We are marching with the millions who oppose Trump around the free world

Obsessing about the size of the crowd attending the inauguration of Trump in comparison with the size of the crowd attending the inauguration(s) of Obama, by both the media and the Trump gang, demonstrates the vacuity and the paranoia of the new administration.

On the other hand, detailing the numbers, and the 673 locations of the “Women’s Marches” around the world, demonstrates the energy, determination, anger, frustration and “early warming signals” of the impending storm of protest that faces the new American administration.

If we thought there was a wave of protest in the uprising that erupted in the Middle East, we had better fasten our seat belts for a political weather forecast of considerable turbulence emerging from the untapped well of anger of the many “demographics” who have been offended by Trump.

In many ways, the friction and tension, the roots of much of the conflict that drives cultural shifts in the last decade can be found in the competing definitions of masculinity and femininity. The “traditional” male, (represented by the John Waynes of Hollywood westerns, the General Pattons, the Alexander Haigs, and the Donald Trumps) has been threatened, if not frontally attacked, by both the moderate and the nasty waves of the feminist movement, and the infilling back-surge of evolving men. Bravado, narcissistic lies, denial of nuance, inflated ego’s (demonstrating a profound neurosis) and a desperate grasping for a return to an out-of-reach past, symbolized so effectively by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” … these traits comprise the pathetic fading pixels of a mirage of power that underlies, shouts, votes for and thrusts its flailing gust for personal dominance from the various mouth pieces deputized by Trump.

Money, opulence, papier-mache ego’s constructed on a fundamental lie, that the people are so gullible, needy, desperate and easily seduced with smoke and mirrors, evoke all of the many examples of the abuse of power that litter the floor of American history. These “riches” like the proverbial mascara “on a pig” are so thin and so easily erased by the tears and the sweat that continually beat the drum of the truth of our self-deception. Of course, Trump reverses the responsibility away from himself and onto others for anything and everything that does not fit his picture of “reality”. And in doing so, he demonstrates the depth and the breadth of his need for complete control, all the while blaming the media for using the tactics of “fascism” by putting out fake news.

Trump and his hollow victory are both symptom and root cause of their own demise. As symptom, they grasp at straws desperate for control, and as root cause they capture the essence of the moral and ethical bankruptcy at the core of Trump’s business history.  We need look no further than the core of his inauguration utterance: “buy American, and hire American”.

We would perhaps expect and even tolerate such emptiness from a candidate for class president in a middle school, “more burgers and pizza in the cafeteria and more dances in the gym”. Pandering to the most base desires fails the smell test dismally, when put beside the potential of the details of a portrait of the ways in which our highest aspirations demonstrate the unity of people everywhere, a unity which threatens the very existence of the Trump-strut. Dividing one segment from all others, illustrates how deep and permanent is the new executive’s obsession with complete control—“paint a stick-picture on a very small cameo” and shout it as the new “absolute” fails as a modest test of leadership, throughout history, and especially now when the forces that demand innovative and creative, collaborative and inclusive new initiatives are so ubiquitous.

Building walls, withdrawing into a fake cocoon, even building opulent “towers” of the mirage of power (while failing to compensate the workers who built them)…these are not the stuff of authentic leadership, inspiration, and aspiration but rather the stuff of mere marketing.

And we have had our fill of marketing lies: Volkswagen, Takata, are just two examples.

As one colleague put it the day before the November vote in America, “I kind of hope Trump wins; perhaps it will shake us out of our complacency.” Riding a wave of fear and anger, epitomized by the disenfranchised and the unemployed, fueled by an insistence on the dishonesty of the media, fulfils only his private, isolated and disconnected version of truth and the landscape over which the constitution requires the president to govern (not rule, not dominate, not tyrannize, not distort, not stride like the colossus).

Importing the salesman’s world view into the heart of the government, as the electorate has done, also illustrates the illiteracy, the vacuity and the desperation of the voters who have been “played” for suckers by this complete huckster. Transactional consumerism, in which the sizzle trumps the steak, and the profits of the trumpeters doing the selling eclipse the honourable and honest expectations of the purchaser does not a competent, or trust-worthy government make. In fact, the opposite is closer to the truth.

We are “in for” such a buying and selling street marketing fight that will eviscerate many of the most honourable and proven traditions, practices and cornerstones of diplomacy, collaboration, sharing of both facts and resources. And this surgical and deliberate “business” take over of the levers of government has already witnessed the obliteration of all responsibility for any conflicts of interest, and the normal shame of such devastation. Hosting an inaugural luncheon in his own “trump-tower-dining room” in Washington is just another of the plethora of instances in which the new “leader of the free world” snubs his nose at the expectations of decency, civility, modesty and authenticity. Since he himself can be bought, has been bought, and will continue to be bought, he automatically assumes that every other leader and country and interest and person can also be bought.

