Connecticut's Best and Brightest?

The folks who would like to replace Governor Rell and Senator Dodd in order to change Hartford and Washington DC share a common problem. Each offers some version of "business as usual" to connect his or her opponent to the respective dysfunctional cultures of state and national government and then engages what any voter who can read without moving his or her lips can see as "campaigning as usual."

Each candidate selects from a common menu: quoting opponents out of context, tinting opponents' least flattering photos for an evil, unattractive image (oooh, clever!) sharing partial truths, and making it clear that the opponent engages negative campaigning and tells lies. The Foley and Fedele campaigns are so similar their respective contents could be exchanged and the ads would work—and that’s true of the Molloy and Lamont campaigns as well. Oh, and just when it seemed the McMahon campaign might be refreshingly above the fray, their one-issue postcard attack on someone who’s not officially their opponent yet arrives.

These change agents are homogenous and blind to their homogeneity. Despite superficial differences in content, we can hear the same conventional, two-party, political voice speaking through each of them. They’re doing and saying what candidates always do and say—in the name of change. They may be decent parents and potentially harmless outside of their political ambitions—and apparently good at something that makes them money as well, but if their campaigns do represent them, they are either painfully unaware of the idiocy embodied therein, or they’re aware and are unable, unwilling or unequipped to let that idiocy go. If their campaigns don’t represent them, well, I don’t even know how to finish that thought in a few words.

We’ve needed a “none of the above” selection on the ballot for decades, which allows voters to exercise what is both an obligation and a privilege, while not being reduced to voting for the least dislikeable candidate. The current batch of Connecticut candidates are poster children for that selection. To quote the former First Lady, “Just say no.”

What Do You Call It When...

. . . a government . . .

• . . . agrees to spend hundreds of billions of dollars of money it doesn't actually have, and end thousands of lives to attack a country that is thousands of miles away, after supporting the country's dictator for years . . .
• . . . then publicly changes its rationale for the attack each time a previous rationale is discredited . . .
• . . . agrees to spend hundreds of billions of dollars it doesn't actually have to bail out financial institutions that are in trouble because of their own mismanagement and greed, and automobile manufacturers whose shortsightedness and poor quality rendered them unable to compete on their own...
• . . . is dominated by two political parties, which, despite their at times very real philosophical and policy differences, behave with exactly the same level of stagnating partisanship and schoolyard-bully idiocy when they hold a majority in the legislature . . .
• . . . whose elected and appointed officials have access to what is arguably one of the best healthcare plans on the planet, are categorically unable, over almost half a century, to provide even barely adequate healthcare opportunities for tens of millions of their constituents, and explain away this historical failure by pointing their fingers at the other political party . . .

For starters, it's a shame, and it's actually very complex. Most of our government officials and the media who report on them are in so far over their heads, and know so little about their own conditioned biases, that it takes a strong desire and a lot of work just to find out and understand what is actually going on--locally, nationally and globally.

Many of these folks are well-intentioned and honest, within the limitations of what their respective amusement park admission tickets allow them to experience and talk about. But until they realize that the horses they ride just go up and down as the carousel goes round and round, they are nothing more than Thomas Merton's "anonymous authority of the collectvity" speaking through the masks of government and journalism at their respective worsts.

Of course, this is true for all of us, but the politicians, journalists and pundits speak through powerful media as voices of authority, or, at least, truthfulness, and that comes with some responsibility.

I'm waiting to hear one or more of these folks say something like, "This is amazingly complex, and right now I don't have the solution to it. And I don't know anyone who does. But trust, that finding and implementing the best solution, or even a good solution, is the driving passion that fills my waking hours and my dreams."

We need leaders who work to uncover truth, and then speak truthfully. And then act with integrity.

Rethink Afghanistan

Robert Greenwald's Rethink Afghanistan is appropriately named. Not "Abandon," or "Destroy," or "Remove the Taliban From" or "Liberate," but "Rethink."

US veterans of the Iraq and Afghan conflicts, former CIA agents, current Afghani men and women, former Soviet military leaders who were defeated in Afghanistan, and others paint a bleak picture for any chance of military success.

The documentary clarifies the identities and missions of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and raises some serious questions and offers some prospective answers to the most effective approaches for combatting terrorists, if, in fact, that is the purpose for our presence in Afghanistan and around the world.

The documentary is available online in 6 segments, approximately 12 minutes each, and also as a DVD.

Highly recommended if (re)thinking is something you find valuable.

What You Don't Do

You don't tug on Superman's cape

You don't spit into the wind.

You don't pull the mask off that ol' Lone Ranger.

You don't harass John Rambo as he walks into town.

You don't get better, good, personal or even intelligent service from Wells Fargo Bank just because they got $25,000,000,000.00 in TARP funds.

And for Josh's supervisor at Wells Fargo Mortgage, you don't get a raised seal on an Executor Appointment Letter when it comes through a FAX machine.

You don't necessarily get an education just because you get a degree.

Assholian Resistance

My sister, Anne Marie, passed away on March 17, 2009 at the age of 55. Her death was unexpected, and a long backstory preceded it (as is true for any death).

A good friend and fellow poet/multi-genre artist, Mar Walker, has honored Anne Marie online at the following sites:

Memorial Blog
Poetry Performance
Quilts

My own writing and reflections around Anne Marie's death are still emerging and very raw. Most of my energy after her burial has been directed toward settling her estate, which is a eufemism for dealing with vendors, creditors and attorneys.

My euphemistic partners include New York State Electric and Gas, Citibank, American Express, Macys, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, State Farm, the IRS, the New York State Police, the Westchester County Medical Examiner, the New York State DMV, Franklin-Templeton, TIAA-CREF, West Asset Management and Verizon, among others.

