I just got an E mail about the legislative progress made recently by Congress. Hmm. True. And I am so glad for what they have done. Finally. But I thought they were supposed to be passing things all year. (Apologies ... that was sarcasm.)
It's easy, getting jaded; so let me try and attempt to be more earnest. I want to see accountability. Not just personal accountability, either, but public accountability. Either of them precede trust, of course; and for the 8 years we survived under Mr. Cheney with Rove and Bush, Jr., there wasn't much of it to be found. Maybe that's why so many people, now, are supportive of (even enthusiastic about) Wikileaks. Here is an individual, in Mr. Assange, who says, if you don't want to do the right or admirable thing, then at least be transparent; and I will be making sure your actions are transparent." Public accountability. More sentimentally, I fondly remember my grade school teachers and realize any number of them could advocate more ferociously for public accountability than can our current Justice Department & CIA officials, or Supreme Court judges. No disrespect to my teachers, who were awesome, but that should be an embarrassing comparison for the administration. The personal quality of their interventions is unfortunately not a characteristic of politics, as much as might be healthy. If it were, then moral arguments and appeals to one's higher nature (like compromise) would be effective. I personally am not seeing two Congressional sides who want to respect the governing process enough to be moved by appeals to higher nature .... Had that been the case, we wouldn't have seen months of obstructionism. So, I understand the old sentiment: there's business, and there's pleasure; and never the twain shall meet. Given that difference between governmental politics and 'playground' personal policies, I want someone with much more determination to 'hold feet to the fire', and do the tough questioning, as I am seeing from journalists and movie makers. Olbermann, Maddow, Moore and Assange. The ability to ask tough questions has and will always be necessary to a functioning society. (Remember Dan Ellsberg?) I am so grateful for these probing questioners. More power to them. I don't often write about politics ... not here. But freedom of speech issues are a hot item; and the political becomes the personal. I know this to be t r u e : witness the women's movement of the 20's and its revival of the 70's and 90's.
Wikileaks has inspired controversy, as the struggle for knowing and not "getting played for a sucker" will. Daniel Ellsberg comes to mind. He's the man who testified at a Federal conspiracy trial in which I was honored to be a defendant, and years before that, had taken a stand that government lies should be exposed. He was willing to risk imprisonment to make his point, exposing government lies about war via the Pentagon Papers . Well, here we go again. All I can say is, more power to Wiki and its director, Julian Assange. Lies don't breed trust or loyalty, personally or politically. And we are complicit in lies when we don't confront them, personally or collectively. Still, Mark and I were talking by the fire this morning ... it's a good holiday thing to do ... and the conversation turned to ourselves years ago: groups we believed in, self-empowerment, and young people experiencing punch, energy, & the desire to express it. One young man Mark had heard of, a musician in Jefferson Airplane (the group that showcased Grace Slick) and a high flying leader in an international spiritual organization, had a run-in with the politics of the same. Other young leaders, who also had Ego, challenged this man, who took their censorship to heart and went on to make a fabulous mistake, putting their opinion of him before his own relationship with the universe. Maybe he was too young to have his own inner resources well enough established to fight making that error. Anyway, he committed suicide. There's something in the story about an important line between speaking Truth and falling to our own ego; I refer to the young, challenging leaders when I say it's so human to confuse ourselves with what we think we know, allowing the headiness of self-discovery to push out awareness of what, then, we got sick of hearing: "knowing our own 'place' in the big picture": "Be a lady," "Don't criticize your mother/father," "You don't know enough, yet," etc. ... I still like to see a young person saying what their truth is, meeting the inevitable resistance that real Truth always does. But how do you recognize when you are not right and your ego is talking? Some of these young men were up against feelings of competition, jealousy and __ what? the sureness of a good philosophy? The musician was (as probably were his 'competitors') in the damnable position of soul-searching what was right. It's like the day you get fired, or when you choose to walk out on a job because the alternative offered is completely intolerable; and for the first time you are facing what has a really large cost. The sting of that is where integrity gets a chance to be carved, painfully. No philosophical fireside discussion does the carving, either; the instruments are self-doubt, worry about looking like a fool, and searching for the place inside your self you can consult and trust, hoping there is also a nearby outside supporter, too. The story of the young musician's suicide reminds me how I have let other people monopolize my relationship with what's greater than them or me. The error seems ironically human; and it seems so deadly wrong. 'Human' because we certainly do care what others think; I do, anyway, though I would prefer not caring. And 'deadly wrong' because it elevates others above the intimacy of our own 'Being Connected'. What is that old poem? ... Desiderata: "... Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. For this time of hibernation, rest and reflection, I want to keep this story close. I would hope it serves me the rest of the year to find courage for Truth, and keep loyal to it. I wish each of you the same. Wonderful winter to you. |
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