Tannishblog

A lot of political posturing occurs in the name of our troops. It's the 21st century equivalent of wrapping ones self in the flag. But how are our congressional members really voting on veteran issues?

Two groups, Disabled American Veterans and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, have independently created report cards for our representatives in federal and state offices. Before you vote, check out the actions of your congressman or woman, state representatives or federal on vital issues to the thousands of military people damaged in our wars. According to IAVA, 86 members of congress scored "D" or "F" on issues that matter to the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and their families.

Concussive damage to the brain is emerging as the "signature injury" of our conflict. Yet Congress has failed to pass measures to fund research for reversing brain damage in our veterans.

So: Who are the real patriots and who are the professional politicians?

I know. It’s a week before the November midterm elections, and You’ve just about had it with the negativity spewing from both sides. Me, too. But I have to share this, coming to me from the Linky& Dinky newsletter, originating at Hightower Lowdown: The August 2006 Poster highlighting the changes wrought my our Most Memorable President.

It’s a PDF. Save it. Email it to any fence-sitters you know. If there are any. Print it out and leave it in the break room at work. No one will know it was you…

I struggle with creating these Zen postings. Among the reasons for this is the fact that I am not myself proficient enough in the teachings, or practiced enough in method. To find a tidbit to share and to think upon is part of my practice. Somewhere I heard that a solid method to understanding a subject of to debate or discuss it with others less familiar. So, I attempt to do so.

Temptation exists to just cut-and-paste something then go have fun. I resist as I can; that is not the point of this exercise. However there are many others more qualified and more eloquent than I. I found someone like that on the ‘net and who coincidentally is not too far from me in meatspace.

Roshi Seven Ross at the Chicago Zen Center has generously recorded a few of his Teisho discourses for our edification. Each is about 45 minutes in length. I suggest a quiet place, perhaps after sitting a while and settling the mind. Bear in mind his discussions are meant for people with a base understanding of Zen, of the center, and of what it’s all about. Picture yourself as a fly on the wall as you listen to remind yourself that not everything you’ll hear may find purchase at first. Some things he infers require a level of knowledge we might not possess yet. Get accustomed to Roshi’s calming delivery, give it some space. I guarantee he will get you thinking.

Perhaps more that I have… way more…

I own a war game called Fortress America. It’s a bit of a collector’s item, made during the last throes of a dying gaming industry that had yet to re-emerge, phoenix-like, into the ether of the online gaming world. Circa 1983, I think.

The premise of the game was simple: America was under attack on three fronts; to the East, a shadowy Euro-Russian alliance was establishing beachheads. The game designers chose red plastic to represent this army. To the West, a vague aggregate of Sino-Japanese aggression is storming the Pacific coast (yellow pieces, of course.) Finally to the South, a federation (of blue pieces) from the nations in that direction. Our Great Beleaguered Nation has, as it’s unique tactical advantage, a deck of "Partisan Cards" that initiate a random sequence of guerilla attacks against the invaders. This is to represent the can-do spirit of the average Americans to repel enemies wherever they may be found. Yea, America!

An interesting premise, ahead of its time, perhaps, yet a rather bland board game. Game mechanics aside, though, the game illustrated common fears of a populace of which I was heretofore unaware. That demographic has been in power for the entirety of this young century. During their tenure, they’ve done a bang-up job of making this fantasy real. Europe likes us even less that they did, the Chinese soon won’t need any help in attacking the Left Coast, besides, we’ve been selling our future to then to pay for our failed war efforts. And in the South…

President Bush signed his "Secure Fence Act of 2006" (he just had to get a derivative of the word security in there…) where in he mandates the building of a 700 mile fence along a 1900 mile border. You do the math. Just to keep it interesting, he doesn’t bother to try to fund the $7 billion project. Washington Post, of all entities, notes the irony in that as well as a short historical perspective on the effectiveness of walls.

I guess the Fortress America campaign is proceeding - however slowly. Those Southern Invaders should watch out for the turning over of America’s Partisan Cards along the remaining 2/3 of our border-down-under. Now all we have to worry about is how to build walls on the oceans.