Just to illustrate the bankruptcy of this truth: human rights can be neither bought nor sold. The truth is neither for sale nor does it have a financial price. The human spirit is not for sale, and not even on the market, for people who base their identity on a “not-for-sale” proposition. Ethics, at least the kind observed as valid by those much smarter than this scribe, are not reducible to a price, to a “deal” and to a transaction. The government is not merely an extension of the trump conglomerate. Nor are the people of the United States merely a cluster of consumers whose habits and perceptions can be manipulated by the marketing gurus whose vaults of data are gathered and stored exclusively for the purpose of increased sales and profits. The people of Germany, Great Britain, France, Israel, Japan, China are not for sale, along with the integrity of their leadership, their co-operation and the honour of their history.

Our shared and threatened environment is not going to be healed or cleaned by someone who considers the science nothing more than a “hoax designed by China”. Nor are the out-sourced jobs going to materialize merely from the huckster’s imaginative, narcissistic and self-serving musings. The health care of all American people will not suddenly materialize out of the fog of trump’s marketing genius, nor from the bowels of a Congress dominated by Republican puppets. Friendship with Putin, collaboration with China, protection of the NATO countries...none of these is magically going to jump out of a magician’s hat, at the beck and call of the master magician.

The American people, on behalf of the world’s citizens, have demonstrably moved into the proverb “we bought a pig and a poke”….so naïve, so innocent, so gullible and so angry and frightened were they that they fell into their own swamp of single-man, silver bullet answers to their many complex and interminable issues.

Perhaps the pharmaceutical industry, with its pill for every ailment, has so captured the culture of the United States, that, with another “drink” of another emulsion, they believe, they will eradicate their most terminal tumors. Adolescence, that period of our lives that rides waves of energy, in, for and of “the moment” and in for and of the “whatever feels good” and in, for and of the orgiastic has to give way to a healthy adulthood, still a distant glint in the eye of the American culture, where the rock star, the show and the most dramatic sensation epitomized by Trump, are still in charge.

When the dentist asks, “What do you think of Trump?” the answer, without skipping a beat blurts out, “I’m anxious; I simply do not trust him!”

We are all enemies of Trump...and we will be heard!

It is only one week until inauguration day!

The bedrock of lies on which the Trump candidacy is based,

·      along with the presumed impunity exonerating the person from any responsibility for lying

·      plus the tweeting ejaculations that have seduced the media, and

·      the appointment of billionaires/millionaires whose capacity for public service is clouded by their self-serving ambition, and

·      the scurrilous, if so far unvalidated reports of dangerous and secret connections between the candidate’s campaign/transition with the Russian government….

all of this taken together, one would think, would disqualify the man and his entourage from entering the Oval Office.

The nerves of ordinary people in America and many other countries around the world are fraying with each new revelation of potential conflict of interest, and of potential danger for ordinary people. The recalcitrant revoking of Obamacare will result in deaths resulting from the inability to pay for medical services. There are several clauses within the Affordable Care Act that protect people with pre-existing conditions, people up to age 26 covered by their parents’ insurance, and providing access to enhanced Medicare and Medicaid benefits, as well as subsidies for premium coverage.

The presidential-elect’s refusal to disclose his tax returns, along with his refusal to divest himself from all of his business interests, his nepotism in the appointing of family members to his senior staff, and his voracious appetite for wealth and power, for its own sake and not for the public good, without even consideration of his bigotry, chauvinism, racism, xenophobia and fundamental disregard for both laws and norms of traditions in public service and leadership, again one would think would have disqualified his candidacy months ago, with the support of both his opponents and the Republican Party.

However, it is time for the world, including this scribe, to stop wringing hands, to stop fretting, and to stop with all the melodramatic expressions of angst.

It is time to take that energy that is rooted in fear and depression and turn it into public activism in opposition to everything and to everyone that has anything to do with supporting, aiding and abetting the new administration.

While Democrats and progressives can and will concur with infrastructure rebuilding, and with fair trade deals that protect both workers and the environment, their primary purpose must continue to be focused on the potential to remove the occupant from the Oval Office. He cannot be permitted four years (and certainly not eight) in which to undo all of the many steps accomplished by the Obama administration on behalf of the American people, and also on behalf of humanity and ethical social responsibility, as a beacon, for all countries around the world.

It is not only through legislation, but also through his restrained and measured approach to every file (except the risky and dangerous capture and killing of Osama bin Laden and the targeted attack on radical terrorist cells), and also through his eloquent, balanced, even poetic rhetoric that Obama gave the world eight years of a positive role model for leaders everywhere. Trump by contrast, offers precisely the opposite every day, every hour, every tweet, and every bullying utterance. It was never through ideology, nor through a sense of personal narcissism, nor through vengeance, nor even through frustration and pique that Obama pursued his responsibilities as President.

