Working Downstream: A Guide for Activists

For those of you seeking policy insight, McKenna’s got a terrific post up now. What follows here is more about being true to oneself than it is about politics, though I begin with yet another offensive affront to reality on the part of a Bush loyalist.

‘Twas Condi who gushed her “pride” over the invasion of Iraq and its results — over 4,000 American boys and girls dead; some 20,000 grievously wounded or maimed; and probably hundreds of thousands of them with permanent psychological scars that they will take through their lives and to their graves. Then we must account for the hundreds of thousands more of innocent Iraqis killed or wounded; and the millions displaced, their lives either interrupted or ruined by the American imperialist occupation. There is no calculating the true cost in blood, misery, and treasure of Condi’s pride.

The question that must arise is this: shouldn’t a moment come when — in the face of an inexorable reality and the end of one’s connection to the power that drew down this tragic fate upon an entire nation, nay, an entire world — one simply looks in the mirror one day, turns away in revulsion at what she sees, and vows to make truth and healing the focus of her life thenceforth?

It has been my honor to work with a number of quite ordinary people, my clients in psychotherapeutic counseling, who had reached such a moment of emotional nakedness — a recognition often marked by self-loathing. True, none of them had architected or supported the waging of a war that murdered countless innocents while impoverishing at least two nations. Yet these people had reached a crucial inner turning point at which one of the defining defenses of what I call “neuropia” — the externalization compulsion that blinds the sufferer to his own illness — had broken down; and the person was faced with the ironic clarity of a painful and depressing realization.

It is the first fumbling untwisting of the Gordian knot of self-conflict that has held a life in a raging stasis of delusion for so long. When the scales come off our eyes, our vision is usually obscured, and may remain so for a while. This is the very point where a fellow like me can be of some use. It is not the counselor’s business to be the healer, the savior, the bringer of light and health — that all happens from another source, deep within the person and in the relationship between the guide (the psychotherapist) and the seeker (the client). All that is required of the guide is that he be caring, focused, and above all, a very good cheerleader. It can, after all, be far more comfortable, and therefore tempting, to go on wearing the scales than to take the risk that a clear self-perception brings. That, at any rate, has been my experience.

One very good therapist, a Harvard psychologist named Leston Havens, once wrote that psychotherapists are like rescuers pulling drowning people out of the water downstream while taking no thought for who might be tossing the bodies in upstream. This point helps to explain why we — whether “we” are activists, journalists, politicians, or psychotherapists — cannot “fix” what’s going on upstream; for the people who are throwing those bodies into the water upstream are those very sufferers who have not yet reached that moment of self-insight that I mentioned earlier. They, like Condi, are stone-deaf to the sound of their own screeching madness that everyone else but them can hear; blind to the glaring delusions that everyone else but them can see. So they externalize their own insanity; project it onto others; and keep throwing bodies into the water.

What I suspect is the only answer to this, in a societal frame of reference, may appear rather bland or passive to you: mere awareness. Those of us who can clearly sense the realities of these Gordian knots must calmly and perseveringly recognize and expose the delusions, and those that project them outward from their in-group. This is what the blogosphere and the various activist networks are doing, and must continue to do. The mass media and once-free press of this nation have not shown up very consistently downstream; and we can no longer expect them to arrive beside us there. Today’s corporate media are driven by profit. If making a privileged, drunken ne’er-do-well of a mamma’s boy into the paradigm of presidential leadership makes money, then very well, throw the bodies into the water and truth be damned. If making a weak, rootless, flip-flopping political discard into a contender feeds the cash cow, then let us have a septuagenarian Rocky, and once again, truth be damned.

So if you happen to be an activist, a blogger, or a responsible journalist or politician (congratulations, you are a true rara avis), then remember that you cannot bring the light of recognition to George Bush, Dick Cheney, or Condoleezza Rice. All you can do is stay downstream and work the clearer shoals of reality, in which you can find those who are ready to share your vision and join with your courage.

Celebrate America — Protest!

Two years ago, we celebrated Independence Day with a tribute to one of the great Americans of them all.

Thoreau lived through a similar war fed by profit-taking for a wealthy few, with destruction and misery for everyone else (the Mexican misadventure). In fact, he spent time in jail for refusing to pay taxes to support that war. His Civil Disobedience was written to awaken Americans to the wanton arrogance of despotic cowards who sent others into battle while they celebrated their indulgence, calling it freedom.

