Not being listened to; that feeling that tells you no matter how many petitions you sign, or emails you send, the people on the other end of the line couldn't care less about whether you have a decent job, can make rent, buy food, or buy your kids pens and pencils for school. It's demeaning. It's dehumanizing. And it's infuriating.
If I had a dollar for every petition I've signed, every email, every letter I've sent to my elected officials over the last few years, I wouldn't be writing this. I'd be heading out the back door of my Costa Rica beach house, surfboard underarm, aiming to catch the afternoon glass. I'm not quite ready to say petitions and emails and letters don't matter, but when the signs are clear that no one in Washington is taking them seriously, then it's time to take it to the next level.
In that spirit I headed down to Occupy Roanoke. The first thing to catch my eye were the signs. A young college student with an accent I couldn't quite place stood on the curb holding up brown cardboard on which she'd neatly written: "I Can't Afford my own Politician, so I Made this Sign." Now, I thought, there's a sentiment I can get with. Every once in a while she'd flip it over to the backside where she'd written, "Abolish the Fed." Well, I'll have to give that one some thought.
"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign..." that old song from the Five Man Electrical Band began playing in my head.
Have a concern? Here's the paint. Here's the crayons and markers. Help yourself. Make your own. Stand a post. Or pick up one of the pre-made that reflect your sentiments and get over to the curb. Make your voice heard. "Honk if You're One of the 99%" And I heard a lot of horns throughout the day. I picked up the one that said, "Whatever Happened to Shared Sacrifice?"
We were aging radicals from the sixties. And we were middle school students. And college students, environmental activists concerned about climate change. Some of us had jobs. Some hadn't worked in a long while. We were Vietnam and WWII vets. Conservatives. Progressives. Independents. Republicans. Democrats. Homeless folks taking advantage of the free potato soup. Each and all gathered while folk musicians and drummers provided the soundtrack. Diversity was the order of the day.
An organizer stood at the foot of the monument. "It's about time for the two-o'clock march. So here are the rules: be true to our non-violent commitment; be respectful of one another and of pedestrians, they have the right-of-way; if confronted, let the people with the orange armbands move in to diffuse the situation; invite others to join us; we are the 99%"
Off we went. Down the main drag of downtown, passed the big banks, over to the city market and back up to the park. We chanted "We Are the 99%" as passers-by gave us the thumbs up, or just broke into applause. " And "Tell me what democracy looks like.... THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!" with the drummers keeping time.
Speaker time. Want to make yourself heard? Sign up over there. You've got five minutes to make your case. The case for bringing our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. The case for spending that two billion a month to repair crumbling bridges that aren't safe to drive on and pot holes you can lose a Volkswagen in. The case for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision that makes the voice of the people null and void in the halls of power. For banning all corporate money in politics to put and end to corporate Fascism and restore representative Democracy. The case for decent jobs for a liveable wage. The case for Rand Paul and abolishing the Federal Reserve. Whatever....
"Tell me what democracy looks like. THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!
And underlying every word, the deep-felt concern, the awareness, the certainty, that nobody in Washington is listening... So this is why we're here. You can't run. You can't hide. We're tired of not being listened to, and we're just not going to take it any more. Ignoring us is about as wise as sitting on a powder keg while smoking one of your fat corporate-bought cigars.
A sentiment I found well expressed by the young man I passed as I left the park to head home. He had the grizzled look of a young mountain man. On his back was a baby pack with a very young child. Above the pack he'd made a frame for his sign: "Fear Us. We've Already Lost Everything."
Now it begins.... more to follow....
The Jawbone
Monday, October 17, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Should Death Sentences be Chiseled in Stone, or Written with Pencil?
Next Wednesday, Troy Davis may die. An African-American man convicted of killing a Savannah, Georgia, police officer in 1989, Davis is the latest face at the center of the death penalty debate. The operative word here is "may." A petition of over 663,000 names, mine among them, has been presented to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. The petition calls on the five member board, which will meet Monday to decide Davis' fate, to set aside his death sentence. A simple majority is all that's required for the thumbs up, or down.
Controversy surrounds Davis' conviction. Since the trial, seven of nine witnesses have either recanted or altered their sworn testimony. And Davis has never faltered in his claim of innocence. Given these circumstances, the Georgia Board should commute the sentence. In the face of such uncertainty, caution should prevail, the benefit of doubt given to the condemned.
In all cases, I am opposed to the death penalty. I prefer the sentence of life in prison, without parole. It allows for a bit off leeway in what is, at very best, a system of justice that is imperfect, subject to error. From time to time, we screw up. The prisoner can be released. The dead, whether innocent or guilty, remain forever in the grave.
David R. Dow, founder of the Texas Innocence Project, provides names and faces and stories of justice gone awry. There's Francis Newton, executed for killing her two children and husband; without getting a drop of blood or gunpowder residue on herself. Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004, for killing his three children by setting the house on fire. Problem is, four national arson experts reviewed the case, each concluding the fire was accidental. There's Anthony Graves, released after fourteen years on death row, exonerated in 2010. We could go on. But even a single case makes the point.
Certainty is rarely, if ever, possible. DNA? Very useful, to be sure, both in exonerating the wrongly convicted and in convicting the rightly accused. Infallible evidence? Not so fast there. Evidence is gathered by often careful but sometimes careless investigators, processed by usually exacting but sometimes overly fatigued lab technicians. Maybe an inadvertent mistake was made.
Hubris. Any arrogance that refuses to admit the possibility of error is a dangerous thing. Pride goeth before a wrongful execution.When asked in Wednesday night's Republican debate whether he struggled with the possibility that an innocent person had been executed on his watch, candidate and Governor of Texas Rick Perry answered, "Ive never struggled with that at all."
234 executions and counting on his watch; that's some sense of certainty there, Governor. Are you sure a bit of caution might not be a good idea? I mean, the odds alone should give a thinking individual pause. But better not to waver. The Presidency is at stake. And that's what bothers me.
I'm not for coddling violent criminals. I read of crimes so heinous that I give thanks my guns are behind lock and key. At the news of such horrors, I find within myself a rage that would, given the proper time and circumstance, compel me to drop the hammer on the perpetrator myself. Lock and key provide just enough delay to allow more sane thoughts to regain their appropriate place in my psyche.
That pause for reflection is what a justice system is supposed to provide, lest we confuse our concern for justice with our thirst, understandable at times, for revenge.
I hope the Georgia Board will decide in favor of Troy Davis. No criminal conviction should ever be chiseled in stone. Better to write in pencil. That makes it easier to go back and correct our mistakes.