While my sister died in some debt, and creditors have every right to recover what is theirs, the diverse levels of competence, compassion, reason, and systemic chaos within high-tech, low-consciousness bureaucratic infrastructures, while not surprising, ranges from very frustrating to absolutely infuriating as I go about my executor's "due diligence."

If you were to guess and rate the above institutions from lowest to highest in terms of competence, compassion and reason, what might your ratings be?

I will have much more to say about this in coming months, and, probably years. For now, my top three experiences have been with the New York State Police, TIAA-CREF, and the NYS DMV. The IRS did a slow, methodical and competent job as well.

My own personal work (i.e. my ongoing development) continues to manifest through this process as I attempt to hold the perspectives of the individuals on the other phones, who are doing as they are told in order to do and keep a job--a position for which I have both empathy and compassion, even as they misplace files, ask for the third time for a death certificate, or having received it, continue to write to my sister, five months after being notified of her death, opening with, "We do not understand your reluctance to pay your balance" (Allied Interstate on behalf of Verizon Wireless, August 6, 2009).

"Well, shit. I'm sorry. Everything seems harder since I died on St. Patrick's Day. And the mail service, nevermind the internet connection, is just horrible inside this box below the earth on top of my mother and next to my father. I will do my best to overcome my reluctance. In the meantime, I hope that the $88.97 I owe does not force you to lose any ring tones or permanently end your calls."

I'm pleased to say that while I thought of this response, I didn't write it or pick up the phone (although I came verwy, verwy cwose). My inner asshole has only emerged and dominated two of quite a few challenging conversations, and as unevolved as this may sound, in both cases the recipient got 1) what he deserved and 2) off easy.

But I'm striving to stay conscious and keep the assholian episodes to a minimum--all the while seeing myself with more and more clarity and honoring the joy and sorrow that such clarity brings.

I feel lucky to have Marianela (and some great friends) in my life through this. She sees me at my best and worst and still loves me. Even more impressive: she still likes me. Thanks, esposa.

Our Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to Lyman Bostock

[I wrote this on the morning of March 17, 2009, and did not get to edit it until today. While some AIG bonuses have been returned since then, the essence of what’s below will remain relevant for a long time].

When Lyman Bostock began the 1978 season with the California Angels, he perhaps tried too hard to live up to his 2.7-million dollar, 5-year contract—a huge number back then—and batted .150 during the month of April—about half the average that had earned him the salary. What he did next was unprecedented: he offered to give back his April salary to Angels’ owner, Gene Autry, because “If I can't play up to my capabilities, I don't want to get paid for it.” When Autry refused, Bostock donated his month’s wages to charity.

By mid-September of that season, he had raised his average to .296. He was tragically murdered in a case of mistaken identity on September 23, 1978.

Missing from the debates and dialogues around the AIG bailout bonuses are the cognitive, moral and ethical worldviews of the men and women who receive our money. It is easy and perhaps appropriate to vilify the faces of Treasury; it is expected that the right will point to the newly arrived administration and the left will point to the departed; and it is both fair and predictable that AIG’s new leadership remind us that we are a nation based on law, bonus contracts fall under the law, and governmental interference with those contracts would create a dangerous precedent at the very least.

Law emerges due to the moral reasoning and ethical values of a given culture, and by definition is at best a step or two behind the leading edge of ethical reform: prior to 1865, the law allowed slavery; prior to 1920, the law prevented women from voting; and right now the law is wrangling over whether sexual orientation is a valid basis for conveying or denying specific civil rights.

Law evolves as humans evolve through ever-more-inclusive worldviews—from ego-centric (it’s about me); to ethno- or group-centric (it’s about us, where “us” may be family, gang, company, union, industry, religion, nation, etc.); to world-centric (it’s about all of us on the planet); to universal or everything-centric (it’s about the universe/creation). Folks who hold those self- or group-centric worldviews, often quite literally cannot see beyond themselves or their groups, and are primarily interested in how the law affects them as individuals or groups. The dynamic is actually more textured and less linear than this depiction, but you get the point.

Add to this the basic developmental truth that cognitive development is essential, but not sufficient, for moral development (e.g. Hitler, Madoff, et al.), and we get “brilliant” minds who commit horrible acts in order to further an individual or group agenda—not to equate those two men, but rather to show the diverse guises cognition can take when governed by moral stagnation.

Beyond the useful and valid essence of contract law lies the ethical dilemma created when taxes collected across a broad spectrum of millions of competent workers making five-figure annual salaries, or who were making five-figures before they were laid off, are transferred to a few thousand individuals whose incompetence and/or carelessness is clear, and many of whom will receive five-, six- and seven-figure bonuses, in additional to their five-, six- and seven-figure salaries.

What accounts for the distinctly different worldviews of Mr. Bostock thirty-one years ago, and those who would dispense and keep the bonuses in question here in 2009 is an overdetermined mix of individual and cultural values, beliefs and behaviors arising within and causing to arise the intricate infrastructure of the 21st-century planet: it’s complex.

The “right thing,” like beauty, is in the eye of the ego-, group-, world-, or universe-centric worldview. Right leadership, however, needs to act from the most evolved worldview available in order to serve the broadest spectrum of constituents. Those at AIG do not hold the most evolved view available and they are not the broadest spectrum of constituents. Even now, those who are returning some of the bonuses do so in response to an outraged populace. Lyman Bostock responded to something inside of himself.

Long Time, No Nothing

Changes unfolding.

Stay tuned.