Yesterday’s CNN headline proclaimed the confirmed killing of "a Most Wanted Terrorist," Mushin Musa Matwali Atwah, who made the top ten in connection with the 1988 US Embassy bombing. And we didn’t get him, the Pakistan military did. Eight years and untold casualties later, this guy was "gotten" by happenstance. I’m waiting for the first wingnut to proclaim this a Bush victory…

[…]

Remember America’s War on Drugs? This was our first shot at pre-emptive warfare, and it resulted in a tighter, leaner black market and higher profits for those willing to thumb their capitalistic thumbs at Uncle Sam. But the war rages on in Mexico where, the NY Times reports, 1700 have been killed this year. Perhaps if we make the stuff legal and regulate it to the hilt and tax the bejeezus out of it, life would be saves. But, as they are brown people, our compassionate conservatives are conserving their compassion on the issue.

[…]

Meanwhile, Danny Harold Rolling, the Gainesville, Florida serial killer who killed five students, sang a hymn after being injected on Death Row. Witnesses said he penned the words himself. That should clear his way to the Pearly Gates….

[…]

Every tropical storm is getting star treatment this year as we await the nest "big one." It’s nice that they are given their fifteen minutes of fame, even though "climate change" is a myth.

[…]

And in the Land of Nod, astride the Potomac River somewhere, the Grand Poobah of Mass Destruction talks out of both sides of his mouth near simultaneously:

"I know many Americans are not satisfied with the situation in Iraq," he said in a lengthy statement before taking questions. "I’m not satisfied either." October has been the deadliest month this year for American forces, and the war soon will have lasted longer than U.S. involvement in World War II.

"The events of the past month have been a serious concern to me and a serious concern to the American people," the president said.

Bush said the United States was changing tactics to deal with circumstances in Iraq but shouldn’t change the overall direction of the war.

"Absolutely we’re winning," the president asserted.

If this is what winning looks like, I’m disappointed, too. But all that needs to taken with a pillar of salt, as it is October Surprise time, and the Ministry of Propaganda is in full swing, trying for a three-peat. While we’re asking for the improbable, lets create arbitrary "benchmarks for progress" for the Iraqi puppet government to fail. Looks like our embattled administration is taking a long, banking curve into a reversal of all the spin we’ve been force fed over the past four years. Or they might just be hedging their bets in case the Dems actually pull of their planned coup.

Life is like a maze. You know there’s a way through, but there’s no map. Not only that, but once your in, there’s only one way to go - forward. And at every corner, and there are many, there’s no telling what you’ll find.

As I have stumbled with trepidation through my personal maze, moments of clarity sometimes occur. Occasionally I turn the corner to find a whole new, unexpected path in front of me. These moments are forever imprinted on the mind. One such turning happened 16 years ago today. I had been preparing for it for months, so I thought, but one cannot prepare for an event outside one’s experience.

Sixteen years ago, I stood bewildered and nervous in a birthing ward while my wife delivered our daughter. No sleep for two days, high on caffeine and endorphins, holding my wife’s hand while watching her experiencing pain akin to organ failure, and now a red, mewling - something - clasped firmly to a breast. To see her and her new wet bundle literally sent me into a shock. I don’t know how I got home that evening.

My next semi-lucid moment came when I was busy assembling a crib with the help of a concerned cat, when the phone rang. She was - they were - ready to come home. I shot out the door and across town to retrieve them. Enough of the shock wore off by then that as the hospital elevator opened and glanced up, I noticed how different things were. I had turned the corner.

Gaining a child is not unlike loosing a hand. Both are life-altering events. Both force one to readjust to the entirety of life, not just a portion, and all future decisions are determined as viewed against this new criteria. This is an new maze, now.

To speak of the joys of parenting, or any other overworked cliche, just doesn’t convey the reality. Parenting - the act of being a parent - is literally the meaning of life. Life is purposeless otherwise. To nurture, love, guide a new spirit until they can take wing, is the essence of humanity. There is no greater challenge, no duty of higher importance than to allow your progeny to flourish by neither pushing nor holding back. And there is no higher reward than to see a child morph into a sensible, sensitive young adult.

The next corner, I assume, is when our daughter packs off to college. Her wings will get their workout then. I’ll know, when the shock wears off and I take note of the tiniest details, that the next segment of the maze will be revealed.

Only two years from now… She’ll be ready: that’s obvious. But will I?

Maybe I should entitle this post, "Why We’re Going To Lose This Election." I don’t want to jinx anything, but I feel we progressives are missing something essential.

We have no leader.