Now, it is impossible to turn the television on without exposing another demonstration of an unbridled (and consequently hollow) ego seeking the narcissistic obsession of attention and fawning that only a president or a wannabe president can command. Hollowing out the Obama legacy is not the only threat posed by the upcoming presidential term.

It is also the hollowing out of the honourable and trustworthy reputation of the United States itself that is threatened. Foreign leaders, and their envoys, from every country will have to acknowledge their relationship with the new administration, and how they have been “had” by the chicanery that can be the only attitude to be attributed to the plans the words and the policies of the new administration. Restricting our observations to the floor of the House and the Senate will not remind us of the “supporting impulse” that the new administration gives every day to racists, bigots, and the far right around the world. The reducing resources to feed, clothe, educate, employ and care for and thereby offer hope to  the millions of poor, dispossessed, and increasingly disregarded living not only in third world countries but in the ghettos of major urban centres around the world, combined with the rise of “narcissistic” self-possession and insouciance for “out brothers and sisters” around the world and the triumph of the “will” of the ultra-right-wing political class is potentially as explosive as any military device currently in our stockpiles.

And the intelligence systems so far designed are and will be more focussed on the cyber attacks than on the “human intelligence breakdowns” that plague the United States of America.  Take for example “incident” in which Russian Television interposed itself into coverage of confirmation hearings on C-Span yesterday inside the United States Congress, without warning or explanation. It is the far more potent and blatant disdain for a common reality, truth, body of facts for which people and political actors have to be held responsible that is linked to the levers of power that threatens many of us, given our extremely limited access to the finer points of penetration and interpretation of state secrets from enemy nations. And since both truth and shame are terminal casualties of the Trump onslaught, and there are apparently no laws requiring or expecting either truth or responsibility of an incoming president, a different path will have to be found to de-rail this runaway train wreck.

How can anyone look at an American television news program these days without thudding the heel of the hand against the forehead in complete shock and amazement at the tragedy of conflict between and among the “intelligence community” as the “James brothers” (Comey and Clapper) do their politically correct dance of keypads, microphones and cell phones, to and from each other. Who can be surprised if the capitals of foreign nations are not also shaking their individual and collective heads at the charade that purports to pass as the American government? Trump’s disdain for the competence of the intelligence community’s work, including its clear and firm decision that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee, for the express purpose of re-railing the Clinton campaign, has, among other things, set him against the very resources he will have to rely upon as chief executive, formally and informally distanced that community from the Oval office, and thrown a bucket of sand in the eyes of all those in foreign capitals who previously considered the American intelligence apparatus to be one of the best in the world.

The Trump wrecking ball has taken aim at the character and reputation of all rivals, opponents, critics and those, like this scribe, who have become so jaundiced by his antics that I can no longer watch or listen to the verbal junk that erupts from his mouth. The Trump wrecking ball has also targeted the American intelligence establishment, the constitution a document he must swear to uphold and support, on the dais next Friday… And those words, like all other words from the new “leader of the free world” are worth about as  much as a can of warm saliva from a drooling golden retriever.

Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Shumer, and all the other Democratic leaders need a permanent medical doctor to accompany their next several months, given how little sleep, and how little healthy nourishment they will get, if they are to mount the kind of “war” of ideas in the towns, villages, counties and hamlets across the country that is needed in order to strip Trump of the Republican majorities in both Senate and House of Representatives. Refusing to accede to formal hearings for confirmation of any nomination for the Supreme Court is also a tactic that will help to shorten the life of this administration. Could we be witnessing, in the very near future, another Democratic ‘sit-in’ holding the Congress hostage to any further debate and votes, thereby impeding any move the new administration might make to strip protection for vulnerable people.

As for the rest of us, we are all now formal members of all minorities, blacks Latinos, LGBT, refugees, immigrants, and all who are not part of the top 1%. And unless and until we fully adopt that attitude we will remain immune to the impending thwarting of the rights, protections and access to health care, education, social services that comprise government’s responsibility. Only by joining forces with immigrants, refugees, the unemployed, the underemployed, the destitute and the uneducated will the voices of opposition gain the authenticity needed to counter-punch every day, every hour and every moment for the next four years.

And even with such a massive progressive movement, there is no guarantee that these 'trumpites' will not find other even more divisive and seductive measures through which to acquire electoral victory in 2020.

The blind hubris and hate that elected Trump has to be supplanted by a conscious, acerbic, conscientious and persistent level of opposition through every media, every water cooler conversation, every town hall meeting, and every nomination meeting. If complacency characterized an electorate of which less than 50% showed up to vote, commitment has to be the guiding principle of the opposition.

