Tannishblog

Just hours after president Bush fed the media bovine offal regarding bipartisan cooperation in Washington, the lame duck Republican congress starts leveraging for John Bolton. Look for them to try to cement more of their worst decisions before they go.

Now, those damned cut-and-run Democrats are angling for troop withdrawals in Iraq. No doubt righty bloggers are told-you-soing as I write this. So much for bipartisanship.

"You keep using that word… I do not think it means what you think it means."

Perhaps the dictionaries have the word mis-defined. It certainly mystifies me. Neither party will miss a chance to defy the other, or should I say mis-defy the other. I guess we should pronounce the term "my-partisanship."

As things pertain to Iraq: Something new must be tried. While I cannot say if withdrawal is a good idea, I feel certain that staying the course ™ hasn’t worked. As near as I can fathom (without digging too deep in the loamy mire of Right Blogistan) the argument against troop redeployment goes something like this: "We can’t leave now! The country will devolve into civil war!"

Somehow, I gather, it’s better to stay there and kill-or-be-killed, to risk more Iraqi families breeding anti-Americanism as they mourn their dead while Americans patrol their streets, to risk more American lives, than is it to leave gradually, and let them kill themselves as they are doing already, to have them mourn their loved ones while wondering where their nation’s peacekeepers are hiding. They’ll hate us either way. We deserve it. Iraqi problems stem from a well-documented historical hatred that, like him or not, Saddam Hussein we able to control. America doesn’t have patience or resources to stay in Iraq for the couple of generations necessary to restructure cultural biases toward diversity. If indeed that can be accomplished.

So let’s get out. Let’s try that and see how it goes. After all, we’ve shown the world how easily we can go right back in. It’s not like we can fix this war anymore than we can fix our political polarization.

Now that the Democrats have come from behind and beat the odds, the hard work is before them. They now have to back up their rhetoric with action. Meanwhile the Dems are now at the mercy of their own brain trust. They better have some ideas or the next president will be Republican.

The lame duck congress will work fast to do further harm, in the guise of national security, to further their ideological baggage. Their time is running out. No quarter this time.

 While the President is still relevant, his perception of relevancy is in play as to how he chooses to act: if he feels overrun by the new congress, he will push right wing motions to counterbalance. This way, when congress balks Republicans can whine that congress doesn’t want to play nice. If the president feels he’s been treated fairly by congress work will get done. Since Mr. Bush is already a lame duck and since he has no other elections to worry about, he’ll likely want to look at the big picture and start worrying about his legacy. As things now stand the history books might be hard on him.

Regarding the presidential legacy and the Democrats in congress, much work needs doing. Given this, I think that 2007 is the year that the government will finally work again. For the life of me, I can’t think of a single item of progress enacted by congress in 2006. Can you?

Get to work, people!

What to write in this post-election Brave New World (just like the old world), when the weekend beckons to a pummeled mind like a red-headed Siren? The events of the last week have repeatedly brought to mind a sort-of parable from Steve Hagen's book, Buddhism: Plain and Simple. He illustrated the human condition in his opening chapter:

Imagine that you see people seated at a sumptuous banquet. Long tables piled high with delicacies are spread out before them. A dazzling and mouth-watering array of foods, perfectly prepared, is steaming and glistening and sizzling right in from of their eyes, easily within reach.

But the people seated at this feast are not eating. In fact, their plates are empty. They haven't helped themselves to so much as a crumb. They've been seated at this banquet for a long time now. And they're slowly and steadily starving to death.

They're starving not because they cannot partake of the wonderful feast, or because eating is forbidden, or difficult, or harmful. They're starving because they don't realize that food is what they need. They don't recognize the sharp, urgent pains in their stomachs as hunger.. They don't see that what they need to do, all they need to do, is enjoy the feast that's right in front of them.

Haven't you felt, at one time or another, to be missing something? Hasn't life sometimes left you unfulfilled? We all have. It's not that life is incomplete, but that we cannot discern it's perfection. Perhaps the problem is not with our lives or with how we live them, but with our unacknowledged expectations. We may have formed the common habit of expecting life to be more than it really is and, by extension, expecting more of ourselves than we can fulfil.

We are what we are. Buddhism is to accept that what we have, and what we are capable of, is all we need. We are inherently perfect. I've always thought this a novel concept, coming as I have from a Christian culture of Original Sin. We have all we need to become happy, to better our world, to create joy in the lives of those around us if only we see through our cultural baggage as the psychological bondage it truly is.

The feast is before us. If we listen to our stomachs and not to outside sources, we can be free to reach forward and eat. It takes a brave person to be the first to make the move at our banquet. Soon the others will follow suit. Bon appetit!

To my eyes, the big story today is not Senator Allen’s defeat. He did that to himself, and we all saw that coming. Even the momentum of Democratic victory is only a small story. While the ousting of Rummy is welcome, it too is small compared to today’s spewing from Rush Limbaugh. It seems Oxycontin-boy feels the need to both cover his prodigious ass and to distance himself from the losing party.  I’m sure the following snippet is being echoed everywhere else, so why not here?

Now, I mentioned to you at the conclusion of the previous hour that people have been asking me how I feel all night long. I got, "Boy, Rush, I wouldn’t want to be you tomorrow! Boy, I wouldn’t want to have to do your show! Oh-ho. I’m so glad I’m not you." Well, folks, I love being me. (I can’t be anybody else, so I’m stuck with it.) The way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I’m going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, "Well, why have you been doing it?" Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country’s than the Democrat Party and liberalism does.

