Politics

The media obsession with details of politics in America breeds an apathy, born of overkill. Politics have overshadowed government. The manipulations for power have become a spectator sport on the level of professional wrestling. Meanwhile, the quality of American government on all levels deteriorates. Look at your roads, your buses, your subway trains for an illustration.

The yowling Tea Party contingent bring more dysfunction to this environment. Playing with covert racism and homophobia, these closet Republican Rightists seek to immobilize any progressive legislation in a time of national crisis. Their motivation, shrilly misrepresented as patriotism, is obviously manufactured by corporate financing.

Progressives of all types are disillusioned by the Obama administration's sadomasochistic love affair with Wall Street. Summers, Frank and Geithner serenade Obama with sonnets of Wall Street's inherent love of democracy and freedom, as the money men continue to pick the pockets of the American people.

There comes a time in any organization's life when it begins to exist for itself, not for those who have formed it or pay for it in money or labor. This seems glaringly true of the U.S. administration, Congress and Supreme Court. Our government is foundering in a sea of political self-interest. And the people are suffering for it.

Perhaps it is good for the citizens to disengage from this government, as it now operates. Perhaps this is a time for a Jeffersonian revolution. This Fall's election will definitely be a harbinger of what form such a revolution will take in America.

Anger

The politics of anger are rising from the relatively wealthy in the form of the Tea Party in America. Funny. I am reminded of the advent of the French revolution, when the relatively affluent Bourgeoisie manipulated the destitute and truly poor to dislodge the aristocracy for them. The result was a Reign of Terror, in which many of those leaders of the Bourgeoisie were cannibalized by their own monster.

The politics of common sense are seldom popular, because common sense is an antidote for personal greed in society. Greed wins the attention of the middle class. Trashing the concepts of progressive taxes, public health care and business regulation gets the bourgeois mob inflamed. They are motivated by greed, not by social justice.

This year's elections in America will be a test of the true center of the American conscience. Will the people choose the politics of anger and materialism? Or, will the people realize that patience and the correction of the materialistic and militaristic policies of the past decade will eventually promote greater economic equality in the country?

Water

The urban water supply of Metropolitan Boston has failed, as of May 1st. Contractors associated with the infamous Big Dig tunnel project, a standard of corruption and lethally substandard construction, are rumored to be responsible for the supply pipe which failed after just 7 years, thus cutting off drinkable water for 2 million people. The system has, as yet, no back-up supply line. Brilliant, eh? Yes, we are boiling water in Boston, and it isn't for lobsters or clams. It's for giadia and cryptosporidia.

How did we get here from the proud days of the far-sighted Quabbin Reservoir project and elegantly designed granite pumping stations (as illustrated) on pristine back-up reservoirs, scattered around the city? How is it that we have some of the most plentiful watersheds in the world, yet pay nearly twice as much for water as people in Phoenix, AZ!

I am hoping time will tell all. However, the short attention span of the media and the voting public leaves me doubtful that anything will come of it. In the meantime, I suggest you take a leaf from the book of my independent 90-year-old mother, whom I called to make sure she was aware of the need to boil water for drinking. She said, "Doesn't really effect me at all. I've been boiling my water for decades." And, her practice is not naive. She was once the administrative assistant for her hometown's civil engineer, who, of course, was involved with the urban water supply.

Corruption

The Republicans in U.S. Congress are now mounting a mock battle against financial reform after organizing gun-toting, bullying goons against health industry reform on the basis that the government unjustly bailed out Wall Street. Think about it. Is it about what's best for the American people? Obviously not. It is about Republicans wanting control of the graft and corruption in Congress. They will do anything to regain that control.

"In the Senate Gregg was the leading Republican negotiator and author of the TARP program, which bailed out financial institutions, while he had a multi-million dollar investment in the Bank of America." ---Wikipedia, "Judd Gregg".

Celebrity

Today's Scott Brown is tomorrow's Tiger Woods.

Politics

Scott Brown, the faux-commoner, nude poser and shill for the national Right Wing, is now the U.S. Senator-elect from Massachusetts. This is the political game in 2010 in America. The Democrat establishment has reaped the returns of its naivete and smugness. Obama is not the Messiah of a New Age. This is a good lesson for them and for those on the Left.