The Jawbone
Controversy surrounds Davis' conviction. Since the trial, seven of nine witnesses have either recanted or altered their sworn testimony. And Davis has never faltered in his claim of innocence. Given these circumstances, the Georgia Board should commute the sentence. In the face of such uncertainty, caution should prevail, the benefit of doubt given to the condemned.
In all cases, I am opposed to the death penalty. I prefer the sentence of life in prison, without parole. It allows for a bit off leeway in what is, at very best, a system of justice that is imperfect, subject to error. From time to time, we screw up. The prisoner can be released. The dead, whether innocent or guilty, remain forever in the grave.
David R. Dow, founder of the Texas Innocence Project, provides names and faces and stories of justice gone awry. There's Francis Newton, executed for killing her two children and husband; without getting a drop of blood or gunpowder residue on herself. Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004, for killing his three children by setting the house on fire. Problem is, four national arson experts reviewed the case, each concluding the fire was accidental. There's Anthony Graves, released after fourteen years on death row, exonerated in 2010. We could go on. But even a single case makes the point.
Certainty is rarely, if ever, possible. DNA? Very useful, to be sure, both in exonerating the wrongly convicted and in convicting the rightly accused. Infallible evidence? Not so fast there. Evidence is gathered by often careful but sometimes careless investigators, processed by usually exacting but sometimes overly fatigued lab technicians. Maybe an inadvertent mistake was made.
Hubris. Any arrogance that refuses to admit the possibility of error is a dangerous thing. Pride goeth before a wrongful execution.When asked in Wednesday night's Republican debate whether he struggled with the possibility that an innocent person had been executed on his watch, candidate and Governor of Texas Rick Perry answered, "Ive never struggled with that at all."
234 executions and counting on his watch; that's some sense of certainty there, Governor. Are you sure a bit of caution might not be a good idea? I mean, the odds alone should give a thinking individual pause. But better not to waver. The Presidency is at stake. And that's what bothers me.
I'm not for coddling violent criminals. I read of crimes so heinous that I give thanks my guns are behind lock and key. At the news of such horrors, I find within myself a rage that would, given the proper time and circumstance, compel me to drop the hammer on the perpetrator myself. Lock and key provide just enough delay to allow more sane thoughts to regain their appropriate place in my psyche.
That pause for reflection is what a justice system is supposed to provide, lest we confuse our concern for justice with our thirst, understandable at times, for revenge.
I hope the Georgia Board will decide in favor of Troy Davis. No criminal conviction should ever be chiseled in stone. Better to write in pencil. That makes it easier to go back and correct our mistakes.
The Jawbone
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Apocalypse Now
I'd just settled into the easy chair at Barnes and Nobles cafe when it felt as though someone had just bumped into the back of my chair. Hmm, some careless barrista banging his cart into the other side of the wall, I thought. Then the growing vibration, the more than occasional bumping, felt through the back of the chair, the floor, the lady over in the corner pulling off her headset, "Do you feel that?" Between strangers, knowing glances asking without words, "When do we run?" A young man at the table in front of me, "It's an earthquake. They're feeling it in Washington."
"The Utne Reader" is not a magazine I'd picked up in a while, years, actually. What unconscious prescience had brought me to turn to the article on--check out the current edition for yourself--on nature's apocalypse--specifically, Haiti style? At least that's what I think the article is about. I made it only to the third paragraph before the conversation between author and reader was somewhat rudely interrupted by Mother Nature.
I live a few miles south of the epicenter. Believe me, what we coffee drinkers and readers and laptoppers felt here was nothing close to the twist and shout they got in D.C. and destinations north. For a few moments I was the only one in the room who recognized what was happening. Indianapolis, Indiana sits over a major fault line, the name of which I don't recall. Midera, Madra something or other that sounds like that's the name.
Back in the eighties when our young family was living there, several times we'd be sitting at dinner and notice the wine beginning to move back and forth in tiny waves inside the glass. Such are the moments when our language allows us to mingle the sacred with the profane--Holy Shit! A phrase recognizable to most everyone from the deep South to my beloved New England just a few hours ago.
Earth moves beneath your feet, and something inside you is moved to summon whatever Sacred powers we may hope exist; while we simultaneously recognize the unsavory fragilities of human existence. My mother may not like my using the phrase, but "Holy Shit!" well describes human experience.
Rarely do I listen to the radio when I'm driving. Today was no exception, preferring to rock out to a CD I'd just picked up of my favorite live Fleetwood Mac concert, "The Dance." On my day off I much prefer Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks rocking "Go Your Own Way" to one another than having to listen to yet another Rick Perry idiotic misreading of American history. (No, Mr. Perry, the Black experience cannot be likened to the Republican quest for less taxes! But don't get me started.)
I was surprised when I got home and turned on the news to discover that what had been a little rumbling at the book store was in fact much more. And, much, much more. Seems there was more damage than a few cracked walls and fallen chimneys and smashed cars.
I mean, Holy Shit! As if...? I mean, As if an earthquake isn't enough! There's this hurricane that looks like it's trying to make up it's fickle mind whether to slam Florida or cut right and head into North Carolina and Virginia before it goes after my younger daughter and her horses up in New England.
But, wait a minute, CNN is cutting away to Libya because the rebels have taken Gadaffe's compound and no one knows where he is.... Then there's this quick cut back to the House of Representatives guy who's saying our intelligence community and whoever the Hell else is in charge needs to get over there really fast because we need to find a way to make sure the mustard gas and other chemical weapons don't fall into "the wrong hands...."
Okay. Here we go. It's nine pm, my time. Nine pm. Our time. All of our times. The earth has shifted beneath our feet. There's a major hurricane bearing down on us. And a bunch of rag-tag hero freedom fighters who don't know shit from shit about running a country are suddenly sitting on top of God only knows how much Weapons of Mass Destruction stuff that could wipe out half of New York if the wrong fanatics get hold of it.
Damn. I just can't figure out how I keep picking the wrong day to stop drinking!
Let's sort this out. Two events, earthquake and hurricane, are Mother Nature's invention. I can't; you can't; none of us can do squat about whatever Ms. Nature decides to do. It's sort of like that old margarine ad: Mother Nature's back! And, I would ad, She's pissed!! And after everything we've made her suffer through, who could blame her? Nature brings her version of Apocalypse.
Then there's this other situation. Libya. Gaddafi. WMD. Well, I guess we humans have to take responsibility for that. Just as we, as a species--well, what else do you think we are? if not one more species beside the rest of the bugs and bees and grasshoppers and birds and, well, you get it... We bring our own apocalypse... Libya. Washington. Our decisions have consequences. Karma happens. We make history. History makes us. It's always both/and. Apocalypse Now.
