It's Hard Work

Published by OpEdNews.com and Free Times of Columbia, South Carolina, 10/7/04

For all those who began tonight’s debate with low expectations for President Bush, the results were a surprise: he performed even worse than most could have imagined. Beyond the repetition of a few key phrases that Karl Rove had obviously made sure he was supposed to emphasize, Bush bumbled through most questions, returning to the drum beat that threaded throughout his talk: “It’s hard work.”

Hard work, indeed. It is hard work to be saddled with the complexities of governing the most powerful nation in the world. It is hard work to deal with the nuances of diplomacy and coalition building. It is hard work to admit mistakes and change direction based on changes in the geopolitical landscape.

“It’s hard work.” In that phrase, Bush encapsulated for the American people precisely the problem with his governance: he is in over his head. Way over his head. He has never been a smart man, nor a particular talented one. He is banking on one thing alone: a bulldog-like tenacity to cling to his opinion as the truth, no matter what new information arrives. That, he believes, is what it takes to be President. That is what can lead us to greatness as a country: fixity of opinion.

Fixity of opinion may work for a football lineman. But it doesn’t work for the head of the most powerful nation on earth. Fixity of opinion may work in an emergency situation but it doesn’t allow one to move strategically in a more complex world. That is why Bush needed, again and again in the debate, to simplify foreign policy to “us” versus the “enemy” lumping Iraq and Osama bin Laden together. That is why he said multiple times that we must always be on the offense and never waver.

Fixity of opinion is a way for a man who is in over his head to make sense of a complex world. It reduces shades of gray to black and white. Either you’re with us or you’re with the enemy. Either you’re an ally or you’re an enemy. There are moments, of course, when black or white is called for. At those moments, Bush’s capacities may allow him to do an adequate job. But in all those areas where a more sophisticated understanding is called for, black and white will not suffice.

In a way I felt compassion for him. It IS challenging to be in over your heard and out of your league. I don’t blame him for clinging to the life preserver of surety. I can almost see him pep-talking himself in the morning mirror: “you’ve got to look strong and presidential. Never give an inch. Be firm. Always attack.”

In Bush’s desire to be seen as resolute, he made it clear in the debate he was not open to changing his ways or admitting errors. His paramount goal, as he stated it, was to not send mixed messages to the troops, to terrorists, or to the world. As Kerry countered, the main worry about the President is that you can also be sure of yourself and be wrong.

The irony of Bush’s repeated theme was that he was anything but resolute in his presence. He stumbled over words, answered questions off topic, meandered, fell into silence. During Kerry’s answers, his eyes darted like a cornered animal and he hunched over the podium, clearly uncomfortable. Because Bush is trapped in black or white thinking to cope with a job that is over his head, he cannot build bridges to other countries. Diplomacy takes a certain amount of grace, collegiality, and tact. He is blunt, aggressive, and dismissive.

Kerry, by contrast, presented himself in a persuasive, commanding, and presidential way, far better than I would have imagined. I have not been a huge fan until this debate but Kerry convinced me with the clarity in his thoughts, the power of his convictions and his command of facts, figures, and nuance, that he has the capacity to lead in a powerful, resolute way that is open to change when change is called for.

In the debate, Kerry was methodical and powerful. He took notes and spoke unerringly, with an outstanding command of language, policy, and nuance. He attacked the president’s record while honoring him as a man. He made clear that he would chart a different course. And he made brilliant tactical maneuvers, like citing Bush’s father about never entering Iraq without an exit strategy.

At the end of the debate, I felt one thing with great certainty. If this nation does elect Kerry as our next president, we would not see him in four years repeating over and over, “It’s hard work.” He would do the job with every ounce of his capacity and I feel much more confident that he would meet those challenges, with a resolute but open and intelligent stance towards the rest of the world.

Kerry is what we need to redeem America’s sullied reputation in the world. George Bush has confessed to the American people the truth: he just doesn’t have what it takes to do the job.

“It’s hard work,” indeed.

Political Dream Yoga

Published by OpEdNews.com

Politics sometimes seems like a bad dream and we want nothing more than to wake up. Or, perhaps more often, we want THEM to wake up, whomever the opposition force of the moment happens to be. In this article, I suggest we take this feeling a step further and actually approach our political activities with the tools of dream yoga. I use the term yoga here because it derives from the word for “yoke” and is sometimes translated as “union.” In yoking things together, we multiply our capacity for positive effort through linking. Physical yoga links body, mind, and soul. Dream yoga links the many parts of our identity. Political yoga, if we extrapolate this concept, would link political factions together and enable them to work towards shared societal goals.

