Gaza

By Peter Clothier

I've been meaning to say something about Gaza for some days now. I imagine that you, too, are giving much thought to that conflicted region these days, Bush, as the Israelis enforce the withdrawal from their people's settlements in nthe area. So many conflicting claims and interests there! So much human ego, so much human sense of entitlement and possession, so much human suffering! It's a dire situation, and one that will never be resolved without real sacrifice--both personal and political. And sacrifice is what we humans are least willing to do: we have so much of our sense of self tied up in what we imagine that we own.

Whom to support? With whom sympathize? Even this I find to be a vexing question. I guess my own solution--easy, you'll tell me, at this distance--is not to take sides. To exercise as much compassion as possible for all. For the settlers, who have vested themselves, their lives, their work, their love in this little patch of land that they seem to believe was given them by God. I have little sympathy for the notion that "God" gives us anything--especially at the expense of others: does He not love them equally?--and yet I can see how deep an attachment this belief can create. And it is compounded by the further attachments: to land, to home, to source of livelihood, and so on.

On the other side, who can fail to sympathize with people who have already experienced, years ago, the kind of ejection that the settlers are now called upon to experience for themselves? With people who have experienced real oppression, real deprivation, poverty, and limitations on their freedom. Who have been both the victims and the perpetrators of violence? Who have suffered both from the controlling hand of others, and from the corruption of those who govern them? Their expressions of joy, their triumphalism might appear unseemly, given the suffering of others, but then so might the stubborn defiance of the settlers.

Created by so much historical bad faith and misguided nationalism, it's a situation now where winning involves enormous losses on both sides. Let's hope, Bush, that it can bne resolved this time without bloodshed, and the the withdrawal opens the door for further movement toward peace in this much troubled region. The anger and frustration generated by this conflict are now, as we well know, causing deep disturbances throughout the world. --posted August 17, 2005

Desperately Rattled: Bush Is The President That We Create

By Peter Clothier

Accents--and the Dragon's Teeth

By Peter Clothier

By Peter Clothier

It was Albert Camus, wasn't it, Bush, who suggested in his signature novel, The Stranger, that the only philosophical question worth considering was whether or not to commit suicide? Oh, I loved that question--and that novel--as a dark young man in the heyday of French Existentialism! It suited my dark, poetic (so I thought!) self. In those days, back in the mid-1950s, I wore black clothes, smoked Gauloises, and thought I was James Dean.

The reason I mention this, Bush, is that I left that wonderful gathering of ManKind Project elders up in Oregon with this thought in mind: that the most all-embracing, deep and serious question facing us today is whether or not we want to commit suicide as a species, on a global scale. And what we can do, if anything, to save ourselves. I'm honestly not sure about you, Bush: whether you're in some kind of deep denial--a hangover from your days as an alcoholic, perhaps--or whether you're a willing part of a powerful cabal whose greed and recklessness is driving us rapidly toward extinction. And I'm not sure which version of you is more frightening.

Let me explain: up there in Oregon we had the opportunity to hear from thoughtful men who have done some serious research and thinking. We heard, for example, from a scientist about global warming--a field in which he has developed a certain expertise. It was clear, from what he said, that there is no longer any possible reasonable doubt, from a scientific point of view, that the activities of human beings in burning fossil fuels (not to mention living forests!) are the cause of a significant and increasing rise in global temperatures. No qualified respected scientist questions the proven data. And yet you, Bush, despite the evidence supplied by your own government agencies--and posted for all to read on government and other websites--continue to assert that this is as yet only a unproven theory, and that more study is needed. Your lead is followed, it seems, by an indulgent media which remains reluctant or unable to convey the truth to the American people. A friend--from another context--who happens to teach this material at an important university hereabouts, told me yesterday that his students' eyes "glaze over" with disinterest or perhaps disbelief, when he imparts his knowledge of the subject.

Are we all asleep, Bush? Are you asleep? Or are you incompetent? Or dishonest?

The other part of the story, or course, is the rapid depletion of the earth's supply of oil, on which all our "progress" depends. The facts are known here, too: I learned a lot about "peak oil"--enough to know that I should know much more, and to form the intention to follow up on the leads that I was given. Not only is the supply headed at exponentially increasing speed toward depletion, with technologically developing countries like India and China racing to assure their share; its reserves are principally in parts of the world where we have assiduously courted hatred. Jimmy Carter, as I understand it, was the last president to take the problem seriously, declaring back in the 1970s that we must end our dependency on foreign oil. (Your much-touted Arctic Wildlife Refuge, according to scientific charts, will provide no more than could be saved by a simple redesign of the tires we use on our vehicles; and considerably less than by a turn to hybrid automotive technology.)

Anyway, Bush, needless to add, no one heeded Carter's call. The reckless consumption continued. There have been virtually no steps taken on a national basis toward conservation. And, along with our President, we remain in blissful denial, continuing to believe in "progress" and "growth" despite all evidence that we will almost certainly destroy our planet and ourselves in the process. What's the most likely scenario? Will everything come to a dead halt? Will we find ourselves without food to eat, because we have depleted the soil, and can no longer produce the fertilizers to replenish it? Will our oil wars continue, and expand to a global scale?