The battles for gay rights, universal rights to health care, just immigration policy and a peace-oriented foreign policy are still undecided. The powers of violence, fundamentalist hatred, greed and sexism are still alive and well in America. Those powers will pepper the airwaves with reactionary propaganda. They will spout liberal views in public and fund reactionary candidates in private. They will spur the resentful to the polls in January sleet in once-progressive Massachusetts. Politics are duplicitous. Nature of the game.

While I find the arrogance of Mr. Brown's duplicity particularly distasteful, I welcome the potential effect of this wake-up call. Neo-Liberals, like Coakley, have been shown to be ineffectual, monotonous and Republican-lite. The national political soup has been well stirred by this little Massachusetts election. I, for one, say, "Let it boil."

WTF?

Yes, this usually reserved blogger could think of no more appropriate title for this posting about the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race for the seat vacated by the esteemed and deceased Senator Ted Kennedy.

In one corner, we have a prim Massachusetts Attorney General, whose record includes involvement in a case of pedophile-paranoia in a day-care molestation case, which years later appeared to have been contaminated by child-witness coaching and infantile imaginations. Martha Coakley, whose political stance has seemed neo-Liberal at best to some observers, has managed to garner centrist support from the Democratic mainstream.

In the other corner, we have a former nude model/beauty contestant for Cosmopolitan Magazine, Scott Brown, a Bush-Cheney-style Rightist, now that he's clothed. Think of crossing Mitt Romney with Sarah Palin. Scott, a living Ken doll, brags about driving a pick-up truck with 200,000 miles on it. However, he is an attorney and is married to a local TV reporter, a woman.

Sound Palin-esque enough for you? How does this anti-gay, family-values, pro-life, pro-gun, Republican, nudy pin-up get a pass when he could potentially break the 60 vote Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate? I personally haven't heard any reference to this in the media. Doesn't it point to some potential for hypocrisy to anyone but me?

Perhaps these are the End Times. At least, it is beginning to seem so to this Massachusetts voter, looking to the special election on January 19th.

Politicians

The recent death of Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts gave the awake observer some tremendous insights into politics, government as we know it, and politicians. The mindful and truthful have been testifying against politics, government and politicians since these phenomena were invented. And King Solomon would again shake his head and shrug if he were alive today. Nothing new under the Sun.

At a time when politicians in the majority are taking bribes (they call these 'campaign contributions') from the private health insurance industry to keep the American people slaves to premiums which support a Byzantine insurance bureaucracy, we have heard somber, solemn and totally hypocritical eulogies about the one Senator in Congress who has consistently supported universal health care with no buts or ifs.

'That's the way our system works, ' I have heard them say in defense of their hypocrisy and corruption. They speak of the interests of corporations as though they were of equal moral and ethical merit as the interests of the population, The People. This is not only lying. It is unconstitutional. We are supposed to be a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people. Corporations are not people. CEOs and lobbyists are people, but they are an infinitesimal minority of the people. Why are their interests being held above those of all the people?

Most troubling to me is the lack of counterpoint coming from the Kennedys themselves. In order to provide themselves the glory of a state funeral, it appeared, they have allowed the most despicable celebrities of the political class to jump on the funeral publicity train. The very people who have plotted to defeat the central pillar of Edward Kennedy's career, universal health care, rushed to fill well positioned church pews in Boston.

Death is not negotiable. It has no nuance. It is not debatable. It has no Right or Left. And neither does Truth.

If Americans could grasp and internalize their mortality, stripped of all the opiates of religion, plastic surgery, hormone enhancement, and television, perhaps they would demand Truth from their politicians. Perhaps they would demand that a Truthful legacy be granted to honor a man of the caliber of Senator Kennedy. Perhaps they would demand basic human rights, like health care, for all Americans and all the people in the world.

Bullies

The world is run by bullies. Aggressive men and women make it to the top of private and public pyramids with many casualities along the way. This is probably one of the major reasons why poverty and violence are virtually untouched by political and monetary powers around the entire world.

The majority of men and women are conditioned to accede to bullies early in their lives. They are beaten or humiliated into submission as children. Those lessons go deep into the developing psyche. Perhaps this is one reason for the ineffectiveness of educators at stopping this from being perpetuated in the schools they now run. They too have been conditioned to accept bullies as unbeatable, or are the administrators in education bullies themselves?