When I was a doctoral candidate, my committee chairman, a scholar now well known to all in the field of the history of religions, told me, "Alan, history is a whirlwind. Often, we are caught up in it. But we are never without freedom. We choose how we will respond to the events that sweep us up in histories' storms."
Okay. It's now almost ten o'clock, my time, our time. This is all totally freelance... So I ask... How am I going to respond to all I've experienced today? Tomorrow morning? What kind of attitude am I going to get up with? It's my choice. ?
Hey, it comes down to this: we hit the world with one of two attitudes, life preferences, ways of being in this world.... Either I choose to go out into this world tomorrow morning with.... either an attitude of faith... or fear... I choose faith.
Faith in myself as a moral human being who knows that were it not for my sense of morality, of right and wrong, I could not have written any of this. Faith in the teachings of Christ, and of the Dalai Lama; that is: that compassion for all sentient beings is the highest ethical standard to which any of us can aspire.
Fear cringes. Fear hides in a cave. Fear says I can't do anything that matters. Fear says we are the helpless pawns of blind fate... and nothing besides.
Faith says I will have compassion. Compassion says, I care, and I'll do all I can for the victims of natural disaster.
Faith, the very essence of compassion, says, I do all I can for the victims of man-made catastrophe, like Libya, or.... wherever humanity has used it's freedom to royally screw up.
Okay. So. I mean, Holy Shit! What a day to stop drinking! Natural disasters by the truckload. Human malevolence that could destroy millions! So.... really.... how do I get up in the morning and carry on?
Faith? Fear? You figure it out.... I'm going to bed... But.... See you tomorrow...
The Jawbone
"The Utne Reader" is not a magazine I'd picked up in a while, years, actually. What unconscious prescience had brought me to turn to the article on--check out the current edition for yourself--on nature's apocalypse--specifically, Haiti style? At least that's what I think the article is about. I made it only to the third paragraph before the conversation between author and reader was somewhat rudely interrupted by Mother Nature.
I live a few miles south of the epicenter. Believe me, what we coffee drinkers and readers and laptoppers felt here was nothing close to the twist and shout they got in D.C. and destinations north. For a few moments I was the only one in the room who recognized what was happening. Indianapolis, Indiana sits over a major fault line, the name of which I don't recall. Midera, Madra something or other that sounds like that's the name.
Back in the eighties when our young family was living there, several times we'd be sitting at dinner and notice the wine beginning to move back and forth in tiny waves inside the glass. Such are the moments when our language allows us to mingle the sacred with the profane--Holy Shit! A phrase recognizable to most everyone from the deep South to my beloved New England just a few hours ago.
Earth moves beneath your feet, and something inside you is moved to summon whatever Sacred powers we may hope exist; while we simultaneously recognize the unsavory fragilities of human existence. My mother may not like my using the phrase, but "Holy Shit!" well describes human experience.
Rarely do I listen to the radio when I'm driving. Today was no exception, preferring to rock out to a CD I'd just picked up of my favorite live Fleetwood Mac concert, "The Dance." On my day off I much prefer Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks rocking "Go Your Own Way" to one another than having to listen to yet another Rick Perry idiotic misreading of American history. (No, Mr. Perry, the Black experience cannot be likened to the Republican quest for less taxes! But don't get me started.)
I was surprised when I got home and turned on the news to discover that what had been a little rumbling at the book store was in fact much more. And, much, much more. Seems there was more damage than a few cracked walls and fallen chimneys and smashed cars.
I mean, Holy Shit! As if...? I mean, As if an earthquake isn't enough! There's this hurricane that looks like it's trying to make up it's fickle mind whether to slam Florida or cut right and head into North Carolina and Virginia before it goes after my younger daughter and her horses up in New England.
But, wait a minute, CNN is cutting away to Libya because the rebels have taken Gadaffe's compound and no one knows where he is.... Then there's this quick cut back to the House of Representatives guy who's saying our intelligence community and whoever the Hell else is in charge needs to get over there really fast because we need to find a way to make sure the mustard gas and other chemical weapons don't fall into "the wrong hands...."
Okay. Here we go. It's nine pm, my time. Nine pm. Our time. All of our times. The earth has shifted beneath our feet. There's a major hurricane bearing down on us. And a bunch of rag-tag hero freedom fighters who don't know shit from shit about running a country are suddenly sitting on top of God only knows how much Weapons of Mass Destruction stuff that could wipe out half of New York if the wrong fanatics get hold of it.
Damn. I just can't figure out how I keep picking the wrong day to stop drinking!
Let's sort this out. Two events, earthquake and hurricane, are Mother Nature's invention. I can't; you can't; none of us can do squat about whatever Ms. Nature decides to do. It's sort of like that old margarine ad: Mother Nature's back! And, I would ad, She's pissed!! And after everything we've made her suffer through, who could blame her? Nature brings her version of Apocalypse.
Then there's this other situation. Libya. Gaddafi. WMD. Well, I guess we humans have to take responsibility for that. Just as we, as a species--well, what else do you think we are? if not one more species beside the rest of the bugs and bees and grasshoppers and birds and, well, you get it... We bring our own apocalypse... Libya. Washington. Our decisions have consequences. Karma happens. We make history. History makes us. It's always both/and. Apocalypse Now.
When I was a doctoral candidate, my committee chairman, a scholar now well known to all in the field of the history of religions, told me, "Alan, history is a whirlwind. Often, we are caught up in it. But we are never without freedom. We choose how we will respond to the events that sweep us up in histories' storms."
Okay. It's now almost ten o'clock, my time, our time. This is all totally freelance... So I ask... How am I going to respond to all I've experienced today? Tomorrow morning? What kind of attitude am I going to get up with? It's my choice. ?
Hey, it comes down to this: we hit the world with one of two attitudes, life preferences, ways of being in this world.... Either I choose to go out into this world tomorrow morning with.... either an attitude of faith... or fear... I choose faith.
Faith in myself as a moral human being who knows that were it not for my sense of morality, of right and wrong, I could not have written any of this. Faith in the teachings of Christ, and of the Dalai Lama; that is: that compassion for all sentient beings is the highest ethical standard to which any of us can aspire.
Fear cringes. Fear hides in a cave. Fear says I can't do anything that matters. Fear says we are the helpless pawns of blind fate... and nothing besides.
Faith says I will have compassion. Compassion says, I care, and I'll do all I can for the victims of natural disaster.
Faith, the very essence of compassion, says, I do all I can for the victims of man-made catastrophe, like Libya, or.... wherever humanity has used it's freedom to royally screw up.