What's known is that we have backed ouselves into a corner where we are dependent on fossil fuels for our food, our energy, our transportation, our communications, the heat or cooling in our homes, even our medicines. I, for one, am committed from this moment to becoming more aware. I want to check out those websites, get the information. I'll even pass it on to you, Bush, in these pages, as I find it. It's scary stuff. Just in case you really don’t know what's going on, at least demand that the information arriving on your desk be unedited by oil industry shills like your Philip Cooney. That's the least you can do.

As for my part in the gathering up in Oregon--remember, it was causing me considerable anxiety?--I have to say that it went quite well. As I prepared, and as I spoke, I came to the recognition that these pages and the practice of writing them are one way to remind myself, and I hope a few others to be vigilant, not to allow ourselves to go to sleep and perhaps--if you and your people have your way--never wake up. As I say, I'm convinced now that this is the only serious question left: do we all want to commit global suicide? --posted 07.01.05

A Special Entry: for Leigh

By Peter Clothier

I ran into my friend Ross at the gym yesterday. He told me the story of his brother's recent death, from AIDS, after 25 years surviving the disease. Ross told me more than he says here, about the neglect and heartlessness of the medical insurance business when it comes to cases they deem hopeless--or too expensive for their corporate pocket books. It's a terrible, yet all-too-familiar story in today's America. Here's Ross's tribute to his brother, in his own words; and his implied indictment of a society that fails to care enough for its least fortunate:

"It's been a tough few days. Yesterday my 3 brothers, 2 nieces, and nephew in law, and I went to the hospital and said goodbye to my brother Leigh. We brought Bach on piano on a ghettoblaster. We held him as the respiratory therapist removed the breathing tube. He was awake and we were with him. Finally peace. It was the most natural thing to do. 59 years....25 years with AIDS. A long time fighter, he got sick around 1981, before anyone even heard the term GRID (gay related immunodeficiency syndrome). I went with him to a nutritionist specializing in AIDS once per week in 1983. Main treatment....3 pounds of turkey meat daily. He used a non-medical approach to healing for the first 15 years...when everyone was dying. I remember visiting him when he was sick with high fever of 105 for weeks.

Treatment......organic juicing 4 times daily. He would call me and request the specific vegetable or fruit he was craving. He did not use AZT or DDI or antibiotics when others died on them. He started a group called "HEALING OURSELVES" which met once a week for years in 1992-1993. I attended some of them. Ozone therapy, Juicing, Exercise, super high Vitamin/Antioxidant drip infusions, etc, etc, etc. I learned some thing I am sure. Do not depend on the doctor for your cure. Be the responsible person for your own health.

I'm rambling. I am unconciously wording my brother's eulogy. He was my big gay brother. My only gay brother. He did everything first. He was wild. He competed in the Van Cliburn Piano competition in the 1980s. He was a strict piano teacher. He composed 50 original music pieces. He wrote books of poetry. He was an AIDS activist. Leather, motorcycle, vocal. He was not afraid to scream his anger. He picketed with the AIDS groups that were violent but effective in getting new drugs released. He TOLD HIS STORY to his world at every chance. He brought his piano students and parents together in 1991 (50 students) and announced that he was retiring from teaching piano due to AIDS. He felt he could not hide his condition any longer and that it was the only responsible thing possible. Parents would be afraid to have their kids being taught by a person living with AIDS.

He lost his ability to walk and care for himself in 1995 and he moved in with me for 2 years 96-97. It was hell. He began to recover with combination therapy and re-learned how to walk. He told me to fuck myself and moved out in 9/97. He then lived in West Hollywood until 12/04 when he was evicted and ended up on the street with no care. He was severely handicapped for these last 8 years. Electric wheelchair. Incontinent of urine and feces. Mentally unable to fully care for himself. Always smelly. Often angry. Intensely emotional. Playful like a puppy. His total companion for these last 8 years was his dog BESSIE. She loved Leigh totally like no-one else could....and he loved her...unconditionally. They played together daily. She ate what Leigh ate. He was hospitalized 4 weeks ago with pneumonia and died yesterday.

What will I learn from my brother Leigh? How to be unafraid in the face of disaster? How to live? How to die?

I love my brother." --posted 05.16.05

The "Q" Word

By Peter Clothier

Back then it was about halting the spread of communism. Now it's about furthering the spread of democracy. In both cases, we got ourselves into a royal, stinking mess from which it was a lot harder to extricate ourselves than to get involved in the first place. As a result of our interference--no matter how purportedly noble the motives--tens of thousands of people were subjected to horrific deaths and injuries, and the lives of millions more were permanently disrupted.