Before we go further, let’s look at the basics of dream yoga. One approach suggests looking at our dreams through the lens that every character represents an aspect of our full Self. Terrifying tigers, mad scientists, or pillaging marauders are, in some larger sense, faces that our conscious self doesn’t want to admit to having. To keep a pristine self-image, we split them off into “bad characters” and create mini-dramas each night that rival anything on TV.

This is the psyche’s way of teaching us. Because we tend to be slow learners, we often need to repeat the lessons on a different night, perhaps with a new set of characters. Repeating dream themes are a signal that we haven’t quite gotten the message. And the message isn’t that we need to run faster or slaughter more quickly. The message usually has something to do with acceptance.

When we can accept the extremes in our dreams and befriend what we resist or fear, we expand our conscious self. No longer are we quite as rigid, naïve, or lopsided. We begin to accept our wanton destructiveness, ravenous lust, or callous indifference. We see them as part of our humanness, side by side with our nobility, grace, and generosity.

More advanced forms of dream yoga take this process to higher levels of lucidity. The dreamer literally wakes up within the dream. The scene continues but the dreamer is no longer under the illusion that the dream is fundamentally “real.” He has woken up within the dreamscape. It’s like pulling the curtain back on the Wizard of Oz and seeing how the illusion is orchestrated. Advanced practitioners can even begin to sculpt the dream-field to suit their whims – they become architects of their dream life.

These principles can be applied to the political sphere. There are challenges, of course. The political landscape packs considerably more punch than a dreamscape – the cries of oppression are louder, dead soldiers are not resurrected, and debts must eventually be paid. A dreamscape allows experimentation. A political landscape results in serious, sometimes lethal consequences.

Nonetheless, approaching the political process as a dream yoga does offer benefits. At the remedial level, we can begin to recognize that all of the warring factions represent an aspect of our Self. Even the power-mad sociopath exists in each of us in kernel form. Part of us is liberal, another part conservative, still another anarchic. Most of us, though, settle into a comfortable groove of only identifying our conscious self with one facet. As a result, when we engage the players of the political landscape there is an escalation of fear, resistance, and aggression as we square off against the “other,” each vying for power and control. Politics becomes a re-enactment of our own internal splits and we end up with dissociation and exhaustion rather than integration and harmony.

By contrast, approaching politics as a yoga brings a “meta” level of awareness to the drama – a recognition that there is more to the story than “We’re right and they are wrong.” Winning – in the sense of domination – becomes less central than aligning – yoking together what were competing factions in the service of some higher goal. The deeper truth is that “us” and “them” are not fundamentally separate and thus one side is rarely entirely right while the other is entirely wrong. Recognizing this truth doesn’t negate the fact that certain political factions carry greater evolutionary power – King and the civil rights activists versus the Ku Klux Klan, for instance. But it does move us from thinking positive value resides entirely in one camp to seeing that as a society, we may need the very qualities, values, and characteristics we disdain in the opposition.

Political yoga cannot occur without a certain measure of personal growth. Until there is some level of personal integration, we cannot enact it in the political sphere. However, if leaders do enough of the work of personal integration, we can begin to create political activities that result in positive feedback to supporters. When leaders reconcile, it makes it ten times easier for their followers to do so as well. For instance, when South Africa engaged its truth and reconciliation process, leadership actions empowered healing throughout the country. What could have been an inferno instead led to transformation. Political healing at the upper levels, then, can trigger personal healing on a massive scale.

People often confuse integration with indulgence or tolerance. Accepting murderers doesn’t mean letting them kill. We can strongly protect the public interest and prevent people from killing. However, while our actions protect public standards of behavior, we can accept and even love the destructive person, which tends to help them grow in a positive way to a point where they do not need to be contained.

So, when I talk about political yoga, it’s not about washing out all distinctions of quality, depth, or virtue and simply indulging every oppressive idea around. It’s about re-connecting with the place of innate divinity where we are all here working together on a larger project and seeing that we all have gifts in this process. Linking those gifts together with consciousness rather than fighting about whose gifts are right is what liberates the transformational power.

Shifting back to the personal level, our dream yoga task is to align with what is best in us while we fully accept all the less “desirable” faces as well. That allows internal union, which frees our outer attention for our highest calling. In this process, it’s important to remember that the “unwanted” parts of us contain energy, wisdom, and power. Even the part that wants to be an oppressive dictator. Or a dirty tricks operative. Or a jaded slacker.