Republicans love to ridicule us because we are still - this late in the election cycle - wringing our hands and whining about how bad things are. They’re right. We have no focus beyond complaining. Whom do we have to lead the growing ranks of the Disenchanted? Can someone please stand up, take a stance against Conservative Demagoguery, and lead us? At least take the chance and try…

I once thought Howard Dean to "have the right stuff." Then I pondered on the ability of Wesley Clark to push forward. Both these gentlemen know a fight when they see one. As I write this, I cannot envision anyone having the "chutzpah" to deliver impassioned challenges to the status quo. Write me if I’m missing something…

That’s one thing the Republicans have that we need, someone brash enough (or so full of himself that he can’t envision losing) to plant his feet and shout, "Charge!" Unless and until we find this brave person, we will continue to falter. Unlike the Conservative majority, we Progressives are too mired in reason to suspend disbelief regarding our capacity to fail. Because of this, we have refrained from taking a much needed stand against this administration. Because of this, we’ve lost already; sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Remember Pat Tillman? He was the NFL safety from the Arizona Cardinals who, along with his brother, decided to honor the memories of those killed on 9/11 by quitting his covetous job and joining the Army. I’m sure they was glad to have him. He and his brother Kevin became Army Rangers and were shipped off first to Iraq, then to Afghanistan where Pat died.

The true peculiarity of his story starts there. The Army reported the circumstances of his death to his family and to the nation: he was killed while storming a position along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Read what the world was told in April, 2004:

Tillman, 27, was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, based at Fort Lewis, Wash. The battalion was involved in Operation Mountain Storm in southeastern Afghanistan, part of the U.S. campaign against fighters of the al-Qaida terror network and the former Taliban government along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, military officials told NBC News.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Matthew Beevers said Saturday that Tillman was killed Thursday night in a firefight at about 7 p.m. on a road near Sperah, about 25 miles southwest of a U.S. base at Khost.

After coming under fire, Tillman’s patrol got out of their vehicles and gave chase, moving toward the spot of the ambush. Beevers said the fighting was “sustained” and lasted 15-20 minutes.

A sad story, right? But he’s a hero, now, and America honors its heroes. The media played it up as a testament to the honor and courage of America for all to see.

But the Army lied. By December of 2004, after several months of inquiry, the Army was forced to rescind their original story and tell another one: Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire.

It ended on a stony ridge in fading light. Spec. Pat Tillman lay dying behind a boulder. A young fellow U.S. Army Ranger stretched prone beside him, praying quietly as tracer bullets poured in.

"Cease fire! Friendlies!" Tillman cried out.

Smoke drifted from a signal grenade Tillman had detonated minutes before in a desperate bid to show his platoon members they were shooting the wrong men. The firing had stopped. Tillman had stood up, chattering in relief. Then the machine gun bursts erupted again.

"I could hear the pain in his voice," recalled the young Ranger days later to Army investigators. Tillman kept calling out that he was a friendly, and he shouted, "I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!" His comrade recalled: "He said this over and over again until he stopped."

Steve Coll, of the Washington Post, writes a superb eulogy in the above article. He honors the memory of  Pat Tillman and honors the bravery and commitment of our troops on the ground while exposing the lies of our military machine who, it would seem, does neither. It make one wonder how many other lies have been told about the Oil Wars that we’ve not heard about? My father used to tell me: Once a person lies to you, you can never trust them again.

Pat’s birthday is November 6 - the day before the election. Coincidence or Fate? I guess the election’s outcome will decide this question as well as others. Last Thursday, TrughDig.com posted an article from Kevin Tillman who also enlisted and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that Kevin is discharged, he is free to speak his mind. I don’t think he’ll be backing the Republicans this time around:

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after.  It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military.  He spoke about the risks with signing the papers.  How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people.  How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition.  How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out. 

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Please read on. Here is a voice in anguish at the real cost of war. Here is a brave soldier awakening to the horror, the cost of war, weighing this against the romance of ideology perpetrated by our administration and our media. Here is a man who - more than the rest of us - has earned the right to speak out against the terrible state our nation is in. Right here is a National Tragedy. One of many.

That Pat Tillman was already a celebrity was a boon to America. Otherwise his story would fall into the same pit of obscurity that thousands of others have landed. Without his celebrity, we wouldn’t have know the length our military will go to cover it’s own ass, to the detriment of the families who sacrifice its children to feed the war machine. To the detriment of average American powerless to affect change.

