January 2009 Archives

I happened to hear Adam Davidson's piece on John Maynard Keynes today on Chicago Public Radio's "All Things Considered" on my local NPR affiliate. Adam Davidson is someone I relied on heavily when he was in Iraq as a business reporter, as it's possible to hear a certain edge in his voice even as he tries to be objective. He can also be read at "Planet Money" at NPR's site. He outlined how the theory behind the economic stimulus package we are about to endeavor upon is exactly that - a theory - from a Cambridge intellectual of the past. Critics say it has not been tested, and yet it seems to be all we have to try, as the competing supply-side theories have been discredited!

Here is the podcast link

Then I got this:

Email of the Day:

Please talk about your situations, fears, hopes, ways of coping and dreams and let's support each other.

I made about five videos while I was at this event, but saw this piece with photos and video later when I was at YouTube looking around.

I want to flash back on the incredible thousands of paintings all by one woman - Huong, originally from Vietnam. I saw them at the Peace Mural Gallery in Washington DC, the night before the Inauguration. As a young journalist, she came here on a refugee boat after the fall of Saigon and settled in Alaska, where she began to paint. The Peace Mural took fifteen years to produce and there are 8' by 600' worth of paintings! It is a war/peace collection and there are many places for viewers to add comments about peace. Collectively, the paintings have an impact quite like Picasso's "Guernica." (Huong is shown here with her daughter - my photo, then WaPo one - see also their story at this link) - the exhibit leaves DC 30 Jan. and will be staged elsewhere - there is info at the link if you know someone who could help bring it to your city.

In this amazing space, I also attended DanceObama: The Pulse for Peace. Karen Bradley wrote:

Over the next few days, change is a gonna come. The change is overt: a new President, a new administration, and it is as-yet-undefined. Some startling clues exist, however: pictures of dead children in Gaza horrify us, creating the clear loud message that brutality and carnage, no matter under what guise, are not to be tolerated. A pilot saves 155 people with calm and skill that reassures us that not all disasters end in total loss and that paying attention and thinking clearly actually works sometimes. A gay bishop and a rightwing preacher both celebrate a new government that is not catering to any one constituency but appears to want to cut a swath across all, and maybe even elevate the country to a higher moral ground, without privileging one belief system or lifestyle over another. The train rolled into town yesterday, bringing a newly-forceful but always thoughtful guy to lead the changes. He did not bring the change with him on the trip, nor will he deliver it to us with his inaugural address. But over the next few days, through music , art, dancing, sharing food and warmth, change will come to us. We will create it.

Karen is a good friend and Professor of dance, and has written a book about Rudolf Laban, who over a hundred years ago devised participatory dance events called "movement choirs," in wich each person contributed to a communal celebration of harmony. Here is some of the music which was used. First video shows an individual dancer that I liked watching, but many of the pieces were more communal and group-interactive, as in the second video.

Here is some of the music which was used: Sweet Honey in the Rock: “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For” Kanye West: “Love Train” Sly and the Family Stone: “Everyday People” Cat Stevens: “Peace Train” John Lennon: “Imagine” Johnny Clegg: “Life is a Magic Thing” Seal: “A Change is Gonna Come” (or any version) The Pointer Sisters: “Yes We Can, Can” U2: “Beautiful Day” Karen said she put the "Beautiful Day" in there for me, which was kind - it was the song most closely associated with John Kerry's campaign by many of us, and special. I like it when the guy yells "Dance therapists in the house?" at the end. The photos show Karen being interviewed and the two gentlemen with the Bush piece are Ben Doko and Josh Castle, from Seattle.

(A version of this appears at Silenced Majority Portal)

DanceObama: The Pulse for Peace

Over the next few days, change is a gonna come. The change is overt: a new President, a new administration, and it is as-yet-undefined. Some startling clues exist, however: pictures of dead children in Gaza horrify us, creating the clear loud message that brutality and carnage, no matter under what guise, are not to be tolerated. A pilot saves 155 people with calm and skill that reassures us that not all disasters end in total loss and that paying attention and thinking clearly actually works sometimes. A gay bishop and a rightwing preacher both celebrate a new government that is not catering to any one constituency but appears to want to cut a swath across all, and maybe even elevate the country to a higher moral ground, without privileging one belief system or lifestyle over another.