And, together, in 2018 and again in 2020, this regime will be first curtailed and then evicted from power. Even though much damage can ensue between now and then, it may be our best hope.

Can we disable the tyrants?

If reports in truthdig.com by Gareth Porter are correct (Inquiry Points Toward a Pentagon Plot to Subvert Obama’s Syria Policy, truthdig.com, January 5, 2017) then the Generals ordered this attack on what they described as “ISIS” positions were really Syrian army posts. They also knew that by attacking they would subvert Secretary of State John Kerry’s recently achieved agreement with Russia to work together in Syria against ISIS.

 The truthdig.com report documents an American attack at Deir Ezzor on September 17, 2016 that killed 62 Syrian soldiers and wounded dozens more.

John Kerry told the Boston Globe (according to the Porter report) that there were parts of the U.S government who were strongly opposed to any agreement with Russia to work together in Syria, opening to the public the kind of chasms of opinion, within the government itself, that now threaten the optimum functioning of the American government.

When the public is and has been awash in fake news, for the last several months, including Russian cyber attacks that have been characterized yesterday by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as an “existential threat” to the United States, (information that is now disputed by the “Donald”), this kind of new report throws public confidence in public institutions out the window even further. Some argue the world is moving quickly to some kind of “boil” in geopolitical affairs; perhaps, the boil has already begun and the people of the world are like the proverbial “frog” in the boiling pot, “fine until too late” when the boiling water finally kills the frog.

Of course, such apocalyptic pictures are so frightening that the public media and most water cooler conversations studiously avoid “going there”. Fear, as we all know, is a toxic weapon in any search for a resolution of serious conflict. It debilitates all participants, whether their wounding is clearly evident while attempting to lower the temperature or not. And while deception is considered an essential “arrow” in the quiver for any international conflict (Russia v. United States, for example) deception with one’s own people will ( or at least it once would have) erode the trust of the people in their leaders.

It would seem fitting to observe that we now have two “pugilists” (Trump and Putin) who are engaged in a monstrous and dangerous campaign of deception, mis-information, and they both will, on January 21, command massive military arsenals. Both have publicly mused about the renewal and enhancement of their respective nuclear capabilities. Both have demonstrated contempt for the truth and also for the normal modicum of trust based on truth from their respective “people”. Both are happy to surround themselves with sycophants, and to punish their enemies, without limits to their methods. (Trump has announced the beginning of an “enemies” list!) Both are engaged in blatant and unapologetic manipulation of the media, whether they “own” them or not. Both have amassed fortunes, regardless of the methods of their respective acquisitions. Both are clearly sparring for a “title bout” that would trumpet the formal beginning of a new Cold War. And both are so overflowing with hubris that they hold even the normal levers of governing in contempt.

And the number of their “gang of thug” leaders grows, with all of them fawning in their approach to superpower leaders. Setting the bar for “acceptable” leadership among especially ‘democratic’ nations, on a rung at the bottom of the sewer was never a concept conceived as acceptable in our lifetimes. Angela Merkel and Barack Obama must be writhing in political pain at the world they are witnessing. Clearly, millions of their constituents, and former electors) certainly are!

Turning to the new global “progressive” leader, Justin Trudeau, a neophyte in domestic politics and a kindergarten student in foreign policy (friendships with foreign leaders is not equivalent to foreign policy gravitas!) is neither comforting nor justified. While his motives for “doing good” may not be in question, his capacity to seek and achieve complex foreign policy ententes, himself or through the agency of his Foreign Minister Stephane Dion, has never been tested. His propensity to “balance” in the interests of the environment with the need to grow the economy may seem reasonable, as it attempts to balance two competing interests.

However, the international cauldron has many mutually exclusive competing interests and factions, and few fully functioning negotiating agencies, including, it would seem, the United Nations. “Shooting stars” like Trump and Putin will do whatever it takes to move in the opposite direction from international collaboration. They will attempt, in putting their own country’s “fortunes” ahead of all others, to fragment even further the global consensus, gossamer as it already is.

When a self-appointed and self-designed “hero” archetype takes over the national stage, it takes a compliant populace, a sycophant media, a narcissistic corporate structure, and a politically correct culture that frowns on dissent to contribute to their rise, and more importantly to sustain their emptiness.

So fragile and trembling are the cultures of both the United States and Russia that these two dangerous tyrants have mounted their serf-like “votes” to the pinnacles of power in their respective nations. And, even that little potential agreement that Kerry had worked out with Lavrov over Syria and ISIS could have been a first step in reining in both Trump and Putin.

It is to those committed to formal and informal dissent, at a time when dissent is becoming ever more challenging and potentially dangerous that the world must look, as we enter what many consider the darkest period in human history for the last half century.