Remember Pat Tillman. Honor his memory and the suffering of his family and the thousands of other families suffering from loss or having to adapt to a returned soldier hideously damaged in service to an uncaring ideology. Remember all this as you vote on November 7. May it give you wisdom.

I begin my day in meditation. Or at least that is my intention. Most days, my hour of practice is spent chasing my mind like a dog and his tail. This itself can be interesting when an effort is made to note all the places the minds wants to go that day.

This morning, while I follow my thoughts, I find my mind wants to bash Christianity. This is an issue with me, one I try to keep off this blog: such is not the way to enlightenment.

Nonetheless, my thoughts travel to the core of my issue - values and actions. I ponder the Ten Commandments and how our Christian nation has abandoned them. Let’s look at them. As familiar as we are to the texts, I will not list them here. Its fascinating to me that they are open to interpretation, succinctly worded as they are…

 I note, for a prominent example, that our president, who ran a campaign openly professing his allegiance to Jesus, has promoted policies which violate many of the highest laws to which a Christian is supposed to be beholden. I will dispense from enumerating the wrongful actions of our administration. My point is to note how little the commandments factor into the lives of modern Christians

I mention this only in contrast to a Buddhist teaching that an outsider might liken to the Judeo-Christian commandments. These are the Ten Precepts that children and novice Buddhists learn, known as the Dasa-sikkapada.

1. I undertake to abide by the precept to abstain from killing.
2. I undertake to abide by the precept to abstain from stealing.
3. I undertake to abide by the precept to abstain from sexual misconduct.
4. I undertake to abide by the precept to abstain from lying.
5. I undertake to abide by the precept to abstain from liquor that causes intoxication and heedlessness.
6. I undertake to abide by the precept to abstain from untimely eating.
7. I undertake to abide by the precept to abstain from dancing, singing, music, and visiting unseemly shows.
8. I undertake to abide by the precept to abstain from the use of garlands, perfumes, cosmetics, and embellishments.
9. I undertake to abide by the precept to abstain from the use of high and luxurious beds.
10. I undertake to abide by the precept to abstain from accepting gold and silver.

Note the similarities: killing, stealing, lying and sexual misconduct are covered. Intoxicants are prohibited. Cultural moors defined proper times for monks to eat, usually in mornings. Since Buddhism is not hampered by a concept of a divine being, there is room for more directives of behavior. I would categorize these latter precepts into the realm of frivolous entertainments. One focus on enlightenment is to eschew materialism in favor of spiritualistic pursuits, to refrain from distractions of flesh and reduce influence of the many permutations of ego, such as pride, lust, greed and power.

These last points, I find, are completely absent from Christian teachings. At least my layman’s understanding has not uncovered such wisdom. While they are also culturally bound, and next to impossible to participate while in Western civilization, we can at least maintain awareness of their negative influence and abstain as much as we can.

Taken in whole, I find the Dasa-sikkapada more useful as a guide to life, a path to wisdom. To me, life is already too complicated to bother with improvable arguments of God. Let us instead concern ourselves with what we can master, what we have the power to address in this life to bring about positive change in ourselves and those around us. Thus we can change the world.

That’s the catchphrase of the Progressive agenda, the moniker of the upcoming election.

For those dwindling few who think America’s rightful place in the world is slave master, resource hog, global polluter and creator of global poverty, the Republican party is awaiting your hard earned money. Don’t expect any change back. All monies and other resources are being funneled into the fewest bank accounts as possible - and it won’t be yours.

For the rest of the yawning, too-slowly awakening populace, there is a growing chance to change course. The damage already done cannot be reversed until generations of progress ensue. For six short years, we have steered the course of History toward the brink of self-immolation, toward the undermining of long-held systems of belief that has kept our species advancing toward global coexistence. It will take most of the rest of this century to correct the changes wrought by the unscrupulous among us, the politically self absorbed, the criminally greedy.

We begin by shouting "Enough!" First, we categorize infractions. Much has been written about our current administration, little to the good. Then we do something about it.

One man in Baltimore has written his Citizen’s Bill of Impeachment. While many others attempt to utilize the system to foment change, I can’t help but ponder the necessity of another American Revolution to throw out the garbage in Washington and rebuild. I’m not alone in that thought. As the adage says: "Desperate times call for desperate measures." I ask you: Are you desperate enough?