I am hoping that this will have value for at least one person. If not, I apologize in advance for the electrons I have consumed. Feel free to read or not as suits you, to respond or not likewise. I am home, alone except for five cats, and this is my perhaps futile attempt to connect in some meaningful way with others. I apologize in advance if it strikes you as other.
Peace. And I invite you to continue reading.
I have 6 more days of vacation. Tasks for school are behind, but not much, as I corrected the last of my papers today, and should finish planning sometime tomorrow. After several nights of 9-10 hours of sleep, albeit interrupted by a sinus condition, my body has almost recuperated. And the hard work of planning for Yearlykos remains on holiday hiatus, giving me a chance to reflect and think in broader terms.
This evening I caught part of a conversation on CSPAN with Taylor Branch, Pulitzer Prize winning writer about the Civil Rights Era. One question phoned in for him was about the influence of the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh on King. Branch related how King had been shocked when Hanh defended the self-immolations of Vietnamese Buddhist monks to protest and try to stop the war (something imitated in the Pentagon parking lot by American Quaker Norman Morrison). King was horrified by the idea of suicide, but Hanh tried to explain how to a Buddhism it was not suicide, but transition to a different state, and that the willingness to undergo the pain, suffering and extinguishing of current life on behalf of something in which you strongly believed would in the Buddhist mind be seen as something noble. Branch pointed out that King and Hanh may have continued to disagree on this one point, but that King was so affected by his interchanges with the Vietnamese monk that he - given his privilege as a former winner himself - nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Part of KingGÇÖs horror came from his lack of understanding of a different perspective, a different world view. I grasped this even as Branch was thinking - the act of self-immolation was totally alien to one steeped in a Christian environment. After all, Catholic cemeteries to this day will not bury within their confines those who have committed suicide (although here I remember both the phrase from some evangelical anticommunists of the 1950GÇÖs of GÇ£better dead than RedGÇ¥ and the long list of martyrs honored because they chose death rather than disavow their faith). I began to reflect.
We react in horror to suicide bombings in Iraq and in Israel and elsewhere. And yet, were an American soldier to rush an enemy machine gun nest with two armed grenades and blow up the enemy position while killing himself we would demand he be given the Medal of Honor. His action was suicidal, but because we perhaps approve of the end goal of his action we accept and even honor an action which in a different context we would condemn.
In my own small participation in the Civil Rights movement, we were trained in minimally protecting ourselves against blows, we practiced not responding to verbal or even physical assaults. For many Americans such an approach would be considered ridiculous, perhaps even cowardly. And yet there was a purpose, a belief that the use of violence to obtain rights that should be open to all by mere fact of being human somehow besmirched dishonored those rights, and that ultimately we would be far more successful in our willingness to absorb blows, perhaps be harmed or even killed, because it would witness to the depth of our commitment.
Many could not understand us, as they could not understand Gandhi (not that I equate my own minimal actions with the risks he endured).
There is an arrogance in all of this. We embark on paths because we assume the rightness of our goal. Others will criticize us on both tactics and strategy, and if we are not immediately effective in obtaining an ultimate goal that will also be thrown against us. We will be asked what we have accomplished by our GÇ£nobleGÇ¥ actions, other than pain or even death.
And yet such charges can be arrayed against any human endeavor, so at least for me they are not discouraging.
Shortly after I had begun this reflection I read the article by Ryan Lizza that focuses on Rahm Emanuel. Here I should disclose that I used to know him slightly - we attended the same synagogue while he worked for Clinton, and he was kind enough to allow me to bring a group of 8th graders to meet with him in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. As I read the article, it was not the foulness of language that upset me. I was perhaps more concerned about the need to demean those who had other points of view. even if they may have shared similar ultimate goals. I wondered how far that willingness to ignore the humanity of the one who disagreed would go absent at least some shared goals?
I am no saint. I have a temper, and a far too easily bruised ego. My brilliant mother (graduating from hs at 14, Cornell at 18 and Columbia Law at 21) passed on to me one of my least admirable characteristics: I have a very quick mind and mouth, and am far too easily tempted to use it for the verbal (or in this environment electronic) attack on others.
I periodically catch my self, realizing that whatever short-term advantage or satisfaction I may gain from supposed verbal brilliance is more than offset by the damage to those long-term goals that matter far more to me. But the reason that the long-term goals matter more is because I can see myself as connected to others, even if they are now my opponents, even if they are very different in action, in world view.
I posit here no superior moral position. I have in myself far too much human fallibility to ever be able to sustain such a claim. I am merely offering some not very well developed thoughts electronically.
This is being written primarily for dailykos, a web site devoted to electing Democrats. It will be posted elsewhere - RaisingKaine, teacherken.blogspot.com, Notinournames, perhaps even at StreetProphets. The primary audience, the readers of dailykos, will be the main reason for how I express the ideas I now choose to offer.
If we aspire to have Democrats control our government, we must be clear what we want for them, and not in our efforts to achieve those ultimate goals do things that are contrary. If we believe that the level personal destructiveness and deviousness in political campaigns, in legislative processes, has been bad for this country, we have no right to use similar tactics whether in retribution, anger, or for any other justification. If it was wrong when it was done to us, it would be similarly wrong for us to resort to such actions.
Battles of ideas and concepts can and should be vigorous. Hypocrisy is fair game. But demeaning merely because one can is not, and I might add it is often counter productive. Using the legislative process to raise massive campaign sums in order to wage televised warfare is as much of an abomination as was Tom DelayGÇÖs K-Street Project. Further, it is not necessary, and it turns off those whose support we need if we are going to move this nation forward.
