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“Setting the goal of energy independence, along with a gasoline tax, could help to solve so many of our problems today — from the deficit to climate change and national security.”

DonBinTN speaks to Republicans’ concern that Star Wars too closely parallels the Bush Administration. Then I run with the idea, myself.

The [Schiavo] case is full of great ironies.

Isaiah reminds us to take a bath (and probably, an enema).

Is the existing U.S. political situation the collective result of a people truly gone nuts, or are we generally sane but rendered wisdom-inoperative by a pathological field?

Something spiritual shifted today. [Wed, Sept. 22, 2004]

Pretty unmistakeable. A sea change, I think. Steph noticed it, too.

A weight lifted. A breeze of hope, incoming fresh air. I think it’s political.

As usual, I sense these things kind of like a barometer, then it takes me several days to concretely identify what happened. I’ll be back.

2004-09-30 update:
Today as I look at the assembly line of B/C yard signs in my neighborhood — even as someone steals my Kerry/Edwards sign, again and again — the breeze of hope seems faint at times. Is this America? And yet …

Last Sunday I walked in the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) Walk-As-One fundraiser in downtown Memphis. Fascinating people and surroundings! I noticed with some relief that as you drive from affluent suburb to downtown, the B/C signs slowly give way to Kerry/Edwards signs. Once downtown, I didn’t see one B/C sign.

In the midst of the multicolored throng of smiling brothers and sisters walking with me, and especially as we passed the Lorraine Motel where MLK was killed, now the home of the National Civil Rights Museum, I recalled that the God of scripture, history, and my experience is primarily about community and justice, as conveyed in the prophet Micah’s summary (or its more familiar translation, if you prefer) —

He’s already made it plain how to live, what to do,
what God is looking for in men and women.
It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously—
take God seriously.

Compared with this, today’s prevailing political understanding of community and justice seems lacking to me — Denying free speech to neighbors as in my neighborhood and across the country? Denying rights to people who are different, even unto writing discrimination into the U.S. Constitution? Bearing false witness against others, of which the reason given for invading Iraq is a prime example? Killing men, women, and children with bombs (“collateral damage”) almost indiscriminately? Sending people into poverty while favoring the wealthy with tax cuts? Passing the curse of a crushing debt onto our children and grandchildren? Avoiding responsibility saying “it’s not my fault — he did it, she did it, they did it”? Ridiculing knowledge, thoughtfulness, and wisdom? Being adamantly unrepentant? I find behaviors like these completely opposed to Micah’s understanding of what God is looking for in us.

Yet even in the face of these destructive winds, I detect the breeze of hope. We will not succumb to this curse. The spiritual shift I felt last week is a critical mass of us clicking into awareness: We will no longer be captive to fear and deception. We will no longer tolerate lies, hate, and endless war masquerading as the will of God. As Martin puts it, we will “overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”

I share Martin’s “abiding faith in America” and “audacious faith in the future of mankind.” With him I audaciously believe that “unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.” And I will work to my dying day to speak this word, to help bring about this reality.

If faith has taught me anything, it’s that the highway of retribution and violence we’re on leads to hell. We’re approaching the last exit before we hit desert. Let’s take it.

2004-10-03 update:
I’m not wild about Kerry’s saying “I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, wherever they are,” of course, but I assume that’s an essential criterion for the bloodthirsty vote. Why this unappealing stance doesn’t dissuade me is summed up by GussieFN in this succinct analogy praising competence:

Kerry and Bush have the same plan on the war
and Tiger Woods and I have the same plan on the golf course.
What’s the point, again?

I am so thankful to Dr. Dean — and to the movement he’s started — for rekindling hope in me and giving a spine transplant to the Democratic Party in the U.S. that I’m marching out the door Tuesday morning (February 10) to vote for Dean in the Tennessee primary.

Howard Dean is the only presidential candidate in my lifetime whose campaign I’ve been passionate about — it’s helped me believe my participation makes a difference, and that collectively we the people can take back our country. We can transform our country into one characterized by courage, straight talk, trustworthiness, balanced budgets, and healthy relationships among ourselves and with the world.

My vote will be one fully for Dean; any other vote would be lessened by being partly for the candidate but mostly against someone else. I am tired of voting for the lesser of two evils, and this day, for once in my memory, I won’t have to.