Dissenters, activists, “artivists” (artists who are also activists), small, medium and large information organs, academics, thinkers and all of the lunch-bucket armies who make our world function have to come out of our political closets, and fight, not only for the repair of our streets, bridges, schools and hospitals but also for our world’s political, economic and environmental health.

And a first step in the process is to disable the tyrants!

Reflections on perfectionism...

Perfectionism is the unparalleled defense for emotionally abandoned children. The existential unattainability of perfection saves the child from giving up, unless or until, scant success forces him to retreat into the depression of a dissociative disorder, or launches him hyperactively into an incipient conduct disorder. Perfectionism also provides a sense of meaning and direction for the powerless and unsupported child. In the guise of self- control, striving to be perfect offers a simulacrum of a sense of control. Self-control is also safer to pursue because abandoning parents typically reserve their severest punishment for children who are vocal about their negligence. (Pete Walker)

I have fought perfectionism for a long time. Occasionally, however,  I find that it provides an easy escape from excessive supervision and control. People who are compulsive about their need for absolute control cannot attack unless or until I screw up in some manner that provides them with the window of opportunity they so desperately need. And every time I screw up, they strike laser-like, in a manner that betrays their obsession and their impatience at having to wait so long to strike.

Once, following a piano recital, at twelve, during which the coat sleeve I wore struck and sounded a note not on the manuscript, I was beaten for making such a “mistake”.

 Once, following a dramatic mis-step, in which, at eleven, I stubbed my toe in an over-anxious trip up the stairs on my way to compete for a trophy in a music festival and fell flat on my face, (evoking the tension-releasing comment from the emcee, “This candidate is certainly eager!”) an embarrassed, perfectionistic parent refused to speak for the whole of a four-hour train trip home.

Once, following disclosure that I had withheld, until after the Christmas holiday, a mediocre grade on a grade nine history exam, the shiny Spalding Christmas 9-iron I had just received was violently broken over the knee of the “deceived” parent and pitched into the basement.

Once, following an undeserved ‘strapping’ in grade four, and after discovering news had been withheld, I was marched into the kitchen and told to bend over the kitchen sink in order for the “mouth-washing’ with Lifebuoy soap to begin.

Notice the parade of “once’s”….yet they are all of a piece out of which a gestalt of  anxiety and fear, abandonment and exasperation, and a retreat into something that can only be described as “perfectionism” emerged. Whenever I enter a room filled with people. my radar switches to overdrive, my sensibilities are heightened and my anxiety rises. Oh, most times, given the decades of practice, I am able to mask the anxiety (or so I tell myself, deceptively) unfortunately for others, by that dreaded and noxious “bravado” of inquiry, excessive energy, enthusiasm and a gestalt of compensation for my own anxiety. Not knowing if and when I am “safe” depending on the situation, the potential for attack, the opportunity for insult and my instant and exaggerated response (hardly in keeping or commensurate with the often pin-prick of insensitivity), I will contort my person into a shape barely reminiscent of a “normal” male body and psyche, whatever they are.

My perfectionism holds a powerful magnifying lens, akin to a high-powered microscope or telescope, from the top of a very high mast, on the look-out for abuses of authority, whether or not they might be directed toward me, or another. While there is a perspective on public affairs that seeks to expose abuses in this “vision,” there is also a rather dangerous and self-sabotaging implication. I come off like a ‘dangerous’ and “hard-assed” volcano, ready and willing to erupt if and when I detect the abuse of a position, or the authority of those in power. 

This attitude has jumped to the fore when I heard another pedagogue wrongly accuse a co-ed of cheating on a math test, relinquishing the potential for a further relationship with the teacher, and risking the charge of being “too liberal” both of which followed. It has jumped out almost unconsciously, when I heard a principal exaggerate the potential political damage that might result from the opposition and criticism of another colleague, in defense of the colleague.

It has surfaced when faced with any reductionistic engagement, more like tokenism, when I see someone in a “leadership” position, patronizing a newcomer, simply because he can.

 It has also jumped to the “breach” (obviously an authentic creation of my imagination) when I heard my mother tell me, only days following the death of my father, “He was no good!” after she had spent sixty-two years in their marriage denigrating him and his profound integrity, compassion and authenticity.

My perfectionism also lept out when I heard statements of obvious abuse directed at my person, by those who had spent decades knowing me, yet found themselves compelled to impose intellectual, research conclusions from seminars about abstractions on the relationship. In fact, so appalled by such attacks was I, and continue to be, that I literally “quit and stayed” because I did not know what else to do. So active and persistent is my perfectionism that it has literally defined not only the way I approach my work, but also the expectations I have of others.

And clearly, those expectations are hardly “appropriate” to beneficial to a larger purpose of growing and developing relationships. Learning that the relationship is necessary, and can only be grown in a garden of support, nurture, fertilizer and sunlight (love, music, beauty, poetry, and joy) has begun to make it possible for me to even begin to trust enough to risk fully entering relationship. Thanks to a loving spouse, and a loving daughter for their unconditional love and support!