I'm talking, of course, about Vietnam, Bush. And Iraq. And how little we have learned--thoughts prompted by yesterday's public television program about the last days of the Vietnam conflict, and the eventual desertion of the field by Americans too tired, too lost, too dispirited, too bewildered to continue to fight on the losing side of what had always been a civil war. It was essentially a betrayal, Bush. It's not a nice word, but that's the truth of it. A betrayal of expectations that we had created, and of promises that we made--mistakenly, in confusion, and even with the best intentions. We can surely see that now. We had backed ourselves into a situation where betrayal was the only exit left.

I know you'll argue that Iraq is different, Bush. That it was not a civil war--though perhaps it's edging over towards exactly that at this point. That we marched in to free the Iraqi people--and the world--of an evil dictator. But it's still a case of America blundering into a situation which it has not bothered to fully appraise and a culture it fails to understand, underestimating the power of internal politics and passions until it is too late.

The U.S. military is confronted, yet again, with an implacable, highly motivated enemy that fights on its own terms, with tactics to which we are ill-equipped and ill-trained to respond. And a political resolution continues to elude us. What has become of that election, back in January, when thousands of brave Iraqis chose to risk their lives in exchange for an ink-stained finger? Today, months later, there's still no government to create the order and stability needed for the country to survive and its people to thrive. We're confronted with the spectacle of a U.S. army still unable to protect the people that we claimed to liberate, and a culture of such squabbling, irreconcilable diversity that peace remains a distant dream.

No matter how your people try to spin it, Bush, it's another quagmire. We have to stop playing "America knows best," and learn that leadership, in the world today, has more to do with listening, and stepping softly, than with wielding the big stick. It's sad, but at the same time healthily instructive, to observe how easily a canny opponent can foil even the biggest stick with ruthlessness and absolute dedication to a cause. We should have learned this lesson, Bush, back then, in Vietnam. We could have spared ourselves ths quagmire. --posted 05.02.05

A Big Word

By Peter Clothier

The time has come this morning for a big word, Bush. You're not going to like it, but you're going to have to hear it anyway. I woke with it early, and it has been playing ever since then in my mind. You know how that is. I'll tell you what the word is in just a moment, but before I do I need to tell you where it comes from.

It comes from watching your Frist on the television news last night. He was talking to the media about the planned Republican attack on the filibuster. To tell the truth, I have never been particularly fond of that man. But talk about ingenuous, Bush! Talk about mendacity! There was your Frist, whining on about the (rather mild) Democratic efforts to block a handful of your more outrageous judicial nominations, and their possible use of the filibuster as a tactic of last resort. As though your Republicans hadn't used the very same tactic to block twice as many Clinton nominations just a few short years ago. What's good for the goose, you'd think, would be good for the gander, no?

Well, no. Your people are not satisfied with majority rule, Bush. They want to strip the opposition of the last vestige of power. They cannot tolerate the slightest opposition that might thwart their will or question their righteousness. They want nothing less than total power, for now and years into the future. Take a look at your Delay's effort to insure Republican majorities for decades yet to come. They want total control.

And the word for this is not the 'democracy' you talk about so glibly. The word for this is a different one altogether. It's called 'totalitarianism', Bush. And that's not only a long one and a big one, it's a very nasty one, Bush. Take my word for it. It's a very nasty one indeed. --posted 04.16.05

At the Great Temple, Abu Simbel

(My 'Ozymandias')

By Peter Clothier

So there they sit, the great ones, centuries later,
still sightless, gazing out across the desert sands,
the four of them--well, three and a half of them,
if you discount the one that's come to pieces,
head off, half his torso gone, tumbled in great,
shattered boulders strewn down below his feet.
Talk about grandeur. Talk about colossal.
Talk about beauty, serenity, mangnificence.
Talk about awe, even--but that's a hard one,
with a thousand fellow tourists tramping
through the site. Still, words are inadequate.
And who am I to write about them anyway?
Some Johnny-come-lately tourist, protected
in the bubble of my tour group, camera dangling,
trotting along with my laptop after all the rest.
My head is way below even the lowest level
of their great stone feet. I look up, dizzy.
They look out, distant, not seeing, seeing
further than I can imagine, across centuries
of time, way past the pitiless moonscape
of the desert sands, heads in the azure sky,
toward the the stars that only they can see.

--posted 04.07.05

A DIFFERENT OWNERSHIP SOCIETY

By Peter Clothier

I did not catch the news last night, Bush. Nor did I give a more than cursory glance at the newspapers. There were more important family things to be thought about and taken care of, as Ellie and I prepare for a big trip to Egypt at the end of this week. (I'm hoping to be able to keep up with our conversation, though, as we travel--and even went so far as to invest in a tiny, three-pound laptop to take with me, to make that possible. More of this later, as the week progresses.)