Of course I’m disappointed that the numbers of us choosing to vote similarly isn’t surging, whatever the reasons. One reason gives me pause about the efficacy of democracy’s equal voting representation: when I consider that someone who makes a voting decision Tuesday AM based on the front page of Tuesday’s USA Today has exactly the same political decision-making input I do when I’ve been studying these guys for seven months, it seems not quite right.

But in the end I let go of that conceit and insist that all of us have voices. Commitment to this democratic ideal implies a next step of reforming the media back to being a diverse chorus of voices and views for people to consider instead of being a monotonous, far-too-influential, agenda-laden handful of voices as it is now. A healthy democracy requires a diverse and informed electorate, not one misled by talking heads’ talking points.

For example, what’s up with the media declaring any candidate the winner when most of the nation’s primary voters haven’t yet cast a vote? That just doesn’t make sense in something called a democracy.

A Rainbow Brightens the Day, © caitlin conoverWhat happened to grace? Given primary results so far, is my earlier discernment without merit? — that “Dr. Dean’s campaign is where the grace falls. If God indeed guides our paths, rescuing us from ourselves — and of course I think he does — then this is where I sense he’s busiest. And where he’s smiling.”

Maybe. But because I credit the Dean campaign with initiating the tectonic plate shift that’s begun in U.S. politics, I think I was in the ballpark but without any sense of the final score, something that happens to me all the time.

I amuse myself thinking that intuition-plus-discernment is like a barometer that makes sweeping atmospheric change visible well before its effects appear (clear skies, raindrops). The data provided by a barometer yield no precise forecasts on their own, but we still value the barometer’s input in revealing invisible trends.

The situation as I see it theologically: The God of scripture and my experience is a God of transformation. And transformation finally appears to be underway in our U.S. political landscape. The Dean Phenomenon by most accounts has played an important role in initiating and fueling this transformation: Dr. Dean’s ideas are alive and well, having been appropriated into and now transforming the candidacies of those around him. Hence I think I can still sanely infer that Dean’s campaign is where the grace falls.

Now where grace rains down next will be interesting to see. Maybe it’s spreading further than I had dared imagine.

It has felt like rain in the desert, and I’m thankful for every drop.

2004-02-09 update: Jon Carroll captures the essence of Dean’s contribution very skillfully in SF Chronicle column Thank Howard Dean for Leading His Party Out of the Darkness.

Tonight as I turn in before voting tomorrow AM, I’m pondering the out-of-control budget deficit (and worse, debt) situation we’re facing in the United States, and thinking how much we need Dean’s year-in, year-out budget balancing expertise at our financial rudder. I imagine his “doctor’s bluntness” could help in this situation: We’re going to stop this hemorrhage so you won’t die. But it’s going to hurt. Much saner than “you can have it all, including Mars, and tax cuts, too.”

2004-02-10 update: Done! I stared at the glowing red LED beside “Howard Dean” for a long time before I pressed the VOTE button, remembering, savoring. Making a fully congruent vote like this is a matter of joyous significance for me; it’s my first in a quarter-century of voting AFAICR.

Steph and I were two among a total of four voters in our precinct at 8:15 AM. I don’t know if that’s a data point pointing to a poor primary turnout in Tennessee, or that we live in an intractably Republican suburb whose voters by and large see no need to vote today.

My rules of thumb:
Vote your conscience in a primary — forget “electability.”
Vote the best interests of your country and the world in a general
(which in the U.S. too often means choosing the least-bad candidate among those left standing).

I am still pro-Dean, and always will be, but I hereby expand my scope to ABB.

Yesterday I was peering into what’s behind this week’s tidal wave of Democratic candidate Howard Dean criticism and merrymaking. As ABC News put it —

Dean’s guttural yells Monday night punctuated his poor finish [in Iowa] and raised questions about his political judgment and temperament. …

A humbled Howard Dean, saying “I have my warts. I sometimes say things that get me in trouble,” argued Thursday that voters will see through his flaws and rally to his troubled presidential candidacy.

I have a scream. Dean’s post-caucus Iowa speech on Monday night, variously called his “barbaric yawp” or “primal scream” speech, is here (Real video). I see fatigue-induced goofiness, maybe, but crazy? Nearly every football game I’ve ever been to is crazier than this. Looks like everyone there was having fun.