Let’s take a look at emotionally abandoned children, those especially vulnerable to perfectionism apparently.

It is not only a physically absent parent who abandons a child. In fact, a parent absorbed in his or her own stuff, without either time or interest in the finer details of a child’s life can be, and too often is, culpable of abandoning the child emotionally.

 When “performance” trumps family relationships, through award-winning flower gardens, through the accomplishments of the children, as jewels in the crown of the parent, through a kind of theology that dictates and obsesses over a dogmatic absolutism, a literal reading of scripture, and a conviction that the  starting point of all human lives is as “sinner” having to “work” one’s way to heaven, God easily becomes the scapegoat/cover/justification for such attitudes. And no God worthy of the name would support or even countenance such an approach either to faith or parenting. And no child, no matter how old, how mature, how well dressed, or how well presented to the world, grasps the full impact of such an emotional tyranny.

Any child in such a culture would feel powerless, especially given the emasculation of one parent by the other. Self control can take the form of tidy dressing, shiny shoes, meticulous adherence to instructions at dance and piano lessons, strict imitation of all expected and required processes in stoking the furnace and the jacket heater, (used to heat water for baths and laundry), meticulous patterns while cutting the lawn, detailed patterns of “picking” raspberries, spading the garden, shovelling the walk, and even building a wooden enclosed mobile on top of a wagon.

The adult-designed and implemented culture, including the unwritten rules and expectations, most of which would have been denied if parents had been challenged, as would the physical and emotional abuse, and the self-imposed paint-by-number existence, in order to achieve some measure of “order” and control, where such things were within one’s orbit, as it were, combined to shake a toxic equation.

And the imprint of the equation on all of the lives whose paths have crossed mine, without their even having the intimate consciousness of the background, has generated both self-doubt and considerable personal angst. It is as if the pattern of emotional abandonment in the early years became a repeating pattern for decades after. There is no disguising or denying the dramatic imprinting of early years on one’s psyche.

And the harder one tries to evacuate the original family “cell” the more determined are the muscles of its grip, because such a willful and deliberate escape takes so much conscious work, changing habits, changing beliefs and changing expectations, that one loses sight of the Shadow, the unconscious into which these patterns have also been embedded.

Hence, after such a pre-adult life, one does not conceive of a difference between one’s performance and one’s ego or person or identity.* And to separate one’s ego from one’s persona, (mask) is one’s life work, and it cannot be accomplished through memory work, through therapy, through journalling, through faith explorations by themselves, nor in some deterministic combination. The separation or individuation, has to come at its own pace and time, needing a soil and climate conducive to such evolution.

From all of those whose lives have been negatively impacted by this scribe’s stunted psychic development, I seek their forgiveness, and offer my deep apologies. Some were students, others colleagues; some were my own children and sibling; others include a former spouse, and a gallery of supervisors who, while they tried to tolerate my turbulence, also took wide berths around my tempestuousness.

My father used to utter an aphorism that has lodged in my memory in a permanent place: “Too soon old, too late schmart!”

Still practicing a lighter and less insidious form of perfectionism ( I hope), I am seeking a path covered with pine needles, under the orchestration of winds blowing through their bows, pausing at all of the snowy owls, the cardinals, the white-tailed deer and the white swans along the way. The inspiration to be who and what each creature is fills me with hope and energy to continue the pilgrimage so long as these joints continue to move without pain or interruption.

*Of course, if my identity is encapsulated in my performance, it follows as the night the day that the identity of the “other” is also accessible from their own performance. And the ripples of such a restricted view of both self and the other have too often reduced and restricted the perception of another’s identity, as well as my own.

The post-truth world threatens both democracy and a healthy citizenry

I used to wonder about the relative importance of the literary theme, “appearance versus reality,” as it applied to the various novels, plays, poetry and even the short stories that found their way into the curricula of high school English classes. At the time, character and plot and setting did seem to be more obviously significant, and would, by inference, trump “appearance versus reality”.

Today, on the last weekend of 2016, I no longer wonder about the relative importance of the appearance versus reality theme.

Holocaust deniers, for starters, have always made my head shake, and my mind go numb. How is it possible to deny the deaths of six million Jews, and the maiming and wounding of scores more by people clearly identified as members of the Third Reich, including the Fuhrer himself? So indisputable are the facts that even Germany’s reputation has been forever tarnished by the legacy. Nevertheless, even today, more than a half century later, there are still court cases being waged by “holocaust deniers” whose apparent contempt for Jews subverts or buries their conscious perception and their receptivity to facts of history.