Okay. So. I mean, Holy Shit! What a day to stop drinking! Natural disasters by the truckload. Human malevolence that could destroy millions! So.... really.... how do I get up in the morning and carry on?
Faith? Fear? You figure it out.... I'm going to bed... But.... See you tomorrow...
The Jawbone
Monday, July 25, 2011
Welcome to the Age of the Blind Fanatic
"I must confess that the great political movements of our day frighten me with their reckless
certainties and their insistence on treating people as means to be manipulated rather than as ends
for which government exists. Liberalism and conservatism, in their current incarnations, both
possess great ideas, worthy of a fair hearing and fair debate... and great capacities for hatred."
(from Integrity, Stephen L. Carter, 1996, p. 209)
That strange whirring sound you hear when you step outside should alarm you. It's the sound of James Madison spinning in his grave. James, you may remember, was one of those Founding Fathers we seem to be hearing so much about these days. It was Madison who warned, in The Federalist No. 10, against letting our politics be overrun by "factions." Factions, he believed, are by their very nature destructive of authentic democracy.
It seems we've enetered into the age Madison most feared, the age when politics is taken over by factions; welcome to the Age of the Blind Fanatic.
These insane zealots seem to be everywhere. The Blind Fanatics are easily recognizable. You can pick them out of any crowd. They are certain, absolutely certain, that they are right, and everyone, and I mean everyone else, is wrong. And, lest anyone doubt their righteousness, their position is always endorsed by their particular notion of "God." They harbour no doubt, none, that God is on their side--and no one elses. Anyone who disagrees with their ideaology, whether it be political, economic, moral, or religious, is not merely someone with a different opinion worthy of respect and civil debate, but an enemy to be not only feared, but hated, and, if possible, destroyed, or at very least, driven from the public square.
Make no mistake about it, there is an insanity to this age. Once again, this week we've been reminded of how far the Blind Fanatic will go, so consumed is he by his self-assured, God-endorsed, ideological purity that slaughtering children at a summer camp is not beyond his moral certainty. And, lest we be tempted to point the accusing finger too quickly at others, we need remember only two words: Oaklahoma City. America, too, has its lunatic fringe.
Most Blind Fanatics are not violent, of course. These are truly the lunatic fringe. I use the fringe to illustrate just how crazy all this can get. But there is one idea, one notion, one absolute principle the Blind Fanatic of every stripe, ideology, religion, politics, morals or whatever holds sacred: Compromise is the language of the Devil. To the Blind Fanatic, the very mention of the vile, disgusting, immoral, word compromise means you are the Devil incarnate, the enemy, the traitor who must be eliminated. As we have been reminded, some are a bit more extreme in their understanding of what it means to eliminate the opposition than others.
In the Age of the Blind Fanatic democracy becomes impossible. Because democracy is itself the language of compromise. It works only when those involved are willing to consider that those with other views might---Good God!!---actually have a valid point or two; only when those involved become willing not only to present their position but listen to someone else's.
Just over two-and-a-half millennia ago, the Buddha did some experiementing and came up with this really innovative idea. He tried the high life, denying himself no pleasures. That didn't lead to the happiness he sought. So he tried the other extreme, radical self-denial. That didn't quite cut it either. About that time he heard someone tuning a stringed instrument. Too tight, the string breaks. Too loose and you can't hit the note. But if you tune it just right, not too tight, not too loose, you can play the instrument. So, being rather a bright sort, he concluded the truth of right living just might be somewhere in between the two extremes. This was the Buddha's "middle way."
The political implications are inescapable. I wonder, What would Buddha do? Would he increase revenues or cut spending? Or would he seek the middle way? Quite probably. And if we are to believe the polls this middle way is what most of us would like Washington to find. The vast majority of us have no desire to live in this Age of Blind Fanaticism, preferring instead a more reasoned approach to our politics.
The middle way is the way of shared sacrifice; the way of shared responsibility for the well being of the least among us--the poor, the young, the elderly, the weak, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the powerless, the social and economic outcasts.
Demanding anything less from our leadership amounts to a sellout of democracy to the very factionalism James Madison warned us against.
The Jawbone
certainties and their insistence on treating people as means to be manipulated rather than as ends
for which government exists. Liberalism and conservatism, in their current incarnations, both
possess great ideas, worthy of a fair hearing and fair debate... and great capacities for hatred."
(from Integrity, Stephen L. Carter, 1996, p. 209)
That strange whirring sound you hear when you step outside should alarm you. It's the sound of James Madison spinning in his grave. James, you may remember, was one of those Founding Fathers we seem to be hearing so much about these days. It was Madison who warned, in The Federalist No. 10, against letting our politics be overrun by "factions." Factions, he believed, are by their very nature destructive of authentic democracy.
It seems we've enetered into the age Madison most feared, the age when politics is taken over by factions; welcome to the Age of the Blind Fanatic.
These insane zealots seem to be everywhere. The Blind Fanatics are easily recognizable. You can pick them out of any crowd. They are certain, absolutely certain, that they are right, and everyone, and I mean everyone else, is wrong. And, lest anyone doubt their righteousness, their position is always endorsed by their particular notion of "God." They harbour no doubt, none, that God is on their side--and no one elses. Anyone who disagrees with their ideaology, whether it be political, economic, moral, or religious, is not merely someone with a different opinion worthy of respect and civil debate, but an enemy to be not only feared, but hated, and, if possible, destroyed, or at very least, driven from the public square.
Make no mistake about it, there is an insanity to this age. Once again, this week we've been reminded of how far the Blind Fanatic will go, so consumed is he by his self-assured, God-endorsed, ideological purity that slaughtering children at a summer camp is not beyond his moral certainty. And, lest we be tempted to point the accusing finger too quickly at others, we need remember only two words: Oaklahoma City. America, too, has its lunatic fringe.
Most Blind Fanatics are not violent, of course. These are truly the lunatic fringe. I use the fringe to illustrate just how crazy all this can get. But there is one idea, one notion, one absolute principle the Blind Fanatic of every stripe, ideology, religion, politics, morals or whatever holds sacred: Compromise is the language of the Devil. To the Blind Fanatic, the very mention of the vile, disgusting, immoral, word compromise means you are the Devil incarnate, the enemy, the traitor who must be eliminated. As we have been reminded, some are a bit more extreme in their understanding of what it means to eliminate the opposition than others.
In the Age of the Blind Fanatic democracy becomes impossible. Because democracy is itself the language of compromise. It works only when those involved are willing to consider that those with other views might---Good God!!---actually have a valid point or two; only when those involved become willing not only to present their position but listen to someone else's.