Politically, the same process applies. How can we align with the best, most noble goals, and then bring together the gifts of everyone to serve the advancement of that goal? If we can successfully yoke together everyone’s talents, the political process stops wasting much of its energy on oppositional power struggles and re-focuses on shared mission. When we are polarized, there is little attention left for the forward-looking, collaborative work of building a better world. To de-polarize, we need to see beyond surface stories to a deeper level. If we are completely convinced that Republicans are selfish exploiters or that Democrats are wimps or that activists are ungrateful reprobates or that police officers are agents of oppression, most of our life force will be trapped in the oppositional struggle. And it’s likely that we’ll need to repeat the same heated scenario with a new set of characters in future years or decades.

By engaging the actors on the political stage like the characters in a dreamscape, we can open to the possibility that each has been placed there to teach certain lessons and bring certain gifts. We can listen and discover their wisdom and worth. We can accept them - even if they make different choices than we do. Thus doesn’t negate us standing in our own truth - we can still boldly champion reform and positive change. We can hold those who abuse power accountable for their actions, sometimes with fierce love, lawsuits, and marches. But we are not trying to eradicate them. We are attempting to join with them in a way that leads both parties to be drawn forward towards greater integrity, virtue, and good.

If enough of us engage the political drama in this fashion, we may grow collectively such that we no longer need to repeat the same political dramas with new actors. We may, like a dreamer who wakes up into full awareness, begin to create a political landscape that operates with another level of lucidity.

So I encourage you to engage the political process with all the passion, intensity, and power that you can muster while resting in a place of acceptance as well, seeing the perfection in the role of each player and trusting that we are destined for nobler days. Sooner or later, we will move beyond the latest injustices. Sooner or later, the oppressive forces of today will fade into history. Sooner or later, the vastness of the human heart will triumph. It all begins when we let our own heart triumph.

The Ruthless Father and the Politics of Fear

Published by OpEdNews.com

In the psychology of the 2004 election, fear of terrorism plays a pivotal role. Many voters seem willing to accept Bush’s deceptions and aggressions because they believe that his stance towards terrorism will make them safer. The Republican campaign continually highlights Bush’s “decisive” response to 9/11, wrapping him in a patriotic flag, fighting evil-doers around the world. Ominous predictions from Cheney warn of a heightened risk of terror if voters make the “wrong” choice.

Fear leads us to become psychologically younger and more desirous of a strong father to protect us from danger. Someone who speaks in the language of the protective father can ease our anxieties on an emotional level. This is well understood by Republican strategists, who amplify the level of fear with color-coded threats and ominous warnings while promising safety -- good marketing for a value system built around the protective father.

Democrats are not as adept in the ways of using fear as a manipulation, mainly because the underpinning value system is more driven by care – helping those who are less fortunate, nurturing kids through education, reducing war, taking care of the environment, extending health care benefits, etc. These values all tend to be flavored with care -- more connected to the nurturing mother than the tough father.

Given the climate of fear right now, Kerry has a choice of two main strategies. The first is to demonstrate that he can be a superior protective father to Bush, citing his war heroism, surrounding himself with firemen and “manly” men, attacking and using a lot of “fighting” language. The main challenge with this strategy is that Bush has already proven his ruthlessness, which in the emotional language of the child can be an asset. The child in us wants our father to be a ruthless killer to protect us. The frightened child doesn’t care whether our father lies or has integrity or obeys laws so long as he has OUR interests at heart.

Kerry appears to be a man of much greater integrity than Bush. In the politics of fear, this is not necessarily an asset. Books hit the shelves daily showing the Corleone characteristics of the Bush administration, which is actually reassuring to many who are fearful. The fearful child hears that the “enemy” has been tortured at Abu Ghraib and is reassured that the stern father will do “anything” to protect him. That is why scandals involving lies about the Iraq war or Abu Ghraib have little effect on the polls. Scared voters appreciate mercenary qualities, so long as the ruthless leader is on our side. I thus believe it’s a losing battle for Kerry to simply posture as the better tough father; Bush and Cheney can demonstrate a level of aggressive ruthlessness that Kerry and Edwards will not match.

A second strategy Kerry (or activist groups) can adopt is to demonstrate that Bush has been abusing the American people themselves, which triggers a strong desire for a safer father figure and more caring values. In other words, Kerry needs to show that Bush’s ruthlessness extends equally to the people he is supposed to represent and that he is actively exploiting Americans for personal benefit. Then that same ruthlessness becomes perceived as a real danger to us. It’s VERY frightening when the ruthless father starts abusing his own children.

