Religious traditions, those I identify with as a home, and those I visit, are treasure houses. But that is different than being a treasure hunter. Every treasure, no matter how alluring or valuable in some marketplace, is inert—dead. The hunting and finding is fun. But each treasure demands work for it to become anything other than a trophy or museum piece. Each treasure asks to be transformed and brought to life.
When it comes to history, America is a baby. A big and powerful baby, but still a baby.
American leadership, and particularly certain blindered and limited exceptionalists, seems now to be acting on the premise that whatever America chooses is the best by definition—because it is America. We don’t need history, philosophy or old principles to succeed. We don’t follow roads, we make them.
Much of the rest of the world has long history, and has learned the hard way that history can’t be escaped, but must be regarded and when necessary adapted and transcended. China is not a role model for many things, but in the seventy years of post-revolutionary progress, it has learned that there is value in being heir to thousands of years of success, strife and wisdom. Yet in America there seems to be studied ignorance of political philosophy, wisdom and history. Some seem unable to pay attention to history that goes back only two centuries.
America is a baby being led by a baby. The aspiring superpowers of the 21st century are older and wiser. Who do you think has the better chance of winning in the long run?
We may be stressed by various happenings in our private and public lives. For relief, we don’t just need distraction. We need a WOW!, something to take our breath away. We deserve a WOW!
Here is one at Live Science: The 12 Strangest Objects in the Universe
There is growing public and political pressure to release the final report of the Special Counsel. The House this week voted unanimously—Democrats and Republicans—to urge its public release.
We will soon discover something that few have mentioned: there is likely to be no final report issued at all.
How could that be possible?
The charge to the Special Counsel Office is prosecutorial. Its stated role is to investigate and, when investigation warrants, prosecute. Fact finding will be involved in that, but it is not otherwise a fact-finder or reporter. It can be argued—and it will be by those who want to bury any inconvenient evidence—that once the prosecutions are done, the role of the Special Counsel is over.
There will naturally be political outrage in the face of that. Even some Republicans may publicly complain that without a report, millions of dollars will have been wasted with little to show for it. But privately, those Republicans will be relieved, as will Trump. The indictments, guilty pleas and trials taking place, and yet to come, are pieces of a damning picture. But a report would be a complete picture, which is why, one way or another, Trump and those under his direction or influence, will make certain that no such report is ever seen. And the best way for that to happen is for there to be no report at all.
There are two kinds of daily bad news about Trump:
Things he says or does.
Reasonable speculation, based on what he says or does, about what he might do in the future.
This speculation by Chris Cilliza is in that second category. It is both chilling and plausible:
Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to de-legitimize the 2020 election
Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Even as the 2020 race begins in earnest, President Donald Trump is already suggesting that Democrats cannot beat him fairly — raising the specter that if he loses next November, he will suggest that the election was not legitimate.
“The Democrats in Congress yesterday were vicious and totally showed their cards for everyone to see,” Trump tweeted Tuesday, referring to House Democrats’ launching of a broad-scale investigation into him. “When the Republicans had the Majority they never acted with such hatred and scorn! The Dems are trying to win an election in 2020 that they know they cannot legitimately win!”
Trump 2020 campaign press secretary Kayleigh McEnany echoed that sentiment in a statement on the Democratic investigations. “These desperate Democrats know they cannot beat President Trump in 2020, so instead they have embarked on a disgraceful witch hunt with one singular aim: topple the will of the American people and seize the power that they have zero chance at winning legitimately,” she said….
This is straight from the Trump blueprint — and not just in politics, either. In his past life as a businessman, Trump would regularly declare victory on a deal loudly and publicly — even when the facts didn’t bear out his bluster….
In the business world, that approach was mostly harmless. Trump could say whatever he wanted but, at the end of the day, it was pretty clear who won and who lost a deal. Money, usually, changed hands. And while lots of people Trump dealt with rolled their eyes about his massive exaggerations, they usually just ignored them.