Just over two-and-a-half millennia ago, the Buddha did some experiementing and came up with this really innovative idea. He tried the high life, denying himself no pleasures. That didn't lead to the happiness he sought. So he tried the other extreme, radical self-denial. That didn't quite cut it either. About that time he heard someone tuning a stringed instrument. Too tight, the string breaks. Too loose and you can't hit the note. But if you tune it just right, not too tight, not too loose, you can play the instrument. So, being rather a bright sort, he concluded the truth of right living just might be somewhere in between the two extremes. This was the Buddha's "middle way."
The political implications are inescapable. I wonder, What would Buddha do? Would he increase revenues or cut spending? Or would he seek the middle way? Quite probably. And if we are to believe the polls this middle way is what most of us would like Washington to find. The vast majority of us have no desire to live in this Age of Blind Fanaticism, preferring instead a more reasoned approach to our politics.
The middle way is the way of shared sacrifice; the way of shared responsibility for the well being of the least among us--the poor, the young, the elderly, the weak, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the powerless, the social and economic outcasts.
Demanding anything less from our leadership amounts to a sellout of democracy to the very factionalism James Madison warned us against.
The Jawbone
Monday, July 11, 2011
Progress is Made
There must be some kinda way outta here,
Said the joker to the thief.
There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief...
From All Along the Watchtower
by Bob Dylan
This whole charade makes me want to get into my car, drive up to D.C., park in front of the Capital, get out, calmly jog up those long white steps, bump into the first elected officeholder I meet and, with complete disregard for party affiliation, beat the living shit out of them. Not that I would ever actually do so, at least not this week. But I don't think I'm alone in the frustration.
I am a political junkie. Depending on what time I need to be at work, my day begins with Joe and Mika and Mike, flipping back and forth between MSNBC, CNN, HLN, Today, Good Morning America, and CBS Morning. At our house we have dinner with Chris and Chenk, Lawrence and Ed and Wolff and their guests. But after a while, the constant barrage of almost incomprehensible stupidity, the failure to act, the divisions, the meaningless rhetoric, the endless wars, the body counts, the bullshit coming out of Washington while the rest of us struggle with rising food prices and gas prices and the prices of everything else while the rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed becomes overwhelming, and infuriating.
"There must be some kinda way outta here.... too much confusion...." I can relate. There just isn't any good news, a friend said to me not long ago. It certainly seems so.
There are times when I need to get some distance between me and the evening bad news. Times to move out a bit and get some perspective on things. I've found that distance is often the only thing between my sanity and despair. I've always loved that opening paragraph to Moby Dick, that reads, in part:
"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself pausing involuntarily before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."
There has to be an ebb and flow to my involvement in the affairs of the day. There has to be a balance. There is a time to tune in, sign petitions, help with the campaign, man the phone bank, write blogs and letters, swear at the idiot on television, call my representatives, email, demonstrate and march, meet up and join up and join in.
But all of that has to be balanced with, as Melville says so well, a "time to get to sea as soon as I can." When, like this week, nothing is getting done and we seem governed by a confederacy of dunces advised by dim-witted professional dullards, I need to go sit and watch the waves, and, if the surf's up, ride a few.
I live inland now, so I don't surf as much as I used to. But the spiritual principle is the same. We need time sitting on the mountain, hiking the trail, watching the waves, sitting in the boat with a line in the water, or on the meditation cushion, doing whatever it is we do to touch the Infinite, to breathe, regain focus. Perspective is everything. To be is to do and if we forget to just be we soon have no idea what to do next.
Politics and spirituality meet the moment we ask, How shall we live together? How will we govern ourselves with justice and compassion? And how do we stand up to those in power who clearly don't give a damn about either?
Now, things are a mess. But when I take time to just be, to get in touch with the Infinite, I realize we are in this for the long haul. Change does happen. Progress is made. It just takes a while. There is a direction, an arch to history. As Dr. King reminded us, "it bends toward justice."
When I was in elementary school my mother and I would occasionally walk the couple of blocks down to the drug store. That was the early sixties, when drug stores had lunch counters. One day I was sitting at that lunch counter drinking my favorite chocolate shake. I noticed a sign behind the counter that said, "We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone." On the walk back home I asked what that meant. "It means they won't serve Negroes at the lunch counter. And it really shouldn't be that way." It would take a few more years before I had any real understanding of what she meant.
But lunch counters would play a significant role in the Civil Rights movement. Now the sign and the apartheid it sanctioned are gone. Progress is made, slowly. And we have to keep working at it. To see the good news we have to take the long view and not get too bogged down in the confusion of the present chaos. Perspective gives us the hope it takes to wade back into the struggle; the courage to campaign on behalf of those getting the latest raw deal.
It's the only way "outta here."
The Jawbone
Said the joker to the thief.
There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief...
From All Along the Watchtower
by Bob Dylan
This whole charade makes me want to get into my car, drive up to D.C., park in front of the Capital, get out, calmly jog up those long white steps, bump into the first elected officeholder I meet and, with complete disregard for party affiliation, beat the living shit out of them. Not that I would ever actually do so, at least not this week. But I don't think I'm alone in the frustration.
I am a political junkie. Depending on what time I need to be at work, my day begins with Joe and Mika and Mike, flipping back and forth between MSNBC, CNN, HLN, Today, Good Morning America, and CBS Morning. At our house we have dinner with Chris and Chenk, Lawrence and Ed and Wolff and their guests. But after a while, the constant barrage of almost incomprehensible stupidity, the failure to act, the divisions, the meaningless rhetoric, the endless wars, the body counts, the bullshit coming out of Washington while the rest of us struggle with rising food prices and gas prices and the prices of everything else while the rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed becomes overwhelming, and infuriating.
"There must be some kinda way outta here.... too much confusion...." I can relate. There just isn't any good news, a friend said to me not long ago. It certainly seems so.
There are times when I need to get some distance between me and the evening bad news. Times to move out a bit and get some perspective on things. I've found that distance is often the only thing between my sanity and despair. I've always loved that opening paragraph to Moby Dick, that reads, in part:
"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself pausing involuntarily before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."
There has to be an ebb and flow to my involvement in the affairs of the day. There has to be a balance. There is a time to tune in, sign petitions, help with the campaign, man the phone bank, write blogs and letters, swear at the idiot on television, call my representatives, email, demonstrate and march, meet up and join up and join in.
But all of that has to be balanced with, as Melville says so well, a "time to get to sea as soon as I can." When, like this week, nothing is getting done and we seem governed by a confederacy of dunces advised by dim-witted professional dullards, I need to go sit and watch the waves, and, if the surf's up, ride a few.