The upshot of this logic is that those who recognize Bush as a danger to our country should not waste time on proving scandals overseas or demonstrating ethical breaches or cutthroat politics. They should not even focus too heavily on better policies. They should focus on the one area where Bush is very vulnerable and the one area that matters in the psychology of the fearful child: what is he doing to us? Does the ruthless father have our interest at heart? Will he abuse us?

At the heart of this matter is 9/11, which has been framed to be the Republicans’ biggest asset, the justification for all subsequent policies. In the world of emotions, 9/11 was an overwhelming demonstration of our vulnerability and our need to be protected by a ruthless father. However, if this commonly understood story changes, that would shift the psychology of the entire race. This might involve a shift from seeing Bush as protecting us on 9/11 to seeing Bush as manipulating or even harming us for his own ends.

In other words, if the frame of 9/11 were shifted such that a reasonably large number of people believed that Bush exacerbated or permitted the damage that day, the prevalent psychology of the child would flip and the fear would be directed against Bush rather than Al Qaeda terrorists. All it would take would be strong evidence that Bush knew in advance about the attacks and consciously allowed them to happen to advance political, military, and economic plans. There is ample evidence that he has used the attacks as a justification for a range of policies and actions. The only question is whether he knew in advance and decided to allow the attacks to happen to reap these political, military, and economic benefits.

To those who haven’t been exposed to the actual evidence, that question may sound far-fetched. But on August 30, 2004, a Zogby poll revealed that nearly 50% of New Yorkers believe that members of the administration knew about the attacks in advance and “consciously failed to act.” Dozens of books and movies have sprung up examining this evidence, many by respected scholars and journalists. In Canada, a poll in May showed that 63% of Canadians believe the U.S. government knew in advance and chose not to act. In Japan, a two-hour special in early September on Asahi, the second-largest TV network, explored the evidence for government complicity. In America, there have been dozens of conferences, citizens’ inquiries, and protest actions- all focused on this evidence. The National Green Party has even issued a press release on the matter.

Those who are demanding deeper inquiry now number in the hundreds of thousands, including a former member of the first Bush administration, a retired air force colonel, families of the victims, highly respected authors, investigative journalists, peace and justice leaders, and former Pentagon staff. Even Bob Dole’s former chief of staff Stanley Hilton has joined in, launching a lawsuit representing 400 families that names Bush and Cheney as suspects in the murders of 9/11.

There is simply too much that is suspicious about that day, from the lack of air defense response to Bush’s strange behavior to the lack of missile battery protection around the Pentagon to the absence of a single person being fired or reprimanded for failures. When seen as a whole, the accumulating evidence clearly points to a cover-up of something. What? Why were high-level officials warned not to fly that day? Who profited from insider trading of stocks? Why was there such strong resistance from the White House to an investigation? Why have key people like FBI translator Sibel Edmonds been issued gag orders? Why didn’t the 911 commission address most of the questions posed by families?

It is important to recognize that the movement bringing these issues forward is not based on vague conspiracy suspicions. It is based on a growing body of incriminating evidence, all of which makes it seem highly probable that at least some high-level government officials allowed 9/11 to happen on purpose.

The mainstream media has largely balked at reporting on the movement or investigating themselves. There are signs of change, however, from coverage on Democracy Now to mentions in the Washington Post and an extended article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Hopefully, intrepid journalists will take up this story in increasing numbers. If not, the American people will be asked to make important electoral decisions in November without the full story. For those who want more information, I recommend starting with theologian David Ray Griffin’s book New Pearl Harbor and Canadian journalist Barrie Zwicker’s DVD The Great Conspiracy. You can also track the best of the movement at www.911truth.org, or even create your own house party teach-in.

In closing, I urge concerned citizens to pursue this inquiry publicly and quickly. The prevalent psychology of the fearful child is not helping us to stand in our greatness as a country. By showing that the fiercely protective father may have turned against his own family -- the very citizens that he is supposed to represent -- we can begin to reclaim what is beautiful about America.

The events of 9/11 are at the heart of this election. As long as the official story remains the accepted story, Bush is likely to win for the reasons detailed above. If the official story about 9/11 is exposed as a deception of the American people, though, we can bet that voters will make choices that lead us out of the fog of fear into the sunshine of truth again. And that is how we can begin to create a truly safer world.