Anyway, I have little to say about topical matters, but I did wake this morning with thoughts about ownership. We've had our differences, Bush, about your concept of an "ownership society." It's a concept with which, as you know, I profoundly disagree, because it is based very largely on a material understanding of ownership. But there is also a diffferent kind of ownership, which has more to do with the emotions that undergird our lives and our perceptions, and what might result from a more widespread understanding of these inner workings is an ownership society of which I would heartily approve. It would mean that each of us would take personal responsibility for the way we live out our lives and our relationships with others.

Let me explain. When my deep inner feelings are triggered by some exterior event, unless I am fully conscious of the nature of that feeling, I'm likely to project it on some other person. If anger arises in me, for example, I might well allow myself to project it on my wife. It gets to be her fault, and I'm angry AT her. When I manage to remain fully conscious, however, I'm able to OWN the anger--that is, to recognize that it's mine, that it comes from some source within me and that, though my wife may indeed have triggered it by some action on her part, the feeling comes up from a well of anger that has been stored inside me, perhaps for years, perhaps since early childhood. If I'm able to catch this in time, before the anger explodes, I manage to behave in a very different way than I would if I reflexively allowed the anger to take over and control me.

I'm inspired to these thoughts, once again, in part by the sad drama around the Terri Schiavo case. I could rant on about Saturday's congressional bill and your melodramatic rush to sign it. Also about the cowardly Democratic refusal to take a responsive stand. (My judgments, Bush, I acknowledge it!) But I've already had my say on that. The piece I want to add today is about projection: I heard the young woman's father speak on the TV news this morning about what he deemed to be her response to news that she might be allowed to live a little longer. It's clear from all the medical information available that Terry is incapable of such a response. She just doesn't have the physical capacity. So we're left again with projection. Terry's parents, in their wholly understandable love for their daughter and their reluctance to let her go, are simply projecting their own emotional reactions onto her. It's wholly understandable, yes. No person of compassion could fail to aympathize with their passion. But that doesn't make it right to turn this whole affair into political red meat.

My point is that if we can learn to suspend negative judgment about others and refrain from blame, it's possible for us to create a more tolerant and compassionate society. Imagine an ownership society in which we are all fully conscious of our own reflexive reactions, and all ready to take responsibility for our own inner lives, instead of projecting them out on others. Imagine a society without blame, and without judgment--because judgment, too, arises from unconscious projection. When I find myself making a judgment about another person--oh, he's so cruel, she's so thoughtless--I've discovered that all too often the cruelty or thoughtlessness is in fact my own. It's still, in a significant way, "I, me, mine", but this kind of internal, non-material ownership might result in generosity, mutual caring, and tolerance rather than greed and possessiveness.

And that's an ownership society I wouldn't mind living in, Bush. In fact, I think I'd rather like it. --posted 03.23.05

"PeterAtLarge is a reformed academic, now twenty years in recovery. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Laguna Beach, California, and writes, and writes, and writes..."

Marketing's Not Democracy

By Peter Clothier

I woke up today with the word "demagogy", Bush. It's one of those words that gets easily bandied about, but you're never sure if the user knows exactly what it means. So I looked it up in the OED, to be sure that I had it right. It's defined there as "the action or quality of a demagogue," defined, in turn, as the "leader of a popular faction, or of the mob; an unprincipled or factious mob orator or political agitator." And I said to myself, "Well, that's my Bush."

The word was brought to mind, in part, by the announcement that Arnold Schwazenegger, a fellow demagogue of yours and, improbably, our Governor here in California, has taken it upon himself to revert to a currently all too familiar tactic: when you can't get what you want, take it to "the people". So our Schwarzenegger is on the stump. He's upset about teachers' raises, in part--he believes they should all be merit raises--and by the state pension plan. He thinks he can save money by trimming them around the edges, and that it will be easier to persuade the California voters than their legislators.

He's right, of course. It's been proven time and again. I mean, his own election proves it, doesn't it, Bush? Mob mentality? The "popular faction"? It's a proven fact that no one wants to pay a penny more in taxes than they're paying right now, no matter how the cost of providing basic public services rises. So you tell the people you can give them everything they want without raising their taxes, just so long as they vote on your side on this initiative, or that legislation.

Sound familiar? It's the same story that you're busy telling the people out there about your Social Security plan. It was the same story you used to sell your war: we can clobber Hussein AND cut your taxes, too. The sad part is, it's not too hard to sell a seductive story, even when it's a lie. Spend a little here (on simplistic and deceptive advertizing) and a little there (on "journalists" and pundits who'll pitch your line); stage a little diversion (the story of the planned attack on New York's Grand Central station was all over the news yesterday: coincidence?); target a carefully selected audience (coincidence, again, Bush, that Jackie Robinson gets his Congressional Medal at precisely the moment when your people are courting African American support on Social Security? I think not); then pinpoint those strategic locations around the country where a presidential speech (to the faithful only, Bush; never risk a genuine questioner) can stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood--whatever it is that Prince Hal said. And, as they say in England, Bob's your uncle.