Dick Cheney is perhaps one of the most outstanding bullies of our age, equaled by the thugs who run Myanmar (Burma) or the thugs who run parts of Somalia. Any man or woman who shamelessly defends torture is a bully, no matter what his or her rationalization may be. And Cheney still wields power. His Blackwater-Halliburton buddies are gearing up to make another fortune in Afghanistan. It seems obvious to me that there will be a succession of these conflicts as long as they are in business with the Pentagon, and as long as there are Cheneys to get them their way.

How does practice relate to dealing with bullies? Bullies draw their power from the fear of their victims. The mindful person can see a bully readily. The mindful person can then refuse to acknowledge the bully's power. Ignore bullies. If confronted by a bully, refuse to engage in any intercourse with that person. If pushed by the bully, walk away. If pursued by the bully, call the police. The police are the people's bullies ideally. They are hired by bullies to bully the bullies.

Bullies fear the truth. They also fear those who do not need or want anything from them. Refusing to acknowledge the bully is a great weapon to defend against him. This can be honed with daily practice of peace, compassion and focus on that which is positive and good.

Consciousness

I have been reminded this week of the importance of practice when I have listened to accounts from the Democrats' Convention In Denver, Colorado.

Angry women allow their rage over the loss of their idol, Hillary Clinton, to endanger the accomplishment of a great cause for all the American people: The displacement of the fascist regime of the Republican presidency of George Bush. Others decry Obama ostensibly for this or that reason, while their racism is obvious, though (perhaps) unconscious on their part.

Consciousness, mindful awareness in each moment, is the keystone of practice. Without consciousness, right action and right thought cannot be pursued in the moment because life will always place distractions in the way of the unconscious person. We all suffer for the lack of practice among most of our brothers and sisters on the planet. Human beings will continue this suffering until practice is the keystone of life on the planet. This may or may not happen before the human race becomes extinct.

Politics

We are on the verge of a political season of promises, dirty tricks, celebrity worship and unrealistic expectations. The party conventions will be held later this month in the US.

Politicians, like religious leaders, often present their own compulsion for fame and power as selfless compassion in order to win votes. I am sure that some of them believe their own myths. However, someone committed to practice understands that power corrupts. It distracts from the focus on personal responsibility and personal evolution toward compassion, humility, acceptance, and liberation from need and desire.

Administration of the basic infrastructure of society is necessary. Politicians are failures at this. One needs only look at the nearest bridge or highway. One needs only to walk along the shore of the nearest public beach of lake or ocean. One needs only to ride through the poorest neighborhood in any city.

Politicians ignore the one largest threat to planetary peace and well being. Totally. That is overpopulation, of course.

So, as part of my own practice, I stay informed about politics. However, I focus my energy upon my own responsibility and development. No matter who becomes president, senator, representative or selectman, I must live my life with open consciousness in order to evolve. To do otherwise is reactionary and delusional. If every adult simply lived in practice, based in responsible action and just cause, politics, as they now exist, would be unnecessary and obsolete.

Shill

Today Tony Snow died. Like his predecessor, Scott McClellan, Mr. Snow became the salesman for a corrupt fascist regime, which has waged illegal war, killed hundreds of thousands of helpless civilians for oil, spied on its own citizens to maintain control and lied daily about the nation's health and economy. I am sure these men see what they did as only a job. I am sure Nazi propagandists saw themselves the same way.

Every individual bears the responsibility for the jobs he/she performs, despite any rationalization he/she may make to the contrary to live with a troubled conscience. Life presents daily opportunities and demands to make right choices for the good of one's personal evolution and the evolution of the human species.

Do you throw that piece of paper or plastic out of your car window? Do you smoke that cigarette? Do you buy that sugar-infused coffee? Do you push your way through a line? Do you disturb your neighbors with loud and obnoxious behavior? Do you support a dictator? Do you hide your real beliefs to be liked?

The corruption of humanity occurs in small doses with minor daily decisions to do what is not the righteous thing to do. Sentimentality, peer pressure, religion, prejudice, all these factors are constant inhibitions to doing the right thing. Overcoming these habits is called practice. Practice also begins small and grows large with daily persistence.

