A Pause to Honor the Dead

I hate to fall prey to the ridicule of more enlightened sorts, but I can't help but feel that the Earth is alive and, well, taking action. You can only judge by the lights of your own experience, of course, but how many near misses before we get her hint? An earthquake that shifts the length of day and wobbles us on our axis and a tsunami that kills thousands and nearly causes a meltdown of Chernobyl proportions,  poisoning the Land of the Rising Sun for generations, just might be the cause for some reflection on everyone's part.
This is a moment when concerns for our planetary health have come to the fore. Many would have us believe that nuclear power is integral to our energy future, but there are other choices. Renewable energy: the wind, sun, geothermal and hydro, can provide all of our needs with existing technologies and the necessary upgrades to our grid infrastructure.
Here is a video from the Post Carbon Institute that puts it all into perspective. The take-away is that we will have to live within our means and plan for the future in an intelligent, (ie equitable) manner. As a people, I think we get that, whether Republican or Democrat in basic political disposition.

It will be a struggle, but justice will prevail in the end. It always does. Here is another video I showed Friday in my honors Spanish class. It is based on Neruda's epic poem Nuevo Canto a Stalingrado,  in honor of the Russian heroes of the battle of Stalingrad and the Allied forces and partisans who rose to the rescue of civilization.

Afraid or Not Here it Comes

With America's best minds warning of the impact of the Republican wave, maybe we ought to be afraid, but I guarantee you nobody is, not even on Halloween. As Jon Stewart pointed out in his Rally for Sanity, Americans know how to work together, even if the political system is essentially and perhaps irretrievably broken.
That's why I was surprised at Paul Krugman for finishing off his latest editorial with the dire warning. "Be afraid. Be very afraid." He predicts, based on recent comments by Republican leader Mitch McConnell, that the next years will bring even worse impasse and economic misery as the Republicans aim to wrest control of the White House with a damn the torpedoes policy on any legislative progress dealing with our fundamental problems. It could be that this is the calculation Republicans will make. After all, they must ask themselves, which of the two parties seems to benefit the most from a hinterland of disaffected, ignorant and angry Americans, prone to manipulation and fear-mongering?
But I don't think they will, and that is because of the most important rule of American politics: the economy, stupid, to paraphrase James Carville. If we continue to tank or even stagnate in terms of middle class incomes and expectations, the GOP will have to share at least a portion of the blame in the following electoral cycle. They would be slitting their own throats to continue to play the obstructionist game for the next two years with a majority in any of the two legislative chambers.
There are ideological impasses that recent history teaches us will be impossible for the Republicans in power to overcome, such as what to do with our energy policy. But even here the beauty of our system, with its many layered checks and balances, comes to light. In the absence of any federal action, states are already banding together into regional alliances, some of them cutting across national boundaries, such as the Northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, to pledge measures to cut carbon emissions and increase the impact of energy efficiency and renewables. The infrastructure investments set up by the stimulus bill will continue to play out over the next two years, even with their relatively limited impact, providing the seeds of new manufacturing and business growth, enough to get us off our backsides and working again. And, sure, Republicans and Democrats will clash on how to improve the educational system and basic infrastructure, but nobody will argue for a hands off approach here, except the most rabidly libertarian Tea Party types.
Krugman is a Nobel laureate, and knows more than anybody of the inner workings of the American economy, but I think he is resorting to unnecessary fear-mongering. After all, most Americans are just trying to do the right thing, and if it seems that their priority is voting Republican in order to put a dent in our deficit because they've chosen to be amnesiac about the recent past, well the next time around they might follow another byzantine path to make a different choice that favors the left and its agenda. That's the crazy way we set things up and it's worked this long. There is a natural corrective mechanism. It's called the vote. No reason to fear, in my humble opinion.

The Monk, the Philosopher, and the Tea Party

My daughters love going to the dump, or the "transfer station" as we call it. Ever since the town put up a swap shop where people bring goods they no longer use for others who might find a use for them, it's become an adventure for them. They never come away empty handed, and their bedroom is brimming with stuffed animals that have taken on a communal life, a virtual world, that is sometimes more compelling for them, it seems, than the ordinary and humdrum goings on in the house. I picked up a book there, The Monk and the Philosopher, that I started reading. It's a conversation between a renowned French scientist, Jean-Francois Revel, and his Buddhist monk son, Mathieu Ricard, a stream of consciousness ramble through the foundations of Western philosophy and Eastern mysticism and the roots of human consciousness from diverging points of view. Although I only started it, it got me thinking about the popularity of Buddhism, especially for young progressive folks like myself disenchanted with traditional values and lifestyles and the mess we're in as a society. The problem I see with it is that as a religion it espouses a liberation from the material world that can seem selfish and uncaring, an escape into a personal space of enlightened peace, no doubt, but sterile. This generational yearning for escape from the madness of modernity might also help with a problem that's been bugging me for many years: how to explain the dominance of right wing bigots and ignoramuses in our national politics, as evidenced nowadays by the coming Tea Party tsunami that the press has done its best to fabricate and help along. It doesn't surprise me that people in backwards nations of the world can be manipulated into supporting their would be oppressors under the guise of national pride or ethnic superiority or whatever, but that here in the United States we are going to place back in the position of power the party which just oversaw an era of unprecedented corruption and erosion of our economic, social and moral fabric, resulting in an economic crash it will take maybe a generation to dig out of, because they stand up for the ideology of Ayn Rand? What kind of world is this? I can understand the frustration with business as usual in Washington. And I even like some of the Tea Party ideas. A sales tax to replace income tax? Why not? But so many of them are just the type of scary followers, believing in any lie that supports their bigoted, angry world view, that put the Nazis in the driver's seat in Germany. I'm not equating the Tea Party with the Nazis, I'm just saying many of their supporters aren't too discerning. What's this have to do with Buddhism? Well, it's the absence of any countervailing progressive populist movement. I think too many of us are walking away from the fight just when it's heating up with the attitude of what's the worst that can happen, we get gridlock for another six years and the Republicans set up committees to investigate Obama's ties to Islam and Michelle's trips to Spain. Ho hum. Maybe I'll light a candle and meditate and it will all go away.