You talk about democracy, Bush. I say that democracy won't work when what it means is a bunch of uniformed people voting in favor of what they've been led by the nose to believe is in their interest. Democracy, as I understand the principle, depends on education--a resource that is in pathetically short supply in this country at the moment, and getting shorter. It means voters who are educated enough to be able to think critically, weigh the issues, and transcend their own short-term interests in view of the long-term benefit of all the people. It means entrusting those for whom we voted with the work that each and every one of us has neither the time, nor the skills, nor the staff to do, in coming to a solid, informed understanding of the full social and economic implications on every serious issue, and then casting a vote as our representative.

What both you and Schwarzenegger are undertaking now, in making your (demagogic, Bush) appeal to "the people" is to subvert the very democracy you purport to be promoting to other countries around the world. What you're practicing is salesmanship rather than persuasion, imperialism rather than diplomacy. And I'm not buying, Bush. --posted 03.14.05

Bush Diaries: Anger

By Peter Clothier

I sit here today in just plain anger, Bush. I sat through my morning meditation and watched it rise, and rise, and rise. It would not stop. I felt it taking charge of my entire body. I watched myself attempting to contain it, just by sitting there and watching it, and breathing, and allowing it to pass, as it usually does. It wouldn't this morning, though. It just went on rising, and I went on watching. I still sit with it now.

The anger has two proximate causes. Triggers, really. "Causes" sounds too deeply rooted in the psyche to be relevant here. The first trigger, then, was watching you on last night's television news, all smug and smirking, as you spoke before the assembled European community, pontificating about things like transatlantic unity, and democracy, and peace, and freedom, when everything you have done as President of the United States amounts to an assault on those very same values. I was angered by your Rice, who sat there nodding sagely at your side, all attentive and adoring in her familiar helmet.

Because, Bush, it's my judgment that you have no right to be there. It's my judgment that you are an imposter, unprepared for a position you usurped by guile and by deceit; that you are unqualified by character, or intellect, or knowledge, or experience, or breadth of human understanding to be the President of the World.

Which brings me to the second proximate trigger for my anger. Last night, after watching you on the television news, I tuned in to a documentary on the Sundance network--a documentary entitled, aptly, "Bush's Brain." It was the story of your Rove, and his Machiavellian machinations to elevate you, first to the governorship of Texas, then to the Presidency of the United States. It was a story of outright cheating, lies, deceit--anything it took to destroy opponents and clear the field for your incompetence. It was the destruction of Ann Richards, on your way to the Texas Governor's mansion, and of John Mccain on your way to the White House. (Ellie wondered aloud, giving voice to my thoughts, how Mccain could have come back to support you, after your deplorable attack on his war service to this country, and your scurrilous, heartless rumor-mongering about his black, adopted "love child"--as you people had the boundless, reckless temerity to suggest.) It was the story, too, of the crushing of Max Cleland in your ruthless pursuit of even greater Republican power when you were already in the White House.

I'm sorry, Bush, but I judge your Rove to be despicable, and your reliance on this despicable character to achieve your ends to be equally despicable. You'll probably tell me that I'm politically naïve: too true, but I wear that as a badge of honor, not the reverse. You'll tell me that this is all past history, no point in rehashing it now, that the time has passed for crying over spilt milk, it's time to mend fences, forgive and forget. all those old cliches. Everything that you're telling the Europeans in your speeches there.

Speaking for myself, I just can't do it, Bush. Maybe politicians can, for the sake of practical necessity. Maybe diplomats and world leaders can, recognizing that they have no other choice. But that doesn't mean that I have to, Bush. And I choose not to. At moments such as these, when the anger rises, I find myself seething with rage at what you have done in the world, and in this country, and what you continue to do with the trust that you have failed to earn. I choose to remain your implacable opponent. I choose to disbelieve you, and your motives. I choose to distrust your words, because they have so often failed to mesh with the truth, or with the deeds that follow them. I choose to mistrust your leadership. I choose to continue in my anger.

There. That's it for today, Bush. Sorry to intrude on your moment of apparent European glory. But sometimes the anger just rises, and needs to be expressed. --posted 02.28.05

"PeterAtLarge is a reformed academic, now twenty years in recovery. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Laguna Beach, California, and writes, and writes, and writes..."

The Bush Diaries: "Bound And Gagged"

By Peter Clothier

On a recent night, with my wife, Ellie, I went to an exhibition in the Natural History Museum downtown, where artists had been let loose in the basement to pick out objects that somehow spoke to their particular sensibility.  Ed Moses, a noted painter, had found a stash of carved figures from Papua, New Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and the Congo, and brought them out, caged, as he had discovered them, for storage, and "Bound and Gagged"--his title--to restrain them, for their protection, from any untoward motion that could damage them.  Setting them up in the center of the exhibition space under stark museum lighting, he let them speak, finally, for themselves.  I'm sure each one of there heard a different story, but here's what I heard them say:

Bound and Gagged

  They stand there, gazing
out at us balefully, from behind
their enclosure of wooden struts
and chicken wire, bound and gagged
by the ties that hold them carefully
in place, two dozen of them,
more perhaps, erect and naked,
proud, aloof under stark prison lights;
all of them strangely human, some tall,
some short, some male, with long,
hard dongs, some female, with their
pendulous breasts; some decorated
here and there with fading paint,
or spare, ritual objects; spirits
of gods awaiting their release.