Ordinary Wisdom, From Big Sur

Some wisdom to help you through your day:

“I feel sad for the wilderness and the people who lost their homes. We chose to live in a wilderness among all this beauty, so I know there’s that chance you always take.”

– Janna Fournier, a resident of Big Sur, CA, who was evacuated from the scene of the latest wildfires to consume that state. According to the press account, this lady “was heading back to her house to retrieve artwork and rescue her pet tarantula.”

Obviously, this is a woman in touch with her individuality. We wish her well.

Archive Day: Life in the Warring States Period

Another visit to the Archives is in order. As I’ve mentioned, when you happen to be old — either as a blog or a person — it is your privilege as well as your responsibility to draw on that experience. Here are today’s offerings:

Interview with Chinese philosopher-poet Lao Tzu: In 2005, we got an exclusive interview with the Old Philosopher of the Warring States Period. Check it out.

Terry McKenna on war, history, and the Democrats’ responsibility: Two years ago, my esteemed co-author wrote about the state of the Iraq war, in light of the history of American warfare. It’s worth another look now, especially for insights such as this one:

It is time for Democrats to take foreign policy seriously and to be prepared to confront Republicans not only for failure of execution, but for the outright foolishness of their program.

Leave the Middle, Find the Center

Sometimes I just check the daily MSM op-eds so I can start the day with a laugh. Today, the nameless WaPo editorial writer obliges with this message: all this squalid, festering comment and counter-comment is banal and meaningless, but we’ll wallow in it for you anyway — just stop paying attention, okay?

It’s classic gossip-column work, straight out of the Cindy Adams playbook: how pale and tasteless this juice is, but ooh, let’s have some more now! But if this is how we as a society treat people like General Clark, then we deserve what we get — a culture of vapid, Maureen Dowd gossip-journalism as our nation and planet spin toward oblivion.

What if we started talking about such stuff maturely — critically, yes, but maturely, observing both context and content? That’s what I mean when I suggest getting to know one’s own center; and the clear-sighted Ms. Huffington supplements that message with a crucial distinction for candidate Obama: know the difference between the middle and the center. The middle is the two-dimensional way of superficial change; the center is the quantum place where transformation occurs. Never mind the politics: test this principle for yourself, in your own life. That’s where it really matters, no?

A Gay Old Time at American Family

High hilarity at Crooks and Liars today: they found that the demented Christian righties at the American Family Association are auto-replacing the word “gay” with “homosexual” on all their news and web content. Well, click the link and see what all the fun’s about.

“Be Seeing You”

Two more scenes from The Prisoner, the election campaign episode, “Free For All.” (Quicktime, 9MB, 6 minutes, click graphic to view).

I could probably write a small book about why I love this program so; but just watch these scenes and then rent it or buy the dvd set. Look especially for “The Arrival,” in which this black comedy universe of dramatic existentialism is introduced; and “The Chimes of Big Ben,” a forceful parable on freedom and oppression.

My Mistress, the Center

Ah, the summer campaign season — the fetid heat of op-ed distortion; the steaming exudate of apparatchiks’ attacks; the body odor of the Swift Boat crowd. It’s all back, just as I remember it from four years ago, and so is the battle for the political center, again, just as I described it nearly four years ago.

And, of course, what would a campaign summer be without some nice, balmy in-fighting? Granted, this year is different, because we lefties aren’t the only ones doing it; but we have long led the league in internecine strife. Those of you who watch Mr. Olbermann’s show will hear more of it tonight.

His target is, in my view, as misplaced as could possibly be: one of the most luminous political writers currently drawing breath and pounding a word processor on this planet, Glenn Greenwald of Salon.

Anyway, Greenwald made the simple point, obvious to many of us, that the center tends to move with time and events, and that the center is at this point more about defending the Constitution than making government into a vicarious episode of 24. Olbermann responded with a chip-on-the-shoulder ad hominem attack, and it isn’t even July yet!

