Bob Schwartz

Tag: politics

September 26, 2016

How to Prepare Spiritually for the Debate

The Clinton-Trump debate is taking place tonight, if you hadn’t heard. People will watch for a whole lot of different reasons. Some to see the candidate they like succeed, some to see the candidate they don’t like that much succeed, some to see the candidate they really don’t like be destroyed, some because they just like to watch twisted spectacles and disaster movies. Sharknado, maybe?

The term soul-sucking may be colloquial, but there’s real truth in it. Some things just seem to draw the life force right out of you, creating a spiritual vacuum. Depending on your perspective, this debate could be one of those.

Here are three optional steps for dealing with this.

  1. Don’t watch. Estimates are that over 100 million people may watch this. This might include friends and loved ones, and it might include you. Which makes it unlikely that you won’t watch a little of it, or the whole thing. Friends don’t let friends watch alone.
  1. Prior to watching, read something or do something that will settle you firmly on the ground and in reality. This may already be part of your regular practice. If not, this may be a good time to start.
  1. After watching, you will notice seemingly millions of talking heads trying to spin what you’ve already seen and heard, or trying to prove how smart they are by repeating what you’ve already seen and heard, and then telling you about it, attempting to impart meaning to what you may regard as meaningless. At that point, if you insist on listening to them, repeat Step 2.
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September 15, 2016

Praying for Everybody. Even Trump.

I ran into a neighbor this morning, someone who goes to morning prayers every day.

Me: How was davening (prayer) today?

Him: Good. I prayed for everybody. Even Trump.

Me: Thank you. That’s the Yiddishe (Jewish) way.

And so it is.

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September 13, 2016

What If There Had Been Hacked Watergate Emails?

The issues surrounding the release of hacked emails from the Democratic Party and related entities are many and gray. If you hear anyone say that all the answers are clear and that there are simple bright lines is either not thinking it through, has some vested interest, or is one of the people who lost their job at the DNC.

To help clarify, consider this. What if there had been emails covering the entire Watergate conspiracy, rather than just the tape recordings that emerged after the fact? What if those emails were hacked and released while the cover-up was still ongoing? (This is not to say that the current situations even approach such gravity.) Would we be wringing our hands because high-level private and confidential communications had been stolen? Would we be happy that what Gerald Ford later called “our long national nightmare” would have been over sooner? Maybe we would be a little of both.

In coming days, as the next batch of leaked documents and data is released, some will be quick to condemn the leaks or to exploit the leaks. The best we can do, hard and unlikely as it is in such situations, is to think it all through carefully. Because like it or not, this is what the future looks like.

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September 13, 2016

Hillary Clinton Has the Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu

Huey "Piano" Smith

Hillary Clinton and her campaign aren’t known for their grasp of pop culture. Back in 1992, the Clintons chose Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow as the campaign theme song. As much as you might like Fleetwodd Mac, by that time it wasn’t the height of hip. (Note however, that Hillary never did stop thinking about tomorrow. It’ll soon be here.)

Admittedly, Huey “Piano” Smith’s R&B classic Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu is not exactly new school. But it never stopped being cool.

So don’t you think the whole Hillary pneumonia thing could be going much better for her if she had just explained:

It’s true, my doctor told me on Friday that I had the rockin’ pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu. Yes, I wanted to jump but I was afraid I’d fall. But now, I wanna scream, I want you all to know that I feel better than fine.

I don’t know about you, but that’s all the medical report I would need.

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September 12, 2016

Worst Job in the World: Defending Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump

Terrible jobs can have their rewards. In the case of supporting political candidates, it’s some combination of money, power, friendship or being a true believer.

Even with those possible rewards, you have to think that defending, excusing, explaining or just talking about some of the things that Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump do or say, or have done or have said, has got to be one of the worst jobs in the world. So to those who have taken on that job, we can only guess what you go through, and we hope it’s worth it.

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September 9, 2016

Govern a nation as you would fry a small fish

Sardine

A message to candidates and voters from the Tao Te Ching. It is the first line of chapter 60, in various translations. Please read and feel free to interpret as you like. Comments are welcome.

If I were moderating a presidential debate, I would simply recite this line and ask Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump what this means to them. What illuminating fun that would be.

Govern a nation as you would fry a small fish.

Directing the flow of affairs of a large country
Is like cooking a small fresh fish.

Govern great nations
like frying small fish.

Ruling a large country is like cooking a small fish.

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September 8, 2016

Will Donald Trump Be the First Hip-Hop President?

Hip-hop may be the most influential cultural movement of the past few decades. It is certainly the basis for the most popular and prevalent global music of the century so far.