And, of course, there are among us, in every country and especially in the new Trump administration, “climate change deniers” whose intransigent clinging to economic arguments to generate and to protect “jobs” (translate: profits for their corporate friends and funders) once again subverts or buries their recognition of the massive mountain of evidence that human-generated carbon dioxide is destroying the ozone layer and directly impacting the world’s temperatures and threatening the survival of the eco-system as we know it.

In each and every dispute, there is always the “he-said-she-said” combat between different “realities” through which only a third party, dispassionate, detached and somewhat objective, can navigate and facilitate the process of a settlement. This is especially “true” when the levels of anger, betrayal and contempt are near the “ten” on a scale of 1-10.

In other places in this space, the case has been made focused on the generation of a massive new industry, the information/public relations/message doctoring/marketing/propaganda machine, statements from which have to be read, heard and dissected with increasing scepticism and even cynicism. So dominant and apparently conventional and integrated into the social consciousness and culture is this “machine” that much of what passes for “news” today is lifted, often without even the benefit of thoughtful and balanced editing, and then broadcast over formal news outlets, as well as a galaxy of websites. Governments, for example, have at least two versions of their formal acts: the legal/legislative/budgetary version and the political/public/vernacular/headline-focused. And the difference between the two “poles” is often so disparate that an interested and concerned citizen can be excused for mis-apprehending the import of the “facts”. So “clouded” or “encrusted” with what we call spin, depending on the source and its bias are many of the ‘stories that pass for water-cooler talk about public issues that one wonders if the public is not so taken for granted that public officials depend on both short memories and distorted perceptions of their “audience” to create and to maintain their public reputations and their public ‘stature’ such as it is.

And then there is the recent presidential campaign in which facts were so irrelevant and replaced by blatant ad hominum attacks to generate “emotion” (both positive in supporters and negative in enemies) that the public literally became lost in the cloud of dissembling.

However, there is still a world order to maintain. And that world order depends for its stability upon a mutual sharing of a precise and indisputable compendium of information, which “vault” will be increasingly under threat from the various contenders for world power and influence. Currently, the U.S. intelligence, supported and reported by sources like the New York Times, tells us that Putin and the Russian intelligence apparatus cyber attacked the information systems of the United States for the purpose of interfering and influencing the presidential election. Obama, after considerable pressure, has deported 35 Russian operatives living in the U.S. and closed two “estates” in which they lived and worked. He has also imposed sanctions on close contacts with Putin, while Russia has persisted (supported and reported by Trump and his ‘gang’) in pleading for “proof” of the validity of the U.S. charges.

On a different front, we see similar behaviour coming from the Obama administration and Netanyahu’s government in Israel over an abstention by the U.S. in a vote to condemn settlements in the West Bank. The administration maintains that their abstention is completely in line with the traditional position of American administrations back to Ronald Reagan, while Netanyahu maintains that the abstention is a stab in the back by its “ally” the United States. Allan Dershowitz, for one, the legal scholar and Israel advocate, who supported Obama’s two elections, expresses profound anger and betrayal by Obama for this latest decision. Just as in the Obama/Putin dispute, so too in the Obama/Netanyahu conflict there is the dynamic of statement-followed by denial. And, once again, the public ( in its various complex and disparate component parts) is left to ponder “truth versus spin”….just another way of “positioning” appearance versus reality.

And, not only are there disparate versions of reality on the surface, there are also the underlying and frequently unstated motives that prompt the public statements. Legal scholars have attempted for centuries to preclude any consideration of motive from the “evidence” considered by a judge and/or jury. However, a penetrating interpretation of the empirical evidence can and often does point to the “mental state” of the accused at the time of the occurrence. Speculation, or interpretation, or what some would call an “informed opinion,” is usually considered a reputable source for explaining to the public the various statements and acts of political actors. They too, however, all have personal opinions, often referred to as ideologies, depending on the situation, including and perhaps especially Supreme Court justices. So even in the reflections and the debates among jurists there are and are expected to be deep divergences of opinion, while, the justices, we believe, adhere to an agreed statement of fact.

It is this ‘statement of fact’ that is missing from more and more of the public concentration on public issues. And its absence, and the expectation that it will never be part of our collective consciousness, that does and will continue to cause deep angst. And our urgent pursuit of the “facts” amid the tidal waves of distortion, dissembling, lying, and statements from Orwell’s Ministry of Truth (1984), (the public ‘organ’ dedicated to telling the people what to believe, and possessing the ability and the responsibility to change their story at the behest of their “bosses”)….

With the election of Trump, America, and consequently the world, has taken a giant step toward a state in which propaganda replaces facts, in which facts themselves no longer are even an important component of the decision-making process of political leaders..(perhaps they never were and we were being seduced all along, although we certainly fought that potential with all our might for centuries). And this demise of a shared body of facts comes at a time when the news “reporters” are being shovelled out of major news rooms to reduce operating costs around the world as their corporate bosses watch the out-going tide of revenue from advertising.