Why is it not “presidential” for Dean to coach and rev his tired supporters after a disappointing finish in Iowa, but is “presidential” for Bush to look and sound like — let’s face it — a total effing moron illiterate on national TV?

We’re being way too gullible to what the media tubesters tell us. Most of us can think for ourselves, so why the hell aren’t we?

As Dr. Dean said later about the event, “I was giving everything to people who gave everything to me.”

[2004-01-24 insert: Remixes of this event have become an Internet phenomenon. What started as ridicule has become a vehicle for getting the message out — cool! Some remixes are funny, and this one, You’ve Got the Power (MP3 audio, 3.9MB), is outright inspiring. See DeanGoesNuts.com for more.]

I am one voter — a Christian voter in the U.S. South — who likes this passion and this whole-person commitment. I’ll spit out lukewarm in a heartbeat, just like someone else I know.

So why do I find this campaign hot? Because I want my country back. I want hope, not hopelessness. Cooperation, not division. Straight talk that doesn’t insult my intelligence, not secrecy, empty promises, and lies. Compassion, not disdain for everyone who’s different. Responsibility, not the wanton squandering of lives and resources. In particular, fiscal responsibility, not the saddling of our children and our children’s children with debt. Faithfulness, not the blasphemy of associating God’s name with behavior God abhors.

What a difference a day makes —

Dr. Judy in the house. Last night Diane Sawyer interviewed Howard and Judy Dean on Primetime Live (transcript and video links). The realness, warmth, and candor conveyed in this interview confirms my longstanding discernment that Dr. Dean’s campaign is where the grace falls. If God indeed guides our paths, rescuing us from ourselves — and of course I think he does — then this is where I sense he’s busiest. And where he’s smiling.

[2004-01-24 insert: Naturally now I can’t help but wonder if this wacky remix phenom might be another case of “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Joseph, Gen. 50:20). :-) ]

We may yet derail what’s going on — and/or I could be <gasp> wrong about its details — but this burst of sunlight gets me back to knowing that we are being cared for.

2004-01-29 update: For my notes (and links) concerning Diane Sawyer’s surprise mea culpa — an apology of sorts for contributing to the media’s gross misrepresentation of this speech — see blog entry If Howard screams in a crowd, can anybody hear it?.

In the midst of today’s enthusiastic hubbub that Al Gore is likely to endorse Howard Dean for the Democratic presidential nomination, Nathan in MN at Daily Kos provides my favorite quote of the day —

Dean’s campaign is not just about changing presidents, it is about changing the entire social fabric of this country.

Yes. The whole feel of this emerging drama is mercifully different than in 2000. There is pneuma in it this time, I think.

Thanks, Nathan.

2003-12-09 update: Indeed it’s happened, and I am jubilant about what an ascendant Dean candidacy means; the whole phenomenon is breathed through with hope.

As reported by CNN, Al Gore endorses Howard Dean —

Gore said part of the reason he chose to endorse Dean was his ability to appeal to the nation’s “grassroots” elements, a reference to Dean’s success in organizing and raising funds on the Internet and in small voter gatherings.

The Dean phenomenon has proven that grassroots works. You can, I can, anyone can truly make a difference. This is, in fact, what democracy is. $2000-per-plate campaign fundraisers as the price of admission — what you have to pay to play, which means hardly any of us can play — have now become optional.

Side benefit to this grassroots approach:
There is much less beholden-to-big-money sludge accumulating in this campaign.

Gore also praised Dean’s opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The former vice president called the Iraq war a “catastrophic mistake” by the Bush administration, a move that leaves the United States less effective in the nation’s battle against terrorism. …

“He was the only major candidate who made the correct judgment about the Iraq war,” Gore said. “And he had the insight and the courage to say and do the right thing. And that’s important because those judgments — that basic common sense — is what you want in a president.”

Yes, sound judgment arising from basic common sense is what I want. It is a baseline requirement in a president.

Our societal abandonment of basic common sense, a lapse we displayed so vividly in the buildup to this Iraq debacle, will be markedly less likely in the future, I think, if we’re listening to truth-telling, insightful, courageous, sensible elected leaders who credibly exercise a commitment to democracy and social justice. I am certain we’re not stupid, but we are too easily duped. It’s a bug, and we can fix it.

“When we set this event up,” Dean said to loud laughter at the rally’s start, “I had absolutely no idea that we were going to have the elected president of the United States here with us today.”