You can read all about this in detail at the links above, and watch Countdown tonight to see Greenwald finished off on national television. I have no taste for the stuff, and anyway, I’m better at exploring the concepts behind such disputes. In short, I’m the sort of “concepty” fellow that Donald Rumsfeld used to look down his nose at from behind his Pentagon podium. Let’s get to it, then…

I meditate. A lot. Every damned day, in the midst of almost any activity. When you’re my age, for example, it takes you a while to finish up at the urinal — typically two young guys come in one after the other and are done before I’m ready to leave. I look at the white ceramic wall, breathe, and settle into the center. Same thing on the subway, walking up a flight of stairs, sitting on the can, waiting in line. Not only does extending a meditation practice into these moments invite the well-researched physical and psychological benefits of meditation, but it also takes that ugly penumbra of the mysterious, the special, the spiritual, and the holy, out of the practice. It makes meditation an ordinary part of life, just as it is for the animals. You learn a lot about the center when you meditate, because, to the extent that meditation has a goal (it doesn’t), moving around the center is it.

The center itself moves; it is never still. If it were a fixed, rigid point in either one’s inner space or a political space, it would not be the center. Only extremes are obdurate and inflexible. And as I mentioned in that post four years ago, the center lives in a sphere, not in a linear trench or on a pundit’s yardstick. As any good poet or scientist will tell you, finding the right metaphor matters.

So, properly speaking the search for the center is far less a matter of pursuit than it is of dance, a dance of mutual attraction. As you approach, she draws near; and when you overshoot the mark or try to nail the center to a fixed point, she retreats, grows distant, even as she still faces you through the fog of your delusion. And if you try to take ownership of the center, she will vanish without a trace, leaving you to wallow in the mud of your claim to her.

We all tend to admire, and even imitate, righteous anger that is well and fervently expressed. I’ve gone in for it myself, even if I’ve regretted it later; and this blog is peppered with Keith Olbermann “Special Comment” videos. So all I’m suggesting here is not that we give up on anger (impossible) or retreat from debate; but that we do a better job as individuals of relating to the center — whether we are television stars, Internet pundits, op-ed columnists, or ordinary working stiffs like myself. Because the center is not to be found in the heated disputes of summer campaign bloviation; she is more likely to be discovered amid the brisk and refreshing rains that come at the end of a hot and humid day — the kind of rain you want to run around in.

I realize that this is all quite unimportant compared to punditizing on Wes Clark vs. the John McCain Truth Squad or KO vs. Salon. I realize that the dance with one’s personal center of being fades before these squalid and exciting contests of brain and beating brows. But think of it: your life will go on after KO’s wheezing “Howard Dean is worth 25 Glenn Greenwalds” sputters away into yesterday’s debate and last week’s news. You will still have to go to work and deal with blowhards and “Truth Squads” of your own at the office. You will need your center more than the pundits do (maybe 25 times more!) — you will need her, right there beside you, in meetings or amid crisis, when the heat’s on and the boss is up your ass. So here’s my advice: turn off the TV and the Intertubes tonight, and sit with your center a while. You’ll know her when you feel her.
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Update, 7/1: Time now to be fair to Mr. Olbermann, who indeed did urge Obama to take the right road re. telecom immunity (as in, no immunity) — see Greenwald’s column today.

The Wisdom of Morgan Tsvangirai

The other day I mentioned that Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC candidate from Zimbabwe, appeared to be a more lucid, practical, and caring politician than most of the leaders of the so-called free world (ours, of course, included). Now, having read this interview with Spiegel, I’m fairly sure about it. Note how he casts aside fanciful diplomatic and insane military solutions to his nation’s dilemma and outlines a program of change that will rid his people of the tyrant, but without driving his enemies into a corner of confrontation.

SPIEGEL: But why should Mugabe and the Zanu-PF agree to gradually relinquish power?

Tsvangirai: They are hanging on to power at any price, but they don’t know what will come next. Despite all the violence, the regime is on its knees. Inflation is currently at 2 million percent. The vast majority of Zimbabweans are unemployed, masses of people are fleeing the country. Mugabe’s supporters are hiding behind nationalistic rhetoric, but actually they know: The writing is on the wall.

SPIEGEL: Should Mugabe and his cronies be tried in an international court?

Tsvangirai: That would be a mistake. On the contrary, we will have to negotiate some kind of amnesty. Otherwise the country’s rulers will have nothing left to lose. And if they have nothing to lose, they will leave behind nothing but scorched earth.

The Prisoner Runs For Office

This video (Quicktime, 3.4MB, click graphic to view) is from one of the great TV series of them all — Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner. The episode is “Free For All,” in which Number 6 “runs for office.”

If you’ve never seen this show, you’ve missed some of the most visionary, creative, and best written television ever produced. Give it a try.

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