I live inland now, so I don't surf as much as I used to. But the spiritual principle is the same. We need time sitting on the mountain, hiking the trail, watching the waves, sitting in the boat with a line in the water, or on the meditation cushion, doing whatever it is we do to touch the Infinite, to breathe, regain focus. Perspective is everything. To be is to do and if we forget to just be we soon have no idea what to do next.
Politics and spirituality meet the moment we ask, How shall we live together? How will we govern ourselves with justice and compassion? And how do we stand up to those in power who clearly don't give a damn about either?
Now, things are a mess. But when I take time to just be, to get in touch with the Infinite, I realize we are in this for the long haul. Change does happen. Progress is made. It just takes a while. There is a direction, an arch to history. As Dr. King reminded us, "it bends toward justice."
When I was in elementary school my mother and I would occasionally walk the couple of blocks down to the drug store. That was the early sixties, when drug stores had lunch counters. One day I was sitting at that lunch counter drinking my favorite chocolate shake. I noticed a sign behind the counter that said, "We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone." On the walk back home I asked what that meant. "It means they won't serve Negroes at the lunch counter. And it really shouldn't be that way." It would take a few more years before I had any real understanding of what she meant.
But lunch counters would play a significant role in the Civil Rights movement. Now the sign and the apartheid it sanctioned are gone. Progress is made, slowly. And we have to keep working at it. To see the good news we have to take the long view and not get too bogged down in the confusion of the present chaos. Perspective gives us the hope it takes to wade back into the struggle; the courage to campaign on behalf of those getting the latest raw deal.
It's the only way "outta here."
The Jawbone
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Putting the Right People in Jail
Depending on how this goes, there may be a few new neighbors on Mr. Madoff's cell block. It's about time. Our criminal justice system is so often tilted against the poor, minorities, petty criminals and addicts who would benefit more from treatment than incarceration, those without substantial means to defend themselves. Sometimes we put the wrong people in jail. Commit a crime in the street, you go to jail. Crime in the suite? The company picks up the tab and you take your high-priced legal beagle to lunch--on the company expense account, of course. Maybe that's about to change, at least a little.
A couple of years back the state of New York fined United Health Group fifty million for failing to properly pay claims. But hey! What's a few measly million when you're making billions? Like, who cares? So what if the business practices are a bit on the shady side? Who cares if the rules get bent a bit? Get by with it, so much the better for the bottom line. Get caught, write it off as a business expense, sort of like taking your client out to an expensive lunch. Anyway, what's a bit of health care fraud among friends, especially when the company is going to pick up the tab?
Well, thanks to a few good folks over at Health and Human Services, that attitude may be in for a change. Seems some of them got a bit frustrated over the way health care industries have been ripping us off--to the tune of about sixty billion a year. Sixty billion a year!!! This at a time when Congress is talking about cutting my mom's medicare? What's wrong with this picture?
Here's what Lewis Morris, chief counsel for the inspector general at HHS, told Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the Huffington Post earlier this week: "When you look at the history of health care enforcement, we've seen a number of Fortune 500 companies that have been caught not once, not twice, but sometimes three times violating the trust of the American people, submitting false claims, paying kickbacks to doctors, marketing drugs which have not been tested for safety and efficacy. To our way of thinking, the men and women in the corporate suite aren't getting it. If writing a check for 200 million isn't enough to have a company change its ways, then maybe we have got to have the individuals who are responsible for this held accountable. The behavior of a company starts at the top."
There you go! Now we just might be getting somewhere. So Bernie may be getting some new neighbors. And for most of us, it's about time. I mean, really, who's the bigger crook? The guy who gets busted and goes up state for getting pulled over with three joints in his glove compartment? Or the guy who's spent years ripping off taxpayers for billions in corporate profits, to the extent that it's killing our ability to provide health care for our elderly parents, and never even gets arrested?
HHS is sending a wake up call to the health industry with their case against Howard Solomon, CEO of Forest Laboratories, a big pharma firm that makes antidepressants and other meds. Last year Forest plead guilty to a few justice department charges, and cut a deal with a check for 313 million. Seems they ignored an FDA notice to stop peddling a new drug that hadn't been approved. But, and here's the key point, as usual, all the bigwigs avoided jail time. So where's the incentive for the folks at the top to stay honest?
I think it's time Bernie got some new neighbors. So here's a notice to all you CEOs and other assorted corporate types who are tempted to break the rules every once in a while in the name of big time cash. It might serve you well to hang a sign on the wall across from your desk. A sign that says, "As they say up state: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."
The Jawbone
A couple of years back the state of New York fined United Health Group fifty million for failing to properly pay claims. But hey! What's a few measly million when you're making billions? Like, who cares? So what if the business practices are a bit on the shady side? Who cares if the rules get bent a bit? Get by with it, so much the better for the bottom line. Get caught, write it off as a business expense, sort of like taking your client out to an expensive lunch. Anyway, what's a bit of health care fraud among friends, especially when the company is going to pick up the tab?
Well, thanks to a few good folks over at Health and Human Services, that attitude may be in for a change. Seems some of them got a bit frustrated over the way health care industries have been ripping us off--to the tune of about sixty billion a year. Sixty billion a year!!! This at a time when Congress is talking about cutting my mom's medicare? What's wrong with this picture?
Here's what Lewis Morris, chief counsel for the inspector general at HHS, told Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the Huffington Post earlier this week: "When you look at the history of health care enforcement, we've seen a number of Fortune 500 companies that have been caught not once, not twice, but sometimes three times violating the trust of the American people, submitting false claims, paying kickbacks to doctors, marketing drugs which have not been tested for safety and efficacy. To our way of thinking, the men and women in the corporate suite aren't getting it. If writing a check for 200 million isn't enough to have a company change its ways, then maybe we have got to have the individuals who are responsible for this held accountable. The behavior of a company starts at the top."
There you go! Now we just might be getting somewhere. So Bernie may be getting some new neighbors. And for most of us, it's about time. I mean, really, who's the bigger crook? The guy who gets busted and goes up state for getting pulled over with three joints in his glove compartment? Or the guy who's spent years ripping off taxpayers for billions in corporate profits, to the extent that it's killing our ability to provide health care for our elderly parents, and never even gets arrested?
HHS is sending a wake up call to the health industry with their case against Howard Solomon, CEO of Forest Laboratories, a big pharma firm that makes antidepressants and other meds. Last year Forest plead guilty to a few justice department charges, and cut a deal with a check for 313 million. Seems they ignored an FDA notice to stop peddling a new drug that hadn't been approved. But, and here's the key point, as usual, all the bigwigs avoided jail time. So where's the incentive for the folks at the top to stay honest?