We will have strong disagreements on issues. If we cannot understand the mindset of others we will misinterpret what their actions mean. We do not have to agree with either their points of view or the actions that flow therefrom, but if we simply assume they have no rational basis then two things will happen. First we will misinterpret what they really mean, and second our actions in response will not be as effective, either against them, or in attempting to persuade those who are not advocates of either side of the particular dispute.
What is legitimate to say or do or believe? How are we entitled to reject another person because of disagreement on one or even multiple issue? How are we so certain that what we believe and how we act is always correct? Is not that an unforgivable arrogance? Does it not lead to the mindset that does not allow one to make corrections, because recognition of previously wrong beliefs or actions implies weakness, so is never considered? Is not that part of why we are so critical of the current president, who is unwilling to ever acknowledge that his decisions could be wrong? Do we wish to be like him, like this administration?
It is normal for people to reflect back at certain times, perhaps as a birthday or anniversary of a major life milestone occurs. Given the Civil calendar, there are many such reflections at this time of the year. We see Time announce its person(s) of the year (and by the way, congratulations). There are lists of the ten best and ten worst - movies, books, politicians, whatever. For many of us there is something of a lull in our normal level of activity. In my case the school is closed for 11 days. Others simply take extended time off, as my wife is doing to be with her family.
I offer these thoughts not because I consider them profound. But perhaps, even as they are at best tentative, a work in process (as is my life), they may in some way connect with the thinking of someone else.
Perhaps you will offer something back. Maybe my words donGÇÖt direct connect with some third person, but our exchange of thoughts does. Perhaps what you offer will crystalize something as yet not completely formed in my own thinking. That is why I post this. I encourage responses, whatever they may be.
And if there are no responses, if this diary merely scrolls into oblivion with little traffic, so be it. I claim neither profundity nor insight nor wisdom. I offer my somewhat unformed thoughts in the hope that they may be of value to someone else. Whatever happens from here, over that i have no control.
peace be with you into 2007.
Have a Happy New Year and try "sudafed" for your sinus problem.
The only thing I don't like about it is that it raises my blood pressure.
I only take it when absolutely necessary. In general, I don't take pills, not even vitamins.
However, "Michael" possesses loosely defined and enumerated - yet very important and specific, although initially unstated - purposes and goals, and he achieves them all in the end. If you haven't seen the movie, please do so, soon. Based only upon what little I have learned about you here so far, I believe that, if it isn't already, "Michael" could easily become one of your favorites, too. More to the point...
Of all those mentors and role models who influenced my life, school teachers and college professors are at the top of the list. From my earliest memories, educators made me think and encouraged me to be creative and introspective and forthright. Not just with their lesson plans, but also by their own actions and deeds and examples, they taught me the value of books and knowledge and learning and reading and writing. Were I a better student of such teachers, this would be a better composition; its shortcomings are not their fault.
Regardless, teachers have taught me to think, to question, to go beyond face value. I can assure you that I will do my best to continue to try to understand the mindsets of others, especially those who anger and baffle, bewilder and disappoint, frustrate and sadden me. I should always strive to consider their points of view, their unique perspectives, their reasons for living - and dying. Most importantly, in order to grow, I must also consider the strong possibility that I am equally - or more - frustrating to them.
(Therefore, in response to another aspect of your message posted above, I am probably most troubled when I hear the word "Crusaders" used to describe Americans and British and others who are fighting on our side in the current Middle Eastern wars. If "we" are truly perceived by "them" in the 11th - 13th century context and definition of the term "Crusaders", then I fear that there may be no end to these battles until each side is willing to better understand the other. After a thousand years or more - and especially keeping in mind those intense two centuries of the "Great Crusades" - these conflicts continue unabated. Obviously, more education is sorely needed on both sides of the current divide.)
Finally, I am merely a student, also an ever-changing and evolving "work in process/progress", and I hope never to stop learning from compassionate, dedicated, determined teachers like you.
Thanks for continuing to encourage us to think and - perhaps more importantly - to act upon those thoughts.
Steve
About life in the pre pill era. A squirt of warm salt water up the sinus cavities does wonders.
Hearing of President Ford's death reminded me that at heart he was a fundamentally decent man who truly wanted to do the right thing and who believed in bipartisan cooperation. You did not hear of Ford claiming that failure to support him was failure to support America. And concurrently, there was not the sense from either the left or the right that a political position was the equivalent of a moral position.
The habit of vilifying opponents arose with Reagan and the rise of the "Moral Majority", but it is no longer confined to those elements. I see this type of behavior from all parts of the political spectrum and it dismays me. Holding a particular view is no longer a political difference of opinion; now it is a moral judgment. I hope we can move past this type of thing, and I hope that the bloggers and activists out there understand what you are trying to say and comport themselves accordingly. We cannot condemn vicious, deceitful, personality driven campaigning by opponents and then engage in it ourselves without losing that moral high ground.
In the political realm, there is no difference between asking our soldiers to risk their lives to take another country and the suicide bombers from the region who use their lives to foil our plans.
what else can you call firebombings in Tokyo, Hambrug, Dresden, even before the use of nuclear weapons?
How is that different than trying to break the will of what they view as an alien occupation?
Please note, I am not trying to justify, but I am trying to help you understand the mentality, because I think you entirely miss the motivation.
American troops were accused of effectively being terrorists because they would not stand and fight against the British during the American revolution. We resorted to shooting from behind rocks and trees, or have you forgotten our picking off British on their return to Boston in April of 1975.
Asymmetrical fighting is always objected to by the more powerful, who want the weaker to stand and get destroyed.
And remember that suicide bombers are attacking those they believe to be their enemies, rightly or wrongly.
The key is to UNDERSTAND, otherwise neither your tactics nor your strategy are likely to provide you with success.
Please, please keep writing about this and telling us about your experience and communicate it to us. :)