  Ceremonial, these carved figures
from the wisdom of the still living
ancient mind (from Papua, New Guinea,
the Ivory Coast, the Congo) have been
held captive here, in what we call
our world, standing for decades
in the museum basement, unattended,
their power unspoken, their magic
mute.  And now, brought out
to stand among us in their silent rows,
they are still regal in their presence,
still commanding in the way
the gods command, unquestioned.

  And in that presence, my mind
turns to those other prisoners
of ours, today, those men
and women held in Guantanamo,
in Abu Ghraib, of ancient heritage,
and fierce, and proud in their own way,
and locked away, unheard, beyond
the reach of law or justice; we fear
that ancient, ruthless power
with which we invest those different
from ourselves, and keep them
in the basement of our lives, bound
and gagged, awaiting the timeless call
of a destiny beyond our comprehension.

  For this is what we do,
in our clean world of living rooms,
and televisions, and flush toilets;
it's what what we do to those
we do not understand, and those
we fear, and those who threaten us,
guardians of the dark gates between
sanity and madness, our dream
and the nightmare of that dark,
chaotic underworld whose power
we barely dare to sense.  And so
we cage them in, we lock them
in our basement; and, on fit occasion,
we bring them out to gaze back
at their ritual, barbaric forms,
discomforted by who they are
and what we do to tame them.
They show us more about ourselves
than we would ever care to know.

--posted 02.23.05

"PeterAtLarge is a reformed academic, now twenty years in recovery. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Laguna Beach, California, and writes, and writes, and writes..."

---

The Bush Diaries: The "Ownership Society"

By Peter Clothier

I've been mulling over your catch-phrase of the year, Bush--that "ownership society" you keep talking about--and why I find it so deeply repugnant. The reason my objections run so deep, I've concluded, is that they are philosophical, even spiritual, before being moral, social, or political, though it's hard to make a clear distinction at so profound a level of consciousness.

First, if you stop to think about it, death itself makes nonsense of the notion of ownership. Whatever I believe I "own" is simply no longer mine when I leave this world. As the cliché has it, "you can't take it with you when you go." And leave this world I must, willy nilly, and likely not at a moment of my choosing. Whatever I thought I owned will be left behind for others to distribute, disperse, dispose of, or destroy...

What of the things I think I own in the course of my lifetime? My money can be taken from me at a moment's notice, by theft, by accident, by reversal of fortune, by bankruptcy, by lawsuit. My house, with all its furnishings, its books, its electronic gadgets? They can all be taken from me in the flash of a fire or the cataclysm of an earthquake. Even my "identity", these days, can be stolen at the drop of a hat. So what is "mine"? My property? My little patch of land? My body? Even that most personal and basic of "possessions" is subject to the aging process, disease, death, decay.

Once, then, I admit to myself that I own nothing, I begin to question the whole idea of ownership. An "ownership society", as I see it, would be one where we all get attached to the illusion that we actually do own something, and will do whatever it takes to hold on to it, and get more. When I get more of some material "thing", it means, necessarily, that some one else will have less. Unlike such immaterial qualities as love, goodwill, compassion, material things are a finite resource: whatever I have--money, house, property, belongings--is something someone else can't have, by definition. Ownership, then, will lead inevitably lead to possessiveness, greed, and strife.

What's the alternative? I remember fondly the thinking of my late father-in-law, Michael, who was an art collector. On a modest scale. He was not one of those high-end acquisition demons who amass a fortune's worth of blue chip masterpieces. He simply loved the stuff. Art filled his home. But like many collectors I've had the good fortune to meet in my years as a professional art writer, he considered himself not the owner, but rather the temporary custodian of the pictures he collected. He felt privileged to have managed to gather them around him for a while, but remained always aware that they "belonged" to a much wider public than himself, and would eventually return to it.

This seems to me an eminently healthy attitude toward what we think is ours: that we are in some way blessed to have custodianship, for the time being, but that it will all flow back away from us in the same great flux of life that brought it to us. To the "ownership society", then, I'd prefer the notion of a "sharership society", in which we would all count our blessings, and value those things we're given to enjoy, in the full realization that they are not truly "ours", that we are fully prepared to let them go.

This attitude, I believe, if deeply shared and actually practiced in our daily lives, could make us all more understanding of each other, more generous. More human. When it comes to social and political discourse, there are surely those who will laugh at my simple-mindedness, and label me a socialist or, worse, a communist. I'm not that. I don't believe in trying to enforce some ideal of equality on the huge diversity of humankind that shares the surface of this planet Earth. But, by the same token, it seems to me equally, perhaps even more wrong-headed and absurd to propose "ownership" as the moral and political principle by which we all must live.