The train rolled into town yesterday, bringing a newly-forceful but always thoughtful guy to lead the changes. He did not bring the change with him on the trip, nor will he deliver it to us with his inaugural address. But over the next few days, through music , art, dancing, sharing food and warmth, change will come to us.

We will create it.

DanceObama: The Pulse for Peace is one of many events planned for Washington DC. It has also inspired people in Boston, Chicago and California to join in, at their own times, in their own celebrations of manifesting hope and change through music and dance. The event in DC is open to all, for a donation of $15.00, and it will happen at the Peace Mural Gallery at 3336 M. St in Georgetown from 4-6 pm Monday, in the midst of stunning paintings by the artist Huong. Hot drinks and small food will be served, and we will have drummers, dancers, and music to move to.

Over 100 years ago, a man named Rudolf Laban began to devise ways of bringing people together through specifically created participatory dance events called movement choirs, in which each person contributed to a communal celebration of harmony. By finding the universal pulse for change, individual voices and collective joy can be heard across the world, calling each of us to thoughtful, aware, and considered action.

Some of the music that we will be using for this event:

Sweet Honey in the Rock: “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For”

Kanye West: “Love Train”

Sly and the Family Stone: “Everyday People”

Cat Stevens: “Peace Train”

John Lennon: “Imagine”

Johnny Clegg: “Life is a Magic Thing”

Seal: “A Change is Gonna Come” (or any version)

The Pointer Sisters: “Yes We Can, Can”

U2: “Beautiful Day”

If you can, come down to Georgetown on Monday afternoon and be a part of starting the pulse with us. If you can’t, put on the music, be inspired, and begin to move with us. Together we cross the threshold into a new way of being in the world: as agents of our own lives and stewards for peace and hope everywhere.

I have 100 Martin Luther King Jr. quotes and am going to choose the ones I like best. There are patterns I had not noticed. MLK never gave up. MLK realized that he was always seeing only the tip of the iceberg. MLK had alot of Zen in him as well as Ghandi. MLK was at times prophetic, almost psychic. MLK was Christian and I am Buddhist but he was in the overlap region where both religions are pure, not corrupted by false prophets and preachers. MLK recognized the futility felt with protest, though it may be cathartic. Above all, MLK recognized the great danger of complacency and comfort by the "moderate" and unengaged, and that the power-hungry and oppressive would never rest. (I am paraphrasing and making my own interpretation, as I am not familiar with the context of alot of these quotes and they are blowing me away. Some of them are reminding me of he to whom the "Countdown Clock" refers (and who seems to represent consummate evil, the more we reflect.)

My African-American neighbors just took off to fly from Seattle to Washington DC for the Inauguration and I am starting to pack for my "red eye." Someone at work asked me, "Are you getting excited about the Inauguration?" I realized this morning that I was probably at least as excited about being in Washington DC for the first time in more then 30 years and for MLK Day!

"A lie cannot live."

"A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan."

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."

"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."

"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent."

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. "

"Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. "

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

"I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."

"I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law."

"If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well."

"If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive."

"If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolute night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos."

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. "

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."

"Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness."

"Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals."

"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him."

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."

"Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, "Here is an opportunity for me to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary."

"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will."

"The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood."

"The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict."

"The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility."

"The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice."

"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. "

"Everything that is done in the world is done by hope. "

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. "

I have taken a photograph of a wall in Seattle, on Martin Luther King Way, upon which is written one of the quotations above.

I had been a little busy and had wanted to leave up Karen's "Dance" piece, because I especially liked it. Tonight I realized that it was written 12/28 so has gone into the 2008 Archives. Like many of us, I have been frustrated beyond words with economic and geopolitical events, and focussed mostly on survival (work, car repairs, getting around, helping family, etc.) Locally, we've gone from three unusual back-to-back snowstorms to record-breaking floods. Everyone has been personally affected, to some degree.