Attention is Like Water

This brief article comes from the "The Pulpit" - a monthly segment in the Radical Spirit Catalyst. See the site for more details or sign up here for the newsletter, which is mainly geared to allies in Northern California

Attention is like water – it brings life to whatever it touches. Whether it is a neglected child who is acting out in school, or a weary body thirsty for a vacation, everything that exists needs attention to thrive. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that the universe is winding down, tending towards increased entropy. Attention winds the universe back up. It’s the turbine of evolution, the Godforce within us, creating businesses, families, communities, relationships, even social movements.

At times, I get annoyed with the fact that everything needs attention. The website is out of date. Bills are late. Friends have fallen off the radar. The plants are wilting. And the Ultra Important Project of the week still cries for more time. In such moments, I envision all of manifest reality as a giant baby, unable to care for itself, screaming endlessly for attention. And I am the parent, enslaved to take care of the baby’s needs until I’m spent.

In those moments, it is often ME that is not getting enough attention. I might need a massage or a walk or a long sleep. Or perhaps I need the undivided attention of meditation. Recently, I’ve been shifting my view of meditation to something akin to watering a plant. I used to be very intent on clearing old karmas, cleansing impurities, becoming more focused, refining my work plans, seeing the big picture or even raising my vibration rate. It was always goal-directed in subtle ways.

Recently, when I meditate, I feel more passive - like I am “watering” my soul and body with attention that has no particular direction in mind. I’m simply bathing my body and mind in raw, undiluted awareness, like a plant in the rain. In noticing the flux and flow of sensation, emotion, and thought, my capacity to give full attention to the rest of my life is then renewed. It reminds me of filing up the watering can at the spigot in order to douse the plants in the garden.

This month, I’ve been thinking more about how much actual attention I have – how much water is in the watering can? If I spread it too thin, everything wilts eventually from inadequate attention, including me. If I focus it too intently, I find myself impatient, wanting to see more happening more quickly. What do I include in the garden of my life, knowing that each and every thing in the garden will need attention in order to thrive and result in a harvest?

There’s an art to knowing precisely how much attention we have and therefore how much we can care for in our lives. There are times when that capacity expands and there are practices that help it expand. And there are times when it deflates. For some time, I was consulting on the development of six or seven projects but several of them wilted: not enough attention. Now, I am working on three main ones, and that seems to be about the maximum. One is even better, but the question is whether that one project or job can accommodate or require all the different kinds of attention I want to bring.

I’ve been noticing common patterns of attention in relationship as well. Devaa and I keep opening deeper and deeper layers of partnership. While our extended community often dabbles in polyamory, it seems impossible to go to the same level of depth with multiple people – there’s simply not enough attention for the relationships to blossom into harvest. Similarly with friends and community: how many people can be “close” friends? How many people can we have as casual friends? Acquaintances? Even simple tasks such as updating email addresses or conversing at a party take time and attention.

There appear to be typical relationship patterns that reflect how much actual attention we hav available. An inner circle of close friends is generally less than 10 or 12 (think of a wedding party). A community tends to stay below 120 ( for example, when co-housing communities develop beyond that threshhold, they tend to split into two communities). Finally, a network of acquaintances tends to max out around 1000-1500.

I don’t think these are arbitrary numbers but reflect something fundamental about the amount of actual attention we have. If we take them seriously, then we’re thinking consciously about WHO we are inviting into the garden of our life, how close to the center, and therefore how much attention we are giving the relationship. If a relationship starts to require more attention (positive or negative) than its position allows, then we need to draw a boundary or perhaps even let one of the people in a closer circle shift outwards to keep balance. Similarly, if someone is in an inner circle and we don’t consciously “water” the relationship with attention, it will tend to fade outward.

The same is true of possessions. I find it useful to think about literally everything we own as something that needs attention – even if it’s in a box in the garage, there will come a time when it needs to be moved or handled. And there’s a nagging tug at the edge of our awareness that it is “our” stuff. We are responsible for it. Ideally, we should be honoring it with our full attention from time to time. A certain Sufi school strongly encourages practitioners to ONLY have as much stuff as they absolutely need. Anything that we have in our possession that we are not actively using is a drain on our awareness.

When we move from accumulating things to thinking about each object requiring our awareness, then giving away what we don’t need becomes a natural and normal motion – it frees space for our attention for those things that are more important. It also frees the object to go to someone who might be able have the attention and desire for it. This allows us to take that much better of care of those things that ARE in our garden, as well as cut down on the number of possessions – all of which require resources to produce, maintain, and dispose of.

My hope in reflecting on these matters is that as I learn to respect the laws of attention, there is a more natural evolution towards harvest in all domains of my life, each in its proper time.