I think it's time Bernie got some new neighbors. So here's a notice to all you CEOs and other assorted corporate types who are tempted to break the rules every once in a while in the name of big time cash. It might serve you well to hang a sign on the wall across from your desk. A sign that says, "As they say up state: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."
The Jawbone
Thursday, May 12, 2011
One Dollar, One Vote... Sending Wells Fargo/BofA a Message They'll Hear
Yesterday morning I got up, had my usual coffee and bagel, showered, looked into my bathroom mirror, and smiled. This is election day. The day I go to the polling place alongside every other morally responsible American, and cast my ballot. As with all other election days, some choices I make leave me feeling I've done something good, assisted in positive change, helped a little old lady across the street. Others, not so much, as though I need to go home and take another shower. It's the way I feel when I know the best I can do is enter the boothe, hold my nose, and cast my ballot for the least objectionable, stench-reeking, dirty, rotten scoundrel whose vulgar name I would never say out loud in front of my mother.
What? You missed it? You missed election day? You didn't vote? Well, no, you didn't miss it. And you did vote, several times, a dozen times, more than a dozen, maybe a thousand, or more. In America, every day is election day. Here lately, I've been trying to choose my polling places with a bit more discretion. Growing up in the sixties, the only child of Kennedy Democrats, I was taught that voting was a sacred act, not all that different from going to church.
This particular morning I was certain of doing the right thing. I headed for my local Wachovia Bank branch, today's first stop on my tour of local polling places. A bit nervous, I exited my very used old dodge and headed for the door. Would this be the gunfight at the OK coral? What would I say when they asked, as they surely would, "Why are you closing your account?"
How could I keep my cool? How could I keep from launching into a two-hundred page dissertation detailing the long list of faults and crimes against human dignity of which I found this foul establishment guilty as charged? These are good people who work here. They are not the enemy. The real enemy is far more subtle, more hidden behind cloaks of respectability. These are my neighbors who, as Lama Surya Das reminds me in his Prayer for the New Millennium, "want and need as I do." The criminals I'm after live in gated communities, guarded by rent-a-cops, meet in suites, ride in limos, and, not having to work three jobs waiting tables to make ends meet, usually tip quite poorly.
I approached a nice looking lady at the counter, handed her my check and said, "I'd like to close this account, please." I didn't want trouble. But then, here it came. "I'm sorry, sir. But I can't do that. You'll need to speak to the manager." Careful, I thought to myself. Breathe. Don't reach for that verbal six gun. Repeat. "She's not the enemy... She's not the enemy..." The last time I felt like this was upon many of the occasions in high school when I got kicked out of class and sent to the dean's office. Once again, referred to a higher power for judgment.
With trepidation, I approached the manager's desk, took my seat, and stated yet again the cause for my visit. "I'd like to close this account." She smiled. Good. Maybe this won't be so difficult. She took my info, then the fun started. Here it came. The question. The opportunity to state my case. Would I follow through, or wimp out? "Why are you closing your account?" A moment of pride, courage welled from the depths of my battered consumer soul. I sat up straight, looked into her eyes, and delivered the big one: "Because of Wells Fargo/Wachovia's disproportionate support of the Republican Party and it's policies."
The poor woman could not have looked more surprised had I leaned over the desk and slapped her across the face with a wet and slightly rotten flounder. Ah, I thought. I've landed a point. A moment of awkward silence ensued. "I'm sorry," she said. "Did you say you're closing your account because we don't support the Republican Party enough?" Prior to this moment, I'd always thought I spoke fluent English. Apparently not. Pulling another smelly flounder from my bag, I sallied forth with another attempt. "No. I'm moving my money because this bank disproportionately supports a political party, the Republican Party, whose agenda and policies I am vehemently opposed to." There, I thought. That's got to do it. We have a meeting of the minds.
Reaching for her mouse, she scrolled down her screen, befuddled, taken aback. How to record this frontal assault, this arrogance, this act of defiance of the establishment status quo upon my permanent record? More awkward silence. The system didn't allow for this impertinance. Surely, she must have thought, these things do not happen in civilized society. No one defies the mighty Wells Fargo/Wachovia Empire! She breached the silence that had fallen between us. "I guess I'm just going to have to check other."
Out the door, smiling, I'd made my statement, defied the status quo, struck a blow against the establishment. This must be the kick ass feeling King David had when he let fly the stone that slew Goliath!
Down the street I flew to Freedom First Credit Union, where I struck a second blow for human dignity and freedom. Sitting down with a very nice young lady, Leslie, I opened my new account. I'd studied this phenomenon, done my homework. Respected friends, far more in the financial know than I, told me credit unions are most often locally owned and operated, worked for their members rather than just the stock holders, and that I, indeed, such as I!! actually had a stake in the enterprise! I'd cast my ballots of cash against the tax dodging, foreclosing, blood sucking, CEO bonus taking with my tax money Evil Empire! "Take that you generation of Swine!"
I headed for my next polling place. More ballots to cast. Another statement to make. But this time, it would leave a foul stench my nostrils. I pulled into my local Walmart. Walmart. Was I really going to stoop this low? Pulling my hat down low over my forehead, I hoped no one would recognize me as I passed through the door, a pilgrim in an unholy land.
Yes, this was one of those hold-my-nose choices I had to make, despised though it was. Walmart has a long history of discriminating against women, and generally of treating their employees as chattle. And here was my moral dilemma. I have a choice to make. I can spend a few bucks here, cast a few cash ballots, and have a few left over to put into the collection plate on Sunday morning where God knows my church, not to mention other charities I support, needs such little as I can give. The choices we face on election day are not always pretty, nor easy. The electoral politics of the market place are rarely pure as the driven snow. Nothing high minded about this, I thought as once again I plunked down my hard earned debit card.
In America, every day is election day. Some choices are more good than bad, others more bad than good. There are always choices. And all choices are in between choices. No ballot I cast is without taint of moral ambiguity. Despite most everything I read these days, I'm sure the big banks, and even Walmart, do a little good every now and then. Even if it's no more than providing a decent job to some of my neighbors while saving me a few bucks to give to causes I really believe in.
Another election day has passed. Having cast my ballots, I return home where I will get online and puruse the daily records of humanities' endless struggle to find, let alone do, the right thing. This is not unimportant, though I often find it infuriating. There's war going on. A war in which, like it or not, I am a combatant. A war declared by the rich against the rest of us. A war of budgets that take from those who can least afford it, and give to those who already have more than their fair share. Daily we read of it's disasters and the hooray for me and to hell with you battles.