What? Is he Aquarian? Water-boy to the stars? No. What he is admitting to is to being a political hack who’ll say anything to promote Lies, Injustice and the Conservative Agenda (r). Sore loser! I’d go on, but Huffington Post has bettered me on this. Not that that’s so difficult…

The really twisted part is that Rush will probably keep his job, continue his verbal vomit, and most of his listeners won’t care that he has - by his own admission - assassinated his credibility. At least we can be fairly sure Rummy won’t be back.

Being an early riser afforded me the honor of being the first in my precinct to cast my paper ballot. At 6:12 this morning I fed the cards into the reader. No touch-screen for me…

Here in the hinterlands of the Southwest coast of Lake Michigan, in the County of Cook, the Blue Party rules. Notwithstanding the added political clout that money brings to the Red Party, we are mostly content with cooler colors. Not that the Blues are innocent of the same temptations that so pervade the Reds on a national level recently - far from it - still, we are happy where we stand.

This year there area few other colors available to choose. The Green Party is getting some traction in Illinois, and I applaud their efforts. It’s not easy being the outsiders. The governorship is a three way race this year, both Red and Blue have dirty fingernails, so aren’t easy to recommend, too mired in their prospective machines for my liking. So I chose Green instead.

At the county level, mostly a mystery to most voters, I think, because little air time is given to local candidates, a couple of Greens are available to choose as well. Out of ignorance of the local issues and the candidates stances, I vote Green there, too. Here’s why:

Lately our national congress has been lax in oversight of the Iraq debacle, of outrageous spending and waste, and of the behavior of many of the personalities in government. This is because the Reds control all three branches of federal government and because they can’t resist behaving like spoiled children on holiday. For the past few years debate has been dead in the hill. Debate is the heartbeat of a healthy Democratic process. Without the tug-of-war of polite argument a nation has no right to call itself either a Democracy or a Republic.

How, then, to defibrillate our nation’s heart again? By offering more choices of political parties. Imagine a congress made of three or four viable, competitive political affiliates, each with a voice commensurate with the fickleness of the voting public. Less chance of one-party rule, less chance of the resulting authoritativeness we’ve been experiencing. Parties would be forced to (gasp!) compromise, form alliances and (gasp again!) work together to further the will of the many instead of the power of the few.

Isn’t that what we’re all about in this country?

I’ve been impressed with the systems in Europe and in Israel of a multi-party congressional aggregate. This provides more flexibility on behalf of representation, and gives smaller voices a chance to be heard. In our current system, the small voices are easily shouted over. I’d live to see that become reality, however unlikely it seems. Because of this, I vote Green even if I don’t know how they stand. If enough people try this, the Greens will gain traction and (hopefully) become a force. Perhaps other fringe groups will also make gains. They can greatly change how our government works just by being big enough to gain a few seats.

So: Gimme some choice! I want more parties available to me, so I can better vote my conscience instead of forcing it to fit into someone else’s.

I despair. It’s one thing to hear the psychological warfare perpetrated upon good people in the name of Republican power mongering when those people are strangers. One can dismiss their ramblings easily. But when the smear campaign comes from a friend, one whom you care for… it becomes personal. The temptation to rebut by line item is strong, but I’ll resist. I know futility when I see it.

It hurts my sensitive Democratic heart to hear a friend so brainwashed by the Exurbian Psychosis gripping this nation. It angers me when references to 9/11 justify failed political policies that have to date killed and maimed more Americans that the original heinous act. The death toll is rapidly approaching 9/11 totals. Any doctor, psychologist, or spiritual mentor will tell you that there comes a time to end the grieving, a time to begin healing. America needs that right now.

It seems every time someone invokes September 11 for political gain, a soldier dies. Enough already! Let’s begin to heal. I can only hope that, if the elections aren’t electronically altered, the brakes can be applied to our foreign policy train wreck, our fiscal irresponsibility, and our culture of scandal and sociopathic hubris.

As I ponder our upcoming election: the theoretical possibility of crooked election machines; the reality of eleventh-hour smear campaigns; words mis-spoken and twisted beyond recognition, I try to recall a Buddhist adage that says "Will it matter in 100 years?" In theory, if the answer is "no," then one is supposed to surmise that it doesn’t matter now, either. The problem is, I feel that the current course America is treading will indeed matter in 100 years - for the worse. And that makes me quite edgy.

With that said, I offer another Dharma perspective to aid in keeping mental stability so necessary in dealing with a world society rapidly deteriorating. This, from The Path to Tranquility by the Dalai Lama.

Nothing is more important than guarding the mind. Let us constantly keep watch over the wild elephant of the mind, curbing it with mindfulness and vigilance. This is how one can avoid being influenced by external conditions. But even in retreat in a very secluded place, if the mind is not kept under control, it will wander all over the place. Even when completely alone, we can have an enormous amount of negative emotions.

Nothing is more important that the minds motions, because all experience emanates from the mind. Viewing this in light of our nation’s political discontent, I recall that all external phenomenon is illusory, will rise and fall like all things and so will soon pass. I’m also reminded not to fret over things of which I have no control, and to mind all those things that I can. What else can one do?

Please exercise you privilege to vote this Tuesday. Don’t take it for granted. It can be taken from us, because nothing really lasts.