I wanted to write something, so I Googled the word "Hope" and learned something I hadn't known, which may be relevant now. When Bill Clinton was first inaugurated,, it was a time like today when there had been years of Republican rule. He organized the Faces of Hope, 50 or so ordinary Americans that he had met during his campaign and that he brought to Washington DC to the Inaugural Ball. Several have died and others have suffered setbacks, but as it says in the article, the rest are older, wiser and possibly more cynical. Literally millions are predicted to converge on Washington DC for Obama's historic inauguration, and so I was interested in the reflections of the Faces of 50 following their recent reunion.

I have excerpted some of their insights (the descriptions are shortened but the quotations come from the article):

Alta Bardsley was a Quaker Oats worker from Cedar Rapids Iowa. She said: "It was like we were welcome to Washington, D.C., again. It was our town, the country's town." With Obama, she says, "I'm sure it will be that way again. We're home again. We're welcome in our capital. We have a man who's going to care about America." She is now 69 years old.

Bob Shannon was a football coach from East St. Louis who worked with inner city teams. He was later forced out of his job after he became a whistle blower on corruption, but he moved on and is now 64 and retired. He remembers his trip to Clinton's inauguration as once-in-a-lifetime experience and said, "We did a lot better in that era. Maybe we'll never do that well again." He does feel that Obama already has overcome huge obstacles to win election as the first black president. "It was almost miraculous," he says, "like somebody playing football, down 50-to-nothing at the half and coming back to win."

Danny Kronenfeld led a homeless outreach program in New York and took part in the 1963 March on Washington. He is now 76 and works a few days a week with youth. He is not cynical. Of Clinton, he says, "we came out after the eight years better than we went in." Now he says, "I think people that I deal with day-to-day have been given a tonic of hope, really." He says of Obama: "I never really thought I'd live to see a black man elected president. There was a tremendous kind of next-step feeling" to his election.

Roger Kuttan was an 18-year-old college graduate when Clinton came in. "I was very young and idealistic .. I have kind of lost a lot of that." Now he is 34 and works for a nonprofit. He is still somewhat optimistic as Obama prepares to take office. "When they actually called it for Obama I just started sobbing. It brings back all those memories of hope and looking forward to a lot of change and improving."

Teann Scoggins was a Hillary supporter and is glad Biden is with Obama. She is 56 and retired/on disability but does volunteer work. She also has a history of having worked for Gore's election and is a former Republican. "I do wish him well," she says of Obama. "He's inherited a very difficult situation and, truthfully, I don't think four years is going to be long enough to correct most of what he's going to inherit."

Bill Brierton is 69 and was laid off in 1990 from a Steel company in Pittsburg and was part of a Clinton campaign ad. He says "I just hate to see anybody lose their job, because I know what it's like." He feels like if Obama is able to deliver half of what he's talked about, Brierton says, "I'd be a happy camper. The people at the bottom of the ladder are always looking up and they're hoping maybe this time it'll go, after Obama gets sworn in." he said.

What about people like you and I? We have been through alot as well, and as an American friend in Germany wrote to me today in discussing Bush, "What a long, strange trip it's been!"

I was 40 years old when Clinton came into office and my son was in high school. I had just entered into private practice and was glad to have a Democrat in office. I had not been happy about the first Bush administration and the Gulf War. I thought of Clinton as a moderate but a big improvement over the status quo. I was destined to do well economically while he was in office and to become too complacent that the Democrats would remain in office. The 2000 Supreme Court decision which robbed Gore of the Presidency was my wakeup call, followed before long by 9/11, the Iraq War, the disappointing 2004 election, the financial meltdown and the current disheartening geopolitical events the world faces.

Personally, our family's comfortable middle class status would be threatened significantly, though we did not face the dire circumstances of some of our family, friends and acquaintances, let alone the dire poverty of some in the world. The positive tradeoff for me was the increased intensity of political engagement and awareness forced by two Bush terms which can only be characterized as disastrous.

So I guess I share the deja vu, coupled with the strange mix of hope tempered with cynicism borne of sometimes feeling relatively powerless despite activism and effort, or not knowing where to turn next.

What stories and recollectons do others have and what are your feelings about the concept of "hope"?