Naysayers will tell you it doesn't mean shit to Wells Fargo/Wachovia or any of the rest of the big banks that one guy moves a few hundred bucks out of their coffers. They lie. What if the one gets multiplied by a million? ten million? tens of millions? An avalanche starts with the slipping of a single stone. Movements that bring down tyrants begin with one pissed off sister who decides she's mad as hell and isn't going to take this lying down.
Goliath is big, but he doesn't always win. Every once in a while, we David's get to strike a blow for the little guys.
Mahalo,
The Jawbone
What? You missed it? You missed election day? You didn't vote? Well, no, you didn't miss it. And you did vote, several times, a dozen times, more than a dozen, maybe a thousand, or more. In America, every day is election day. Here lately, I've been trying to choose my polling places with a bit more discretion. Growing up in the sixties, the only child of Kennedy Democrats, I was taught that voting was a sacred act, not all that different from going to church.
This particular morning I was certain of doing the right thing. I headed for my local Wachovia Bank branch, today's first stop on my tour of local polling places. A bit nervous, I exited my very used old dodge and headed for the door. Would this be the gunfight at the OK coral? What would I say when they asked, as they surely would, "Why are you closing your account?"
How could I keep my cool? How could I keep from launching into a two-hundred page dissertation detailing the long list of faults and crimes against human dignity of which I found this foul establishment guilty as charged? These are good people who work here. They are not the enemy. The real enemy is far more subtle, more hidden behind cloaks of respectability. These are my neighbors who, as Lama Surya Das reminds me in his Prayer for the New Millennium, "want and need as I do." The criminals I'm after live in gated communities, guarded by rent-a-cops, meet in suites, ride in limos, and, not having to work three jobs waiting tables to make ends meet, usually tip quite poorly.
I approached a nice looking lady at the counter, handed her my check and said, "I'd like to close this account, please." I didn't want trouble. But then, here it came. "I'm sorry, sir. But I can't do that. You'll need to speak to the manager." Careful, I thought to myself. Breathe. Don't reach for that verbal six gun. Repeat. "She's not the enemy... She's not the enemy..." The last time I felt like this was upon many of the occasions in high school when I got kicked out of class and sent to the dean's office. Once again, referred to a higher power for judgment.
With trepidation, I approached the manager's desk, took my seat, and stated yet again the cause for my visit. "I'd like to close this account." She smiled. Good. Maybe this won't be so difficult. She took my info, then the fun started. Here it came. The question. The opportunity to state my case. Would I follow through, or wimp out? "Why are you closing your account?" A moment of pride, courage welled from the depths of my battered consumer soul. I sat up straight, looked into her eyes, and delivered the big one: "Because of Wells Fargo/Wachovia's disproportionate support of the Republican Party and it's policies."
The poor woman could not have looked more surprised had I leaned over the desk and slapped her across the face with a wet and slightly rotten flounder. Ah, I thought. I've landed a point. A moment of awkward silence ensued. "I'm sorry," she said. "Did you say you're closing your account because we don't support the Republican Party enough?" Prior to this moment, I'd always thought I spoke fluent English. Apparently not. Pulling another smelly flounder from my bag, I sallied forth with another attempt. "No. I'm moving my money because this bank disproportionately supports a political party, the Republican Party, whose agenda and policies I am vehemently opposed to." There, I thought. That's got to do it. We have a meeting of the minds.
Reaching for her mouse, she scrolled down her screen, befuddled, taken aback. How to record this frontal assault, this arrogance, this act of defiance of the establishment status quo upon my permanent record? More awkward silence. The system didn't allow for this impertinance. Surely, she must have thought, these things do not happen in civilized society. No one defies the mighty Wells Fargo/Wachovia Empire! She breached the silence that had fallen between us. "I guess I'm just going to have to check other."
Out the door, smiling, I'd made my statement, defied the status quo, struck a blow against the establishment. This must be the kick ass feeling King David had when he let fly the stone that slew Goliath!
Down the street I flew to Freedom First Credit Union, where I struck a second blow for human dignity and freedom. Sitting down with a very nice young lady, Leslie, I opened my new account. I'd studied this phenomenon, done my homework. Respected friends, far more in the financial know than I, told me credit unions are most often locally owned and operated, worked for their members rather than just the stock holders, and that I, indeed, such as I!! actually had a stake in the enterprise! I'd cast my ballots of cash against the tax dodging, foreclosing, blood sucking, CEO bonus taking with my tax money Evil Empire! "Take that you generation of Swine!"
I headed for my next polling place. More ballots to cast. Another statement to make. But this time, it would leave a foul stench my nostrils. I pulled into my local Walmart. Walmart. Was I really going to stoop this low? Pulling my hat down low over my forehead, I hoped no one would recognize me as I passed through the door, a pilgrim in an unholy land.
Yes, this was one of those hold-my-nose choices I had to make, despised though it was. Walmart has a long history of discriminating against women, and generally of treating their employees as chattle. And here was my moral dilemma. I have a choice to make. I can spend a few bucks here, cast a few cash ballots, and have a few left over to put into the collection plate on Sunday morning where God knows my church, not to mention other charities I support, needs such little as I can give. The choices we face on election day are not always pretty, nor easy. The electoral politics of the market place are rarely pure as the driven snow. Nothing high minded about this, I thought as once again I plunked down my hard earned debit card.
In America, every day is election day. Some choices are more good than bad, others more bad than good. There are always choices. And all choices are in between choices. No ballot I cast is without taint of moral ambiguity. Despite most everything I read these days, I'm sure the big banks, and even Walmart, do a little good every now and then. Even if it's no more than providing a decent job to some of my neighbors while saving me a few bucks to give to causes I really believe in.
Another election day has passed. Having cast my ballots, I return home where I will get online and puruse the daily records of humanities' endless struggle to find, let alone do, the right thing. This is not unimportant, though I often find it infuriating. There's war going on. A war in which, like it or not, I am a combatant. A war declared by the rich against the rest of us. A war of budgets that take from those who can least afford it, and give to those who already have more than their fair share. Daily we read of it's disasters and the hooray for me and to hell with you battles.
Naysayers will tell you it doesn't mean shit to Wells Fargo/Wachovia or any of the rest of the big banks that one guy moves a few hundred bucks out of their coffers. They lie. What if the one gets multiplied by a million? ten million? tens of millions? An avalanche starts with the slipping of a single stone. Movements that bring down tyrants begin with one pissed off sister who decides she's mad as hell and isn't going to take this lying down.
Goliath is big, but he doesn't always win. Every once in a while, we David's get to strike a blow for the little guys.
Mahalo,
The Jawbone
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