative agenda. They have voted virtually unanimously, as a bloc, against his every proposal, no matter how inconsequential. They have perverted the political process. They have not hesitated to stoop to personal insult, loudly and in public. They have not been ashamed to accept the chilling embrace of hatred or the fanaticism of extremists when it served their cause in diminishing his power and rendering him vulnerable to attack. They have maligned his every idea with distortions and lies. They have been openly rude, un-generous to a fault, and intolerant. They have gone out of their way to ridicule him personally—and have not even spared his wife. They have been relentless in their attacks on his character as well as on the policies and goals for which he was elected.

In their eagerness to get rid of him, they have maliciously misrepresented him to voters. They won the mid-term elections with promises they have not attempted to fulfill, relying instead on their ability to foment still greater dissatisfaction and distrust among their followers. They have on multiple occasions arrogantly spurned the genuinely friendly hand held out to them, preferring instead to humble with their disdain the man who generously held it out.

In all this, Obama has managed to retain his dignity and poise. He has been consistently statesman-like in both speech and action. He has declined all opportunities to descend to the level of those attacking him, and has been unfailingly respectful of even the hostile and opinionated views of others. He has invited the opinion of opponents and has been willing—some would say too willing—to find grounds for compromise. He has for the most part brushed aside insult with quiet humor and politeness. Accused of weakness, he has shown strength, decisiveness, and remarkable courage. Accused of remaining silent on important issues, he has wisely demonstrated the value of biding his time and speaking forcefully at the right moment. He has shown infinite patience with detractors to left and right. He frankly admits to his mistakes and acknowledges—indeed, shares—the disappointments and frustration of many of those who supported him.

Given his ability to negotiate obstacles placed in his way, I am astounded that he has managed to achieve as much as he has done thus far. I support his re-election not out of resignation that the other side only offers worse, but because I believe that he still has the vision that most nearly reflects my own, along with the determination to do everything in his power to make it happen. I am encouraged by yesterday’s news about the extraordinarily successful initial fund-raising for his campaign—a success that will undoubtedly be used to denigrate him further, and sadly by both political opponents and many of my friends on the left. I am hearted to know, in view of dire predictions that he has alienated his political base, that his campaign has managed to attract hundreds of thousands of new supporters, and that the modesty of the majority of donations suggests a groundswell of grass roots support that will confound accepted political wisdom.

I believe, in short, that there is a new "silent majority" of Americans who share my view of Obama and who will come out to vote for him. Republicans may believe that they can fool enough of the people enough of the time to achieve McConnell's goal. I myself believe that they are only just now beginning to reap the bitter harvest that is ripening from the rotten seeds they have sown.

A Note to a Friend

Here's an email I sent this morning to a friend, following a heated exchange last evening at a group meeting that we both attended. My friend was clearly deeply disappointed with Obama, as were several others on hand, and her disappointment found expression in scathing anger. I did not offer much in the way of a response at the time, partly because I believe that heat trumps reason in such circumstances--and we need reason more than heat. I dropped her this line this morning:

Dear .....

My apologies for not having had the energy to enter into the debate last night, but I believe that your anger at Obama is misdirected. You are in danger, as I see it, of being manipulated by a clever Republican/corporate strategy to have their way and blame the president for the results. The Republican Senate leader's latest solution to the debt ceiling crisis is a perfect example: pass a bill allow Obama to raise the debt ceiling over the objections of the Congress!

I myself believe that the president is doing what he can to abide by his own principles--those he was perfectly clear and honest about when he ran for election. As Maya Angelou observed, it is not so much a matter of Obama abandoning his supporters as they abandoning him.

Though I understand the frustration in today's poisonous political scene, it distresses me greatly to see my fellow progressive/democratic/socialist thinkers lash out against the man who comes closest to representing our vision of a better country. It only adds to the toxicity, and serves the interests of those who seek to control and profit from the inaction you identify. Could it be that, unwittingly, your anger is being stoked and manipulated by the very interests you oppose?

Best, Peter

The Value of Nuance... Another Voice

I put in a note the other day about the value of nuance. On the same topic, here's the great pianist, Emmanuel Ax, in a letter in today's New York Times. It's a response to last week's snarky column by Maureen Dowd. I trust the President knows there are many of us out here in the "reality-based world" who do value nuance, and understand it to be essential to good government. It is not, as some take it to be, a sign of weakness (read The Art of War!) but rather one of intelligence and respect, both qualities in which a large number of our politicians are noticeably lacking.