In politics, Trump’s inability to accept that he could lose fair and square is far, far more dangerous.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former longtime fixer, said as much during his congressional testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee last month. “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power,” said Cohen.
Sit with that for a minute. And realize what it would mean if the sitting incumbent President of the United States simply refuses to concede he has lost in 2020.
Dance
Soon the thin window glass
Will try to keep out the desert heat
Now it stands between the morning chill
Either way the birds sing through
Lay down the mat and cushion
Sit not waiting for enlightenment
When the gong rings
It’s time to dance
©
I get the news I need on the weather report.
Paul Simon, The Only Living Boy in New York
I spent a week mostly without news. Some days I saw a brief topline summary, some days none. I didn’t read headlines, I didn’t click on headlines. I didn’t listen to talking heads telling me what happened, I didn’t listen to talking heads analyzing what the other talking heads said.
I lived to tell. And I feel good.
News that affects your life or the lives of those within your circle of care (which for some people encompasses the world) is worth knowing about. Much of the rest of the information may be interesting and stimulating, may be fodder for thought or conversation or tweets, but questions remain: How does it affect your life? How much, if anything, can you do to affect the things you hear about? Is simply seeking and hearing this news somehow making you or your life worse? Is there something—anything—else you could be doing, hearing, thinking that would be better than paying attention to the news?
The news is with us always. You don’t have to hide from it, you don’t have to seek it. Just try to keep it in its place.
When Trump took office, he assumed that everyone he appointed to an executive branch job was on his team—that they would support whatever he did and said, do whatever he wanted, no questions asked, no backtalk or criticism, public or private. If it ever came to a choice between Trump and “doing the right thing”, the team members would choose him, just as his staff had at the Trump Organization.
He quickly discovered it did not always work that way. And so among his other strategies, he saw that he would have to purge all those whose unconditional loyalty was beyond question, and replace them with those who, for whatever reasons (incompetence, ideology, need for job or job security, etc.), would toe the line.
These replacement players would be a compliant, sycophantic part of the wall—the wall Trump has almost completed around his executive branch. In the Justice Department, for example, Sessions and Comey are gone, as Rosenstein soon will be. The same has happened elsewhere, time and again.
This Trump wall, unlike the one at the southern border, will work, at least for a while. Built with the solid powers of the presidency, the wall won’t be easily gotten around or broken through. With all his glaring deficiencies, Trump knows one thing: how to protect himself. This wall around the executive branch will do just that.
Medicine Buddha of Lapis Lazuli Radiance
Love is Healing
healers are the healed
lovers are the loved
that feeling is not yours
it belongs to them
then returns
There are a variety of insurgencies—political, economic, social, cultural, spiritual.
There are also a variety of drivers for these. The same as for the insurgencies themselves, but not necessarily congruent. There are, for example, political insurgencies that are driven by economic forces.
It may be thought that spiritual traditions including practices such as meditation and beliefs in equanimity are quietistic and do not induce or allow insurgency. The same might be thought about other contemplative traditions. This is an incomplete understanding.
In the psychology realm, there are therapies that urge patients to “get in touch with their anger.” The point is not that the patient will never, ever be angry again. That might be as unrealistic and maladaptive as being angry all the time. Instead the thought is that once anger is seen in a different light, it can be experienced in a different way.
Just so, enlightened paths can lead to enlightened insurgencies. This is as tricky as it sounds. In the face of things going in the wrong direction, in the face of injustices, inequities or just plain thoughtless and destructive stupidity, it is easy to forget your principles and, as the cliché goes, become part of the problem and not part of the solution.
We’ve seen it in every movement for change and reform. We’ve seen it in the civil rights movement in America, where there was (and is) continuing disagreement about the vehemence of protest and resistance. Every prophet has faced this—the wrongs may be easy to see, but the rights are harder to formulate, even if God supposedly inspired you to action.
How much harder it is for those of us who are light years from being prophets. All we can do is keep our feet more or less on the path, watch ourselves and our indignation, and figure out, as best we can, how to make things better as quickly as possible without making them worse.