Thanks, once again, for listening, Bush. I hope this helps. --posted 02.15.05

"PeterAtLarge is a reformed academic, now twenty years in recovery. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Laguna Beach, California, and writes, and writes, and writes..."

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The Bush Diaries: Leftover Gripes

By Peter Clothier

Here are some leftover gripes, Bush, from your recent State of the Union speech.The first has to do with this Social Security thing: you started off a few weeks ago calling it a "crisis", and it's now been demoted to a "problem." What you laid out last night, though, was a lot less than the "imminent threat" approach you used to sell the country on your Iraq adventure: the system, you told us, starts paying out more than it takes in by 2018--some thirteen years from now. It's not until four decades from now that it will be able to fulfill only 70 percent of its commitments. Hardly a pressing issue and one which, according to most ecomomists I've read, has much less drastic fixes than your "personal accounts" scheme. And I don't trust your blithe assurance that everything is on the table. As with Iraq, my guess is that it will once again be your wayÉ Or your way.

For immediately far more pressing issues--well, the lead editorial in the next day's Los Angeles Times suggests a couple: immigration, and deficit reduction. I have my own suggestions, health care being at the top of the list. Here's a real crisis, if you're looking for one. People are actually getting sick and dying, now, here, today, in America, the richest nation in the history of the world, because the health care system is inadequate and simply unavailable to many, and because millions among us can't afford even basic health insurance. Oh, you did mention breezily your own aspiration to create a "community health care center" in every poor county, but it came as one of those "compassionate conservative" throw-aways that we have learned to distrust--like your promise of aid to African countries, Bush. Remember that? You never mentioned it this time around. Not once.

And while we're on the subject of this all-too familiar presidential disingenuousness ("disingenuity"? Help me, someone...) let's pause to note your laudable assertion that every death-penalty defendant deserves adequate legal defense. No quarrel with me there, Bush. I'm all for it. But it does tend to gloss over your record as Governor of Texas. From everything I've heard and read, your new Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, provided you with only the most cursory legal notes in death penalty cases that came to you for your final clemency review, ignoring egregious examples of shoddy or perfunctory defense. Yet you sent countless people to their deaths on the basis of those reports, apparently without compunction. I'd like to think you've had a change of heart, but you see why I might have less than complete faith in your conversion, don't you? I mean, when in the same breath you urged congress to approve your nomination of Gonzales? Is there not some kind of disconnect there? I think so.

Second gripe is your playing to the right-wing, evangelical balcony. I have to say it: this is disgraceful, abject pandering, Bush, no more nor less. A "constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage"? Come on, really. You have to know that this is nothing more than idle words, a nod (and a wink!) to the support base that elected you. And all that incomprehensible double-talk about scientific research and "the culture of life"? And the drama of the encounter between the parents of the dead Marine and the Iraqi voterÉ? Nicely staged, Bush. A real heart-breaker. But you and I and the whole world know that it would have been just as easy to find a bitterly resentful parent and an angry, disgruntled non-voter to parade before the American audience.

Here's what I hope: I hope the Democrats have the will and the power to maintain a steady opposition for the next four years. Well, somewhat less, now, than four, and two of them with your own power on the wane. I don't think they will roll over quite so easily this time. I think they're on their guard. Anyway, let's get those health care centers going, okay? And the improvement in the legal defense of death penalty defendants? And, from last time around, No Child Left Behind... the funding? Oh, and about that promise of aid to Africa... --posted 02.08.05

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Anniversary

Let us not pray,
since prayer offers us
the comfortable exculpation
of piety. Let us not say, once again,
Never again: we have shown ourselves
incapable of honoring such oaths.
We kill. We kill in the hundreds,
in the thousands, in the hundreds
of thousands, in the millions.
We kill each other, our own species,
the human race. We have no excuse.
Let us not resort
to words: words have already
failed us, repeatedly,
and emptied of their meaning:
Atrocity. Depravity. Barbarism.
Inhumanity. God.
We cannot atone for our actions
with empty expressions of piety or regret.

So let us not speak today. Let us be silent,
and breathe, and be thankful
for each breath, and acknowledge
simply who we are, and what we have done,
and grieve.

Liberation of Auschwitz, January 27, 1945

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Inauguration: A Dissent

By Peter Clothier

So when does the thinking start?
At what point do we all decide,
as Americans and world citizens
that we will not allow ourselves
to be transformed again into a horde
of vacuous nodding dolls at the sound
of a simple word like "freedom"?
When do we finally see through
the rhetoric of what-we-want
in favor of what we truly need?

Behold the man. He speaks. He lays
one hand on the Bible and he swears.
He smiles a sort of smile, and speaks
of spreading liberty to every country
throughout the globe. A preacher now,
he tells us every one of us was made
in the image of his Maker, insinuating
he was sent by the Almighty--the same,
perhaps, as the one who orchestrated,
in his almighty and ominisicent power,
that tsunami.