Listen to it, like it, love it or loathe it, it is complex art. Among its elements is a brutal honesty, not only about conditions in life and the world, but about personal behavior and attitudes. And some of those behaviors and attitudes can reflect self-centeredness, narcissism, and an embrace of materialism and success, all of it verging on a very aggressive artistic id set free. Others will analyze the source of this, but there it is.

Here’s the irony, or maybe not ironic at all.

The above describes Donald Trump perfectly. Word for word, behavior for attitude, id for id.

Which suggests that Donald Trump, unknown to all of us, is one of the great hip-hop artists of the age. Even his talks are more like raps than speeches. That is not meant to reflect badly on hip-hop. Just an observation, contributing to answering the question of how this is happening.

So if Bill Clinton was the first black President (wrong; sorry Toni Morrison), maybe Donald Trump will be the first hip-hop President. Just don’t tell his supporters.

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September 2, 2016

Taco Trucks on Every Corner. Pizza Shops Too.

Latinos for Trump founder Marco Gutierrez said yesterday “My culture is a very dominant culture. And it’s imposing, and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.”

This was meant as a comment on immigration, not food. Without going into the complexities of immigration or the bizarre backwardness/cluelessness/meanness of the Trump campaign, it does make you think about the connection.

If we had done something about the Italians (and we tried) maybe we wouldn’t have pizza shops on every block. Same for the Chinese and Chinese restaurants. Same for Eastern European Jews and bagel shops. And so on.

We do have pizza shops and/or Chinese restaurants and/or bagel shops on many blocks, even in the smallest towns. Taco and burrito shops too. We are better for it. This probably doesn’t tell us how to deal with the very difficult issue of immigration. But it does tell us something about America and American values and American culture. Just as the remark by Gutierrez tells us something hard to digest about Trump and some of his followers.

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August 18, 2016

Trump: In the Future Voters May Look to Military People for President

Highlighting what Donald Trump doesn’t know about public affairs, or history, or geopolitics, or lots of other significant matters, is fishing in a barrel. So nothing is surprising.

And yet this nugget from his book The America We Deserve (2000) is special. In it he writes:

“Voters are going to look to the worlds of business, entertainment, professional sports, and maybe the military—not to career politicians—for our next generation of political leadership.”

There’s an old comedy bit that starts out with “Any five-year-old can do that.” “Okay” is the reply “get me a five-year-old.”

Any school kid (I hope) knows that military people have always been active as public leaders in America, at the highest levels. In fact, twelve generals have become Presidents of the United States, from the first one, to most recently Dwight Eisenhower, who served during Trump’s lifetime. Of course, Trump may not have been paying attention then. Or in 2000. Or now.

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August 10, 2016

From the Unpublished Archive: It’s Now Safe for All Democrats to Love Joe Biden

This was written in October 2015, when Joe Biden announced he would not run for the Democratic nomination. The election story isn’t over yet, but we know what happened since. Bernie Sanders galvanized progressives who yearned for a new path and who had distaste for and distrust of Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump galvanized a completely other constituency of the distasteful and the distrustful. And so it goes.

Joe Biden is neutralized, so it is now safe for all Democrats to say how much he is loved, not just by Democrats, but by Republicans and the whole nation. And how capable, experienced and qualified he is. And how nobody is better at working across the political aisle.

The way he is being praised to the heavens by all, including Hillary Clinton supporters, you would think this was a new discovery. In fact, he was just as beloved, capable, experienced and qualified a couple of days ago. In fact, it was Republican Lindsey Graham who said three months ago, “He’s the nicest person I’ve ever met in politics. He’s as good a man as God has ever created.”

The difference, of course, is that Joe Biden now poses no threat to Hillary Clinton. And therein lies some insight, not about Joe or Hillary, but about what people do not like about politics, certainly not the way it is played by some of our leading figures.

Politics may be a game, but when playing it involves hiding the truth about people, or delaying telling the truth about people because it is not politically expedient, something is wrong. It may be “right” electorally, but wrong by most other human measures. Good people and behavior should be lauded in a timely way, not so good people or behavior should be noted in a timely way.

When people are as constant and talented as Joe Biden, members of the Democratic Party, even if they supported someone else, shouldn’t have waited to celebrate that constancy—even it meant giving him his due. But they did wait until today. When it was safe.

Which is not only sad, but bodes ill for those who claim to be truth tellers and uniters of a clearly divided body politic. Because if you are afraid of someone beloved, capable, experienced and qualified, what exactly does that say about you?

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