Truth

Jeremiah Wright, the much maligned friend of Mr. Obama, is a speaker of the truth. And I do not mean HIS truth only. Part of the popular furor he has raised is akin to the whining resistance of a sleepy child who resents being roused from its blissful sleep. A greater part of the cynical negative propaganda against Wright comes from the fascist Right Wing of the Republican Party.

The poor are poorer than ever in the US. The Iraq War is an abomination. The Bush administration is corrupt and evil. The Congress is impotent. Racism is alive and prospering in the US in many different forms. The people are suffering at the hands of the greedy, wealthy and powerful, whether those privileged classes are aware of it or not. The rich are richer than ever and paying less of their share of the public funds.

The truth hurts those who choose to deny it or ignore it. Wright is simply saying what should be said regularly on the public airwaves and in the press. Those forums have been kidnapped by the Right Wing.

It is easy to dismiss Wright as a crackpot. His style is histrionic. But Martin Luther King would be saying the same things if he were alive today. King's style was also histrionic. Jeremiah Wright is a brave man to follow in King's footsteps. Fascist assassins have good aim. Cowardly Liberals too readily defer to the Right Wing's brutality.

Practice is difficult and dangerous. It does not make you popular.

Clintons

I am amused by the current Presidential race here in the US. I applaud and support Mr. Obama's vision of change.

After all is said and done, Ms. Clinton is the wife of the man who is basically responsible for the last 7+ years of bumbling fascist government in the US. Yes, while some diehard Democrats still cling to Mr. Clinton's aura of charm and worldly intelligence, those of us with memories who follow politics understand that his sexual indiscretion and lack of cogent support for Al Gore gave us the coup d'etat in 2000, without which there would be no Iraq War or bankrupt treasury leading to the oncoming depression of the US economy.

Perhaps the Clintons think that we are all too stupid to figure out that they cynically took some pleasure in these events. Perhaps Ms. Clinton thinks us too stupid to realize that she needed the last 7+ yrs to get up to speed with a legitimate political resume with which to seek the Presidency. Perhaps the Clintons think us too stupid to realize they ae not 'Centrist Democrats' but self-serving 'Slightly Leftist Republicans'.

It is my practice to be wary of politicians...all politicians.

Politics

Beware the politician. This is a creature which has convinced itself it knows what you need or what you deserve. In the meantime, the politician is really striving for what it needs and what it deserves. It moves and feeds constantly, like a shark. I use the pronoun 'it', because the politician's personality, as displayed, is a myth, a role, a tactic.

If you practice daily, you will understand the superficiality of campaigns and elections. You will be more able to see the hypocrisy and the manipulation, as well as the core message, of the politician. Seek the core message which comes closest to compassion, mindfulness, non-violence and fairness for all. Disregard the rest and continue your own daily struggle for human evolution.

Elections

Yes, it's payback time here in America. The cycle of human folly. They have destroyed a country, thrown it into civil war, to satisfy our rage over 9-11. Now the masses are bored with Iraq. The media too, it seems. Perhaps the two are the same. So, with the mentality of 'Monday-Night Football', the Middle Americans may actually vote to the left. They weren't motivated by the potential gutting of Social Security. They weren't motivated by the Medicare drug plan to help the upper middle class (Republican base). They weren't even motivated by illegal immigration. IF America were truly a democracy, we would all have a big, red VOTE button on our computer keyboards and on our digital-TV remote controls. Could Middle Americans handle that responsibility? Perhaps not. Politics are a true test of my resolve to maintain my practice.

Lawfulness

Buddhist teachings shy away from politics. This is perhaps related to the Buddha's own absence of political discrimination. He accepted hospitality from wealthy patrons, despite their politics. In fact, his last regal host is suspected of poisoning him to death. My practice has always been wedded to my sense of being a lawful and ethical citizen, despite the challenges. As a gay man, I have been the subject of unjust laws. I have also encountered the unjust enforcement of laws by unethical policemen who have used the law as a way of bullying gay men. Despite the lawlessness of some, I have sustained my belief in the value of law in society. For example, I believe that coming illegally into a country and using the benefits paid for by law-abiding citizens of that country is just simply wrong and lawless. I admire those who remain in their native countries and strive to create lawful and fair societies there. How else will lawful and peaceful societies grow and flourish?