Are we to be the sheep,
then, of this blind, cocksure shepherd?
Are we to be herded by his sheepdogs
over the precipice of another war,
or blight, or famine? How long do we
allow his sponsors and protectors
to foul our waters and pollute our air,
then turn around and sell us back,
at obscene profit, the shoddy products
of their abuse of our common wealth?
And how much longer do we continue
to call this exploitation "liberty"?
For how much longer do we consent
to the barbarity of preremptory
imprisonment, torture, and, yes,
even execution--even execution
of the young and simple-minded
under the guise of human rights
and justice? And close our eyes
to the sick, and poor, and needy,
in the name of Christian values?
How long do we worship money,
"business", the corporate interest,
the self-interested accumulation
of property, and weapons of death,
all in the name of God and Country?

When do we all wake up and shed
the blindfold? When do we start
listening to content, past the words
of empty rhetoric. When, friends,
when does the thinking start?

--posted 01.25.05

More Bush Lies

By Peter Clothier

Oh, Bush, Bush, Bush. More lies. More prevarications. More half-truths. More exaggerations and distortions. More alarmist tactics. That's it, isn't it? You scream crisis, get your faithful all lined up behind you, echoing your screams. Then comes the Bush fix, based, it seems, entirely on divinely-inspired Bush ideology. It's your pattern, Bush. We saw it in your first election campaign, and 9/11 gave you the indisputable opportunity to do it again. Then came the War on Terror. Then the weapons of mass destruction and the Al Qaeda connection with Saddam...

And now Social Security. What alarms me is not the imminence of disaster on this front, but the way you revert to pattern. Virtually every balanced, carefully reasoned article I read on the subject comes up with the same conclusion: there is no crisis. There are concerns, certainly, and there's a need to make adjustments, tweak a bit here, tweak a bit there. But there's no need to jump immediately into the ideological change that you're insisting on. And yet, so I hear, you're leaning on the good folks at the Social Security Admininstration to cheer-lead and promulgate your view--just as you leaned on the good folks at the CIA to validate your preconceived plan to invade Iraq.

So where are the reasoned arguments about this issue? Where is the thoughtful consideration of other views? Where's the debate? There is none coming from the White House, so far as I can see. Just the propaganda. Just the same old "Trust me/Trust us" rhetoric. And the sad truth is, Bush, I don't trust you. I don't trust your rash judgments when it comes to the financial security of countless millions of future retirees. I look at the deficit you've created. I look at what your plan would add to the existing deficit. I take into account the fact that you have failed to veto a single spending bill since you came into office, and that you have lavished money on absurd and needless military ventures, even while insisting on ideologically-driven tax cuts that the country can't afford. I look at these things and I say, No, Bush, I don't trust you when it comes to money matters. I don't trust you one bit.

And while we're on the subject, what happened to all that aid your promised to the sub-Saharan African countries? What happened to the funding for your No Child Left Behind act? That's another tactic, isn't it, Bush? Mouth a few feel-good slogans to get the votes or rally the support, then forget the promises at pay-out time. In the case of No Child Left Behind, it turns out that your Ron Paige at the Department of Education put out nearly a quarter of a million precious education dollars in payment to a hack journalist for his collaboration on the propaganda front! So your people have resorted, now, to buying the press? There's some of us out here wondering just how far that goesƒ There's some of us remember the service Robert Novak provided you, outing the CIA wife of the man who gave the lie to your Iraq war pretext, Ambassador Joe Wilson.

Trust? You broke that relationship with us years ago. I swear I personally will not take anything on trust from you or any of your people.

And speaking of education, I have a thought or two about Harry. Prince Harry, that is, and his Nazi uniform. I can't believe that this outrage reflected any ill will on the young man's part. It was simple, disgraceful ignorance. He did not know enough to understand that a dress-up party costume could cause offense. He was so ignorant of the history of the past century that he failed to understand the enormity of the Nazis' crime. To him, I suppose, it was just another ancient war. And yet it's safe to assume, I think, that Harry was provided with the best education that money can buy.

Here's my point, Bush. If a "well-educated" young man like Prince Harry of England can be so ignorant, what's happening to the minds of millions of young people here, who have the disadvantage of geographical as well as historical distance from the events of the early and mid-20th century? The great lesson of the Holocaust--remember?--was Never Forget. But it has already been forgotten, Bush, not just by a few ignorant people, but by multitudes. And this is not something that can be rectified by tests. This goes to the very root of education: the development of the capacity for critical thought, for understanding complex issues. Which brings us back to where we started out this morning, Bush. I sometimes have to wonder--forgive me--if you and your ultra-conservative friends donÍt have a vested interest in the growth industry of ignorance. The better to sell your ideology to uncritical minds. --posted 01.18.05

Peter Clotheir is the author of 2 books of poems, 2 novels, a memoir, and a monograph on the artist David Hockney. He has a website called The Bush Diaries.

The views expressed are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bush Watch.