And the resulting convergence of the dropping number of “fact” reporters and the dismissal of facts from our public discussions is a panorama of his dreams for people like Trump and Putin, never wanting to be constrained by the truth.

Truth-tellling, after all, is so restricting of a demogague’s dream of supremacy, of “making America/Russia/Phillippines/North Korea/Iran… (pick you country and your demogague) GREAT AGAIN!

And the critical observations, punditry and even water-cooler conversations based on a reasonable grasp and representation of the facts is one of the most important, if not the most important, weapons to preserve a public order that puts the elected officials dependent upon the will of the people.

Our will, informed by the facts, and our assessment of the motives of our ‘officials’ constitute the cornerstone of our national and international world order. And as we watch the flying charges and counter-charges of something proposing to be “fact” in a tornado of propaganda, we are losing our bearings.

It is as if our ship of state is and will continue to founder in a sea of storms, with each wind coming from a different source and all of them competing for our “trust”….and the ship’s radar, along with its connection to “mainland” have gone AWOL. The sky too is also charcoal black, leaving no cosmic reference points out of our conundrum. If we do not know where we are, and we do not know which direction we are facing, and we have no stars or moon helping us to reconnoitre in a universe whose control levers have been placed (somewhat by our own actions and failures to act) into the hands of the Putin’s, Trump’s Duherte’s, Kim Jung Il’s, Assad’s and whatever the Supreme leader in Iran, just to mention a few of the obvious “state” demogogues, without even making reference to the avowed terrororists, little wonder there is a global angst.

And, to think that the flow of “information” (verifiable and verified facts) in each of these realms has either completely dried up or is quickly drying up, we can only imagine the glee in the minds of each of these dictators, now beyond the reach of penetrating investigative reporters, with respectable podia from which to broadcast their nefarious plots. We may like social media, and we may be entertained by fake news, but make not mistake, when Trump says ‘computers have made it so that no one really knows what is going on’ (in reference to the reports of Russian hacking to influence the U.S. presidential election) he is consciously and deliberately adding to the ubiquitous campaign (both overt and covert) to sabotage the flow of legitimate information.

Without the constraints of an informed public, and an incisive and relentless army of truth-diggers in every country, and from many countries so that nations do not have to depend on the “controlled” and manipulated media of their own country, at least in the short run, the field will have been vacated, leaving the imposters (insofar as their commitment to anything but their own agenda and not to the public good) free to roam like the dinosaurs they are.

Never in my lifetime have news organizations like National Public Radio and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, both funded by private donations and government policy respectively,  been more important to the survival of access to reputable and trusted information.

And with the announcement that Barack Obama will dedicate his time after leaving the White House to the issue of re-districting, commonly known as gerrymandering, that process that Republicans have used in too many states to restrict voting among minorities and poor voters. This issue is just another threatening the full scope and depth of a thriving democracy. And for Obama’s commitment, in conjunction with his former Attorney General Eric Holder, the outgoing president will continue to make a positive impact on his nation, long after his formal departure.

Perhaps, with some of his ‘friends’ the two-term president might persuade the presidents of the various media conglomerates in his country, and those in similar offices around the world. Of the imminent danger to good governance, and to democracy from the atrophy of valid and verifiable information.

It is not only cyber security that threatens our democracy. We are also facing a scarcity of information, linked to a tidal wave of mis-information, that renders the concept of “engaged and informed citizen” eunuched, if not a relic of history. If we are going to be serious about never accepting the validity of the Trump presidency, and for many of that, that is really the only starting premise, we have to wage an all-out campaign for a vigorous and relentless access to independent public information.

The lies, exaggerated and bloated promises, mis-information campaigns and the masking of the truth, by calling voter restriction an initiative to counter voter fraud (when there is no voter fraud!!) to cover the bigotry that is its source, have been the primary, or perhaps exclusive offering on the menu of too many people magnetizing the news channels and the newsrooms.

Power corrupts not only the individuals “with power” but also the sycophants who consider personal tweets as significant as policy statements, and the confusion (conflation) is not either incidental nor insignificant.

In another life, I recall a Liberal “truth squad” sitting at the front of every campaign speech uttered by their Progressive Conservative opponent, John Diefenbaker, because the prairie courtroom lawyer was exaggerating his promises, and the bases for his policy positions. Both Liberals and Conservatives of that time would be rolling over in their graves at the prospect of fake news and leaders impunity in deploying their epic distortions. Not yet rendered grave-bound, we too would do well to take a page from their song-book, and roll not only our eyes, but our minds to confront what is a shared and malignant enemy of our mutual truth.

Reflections on Hannukah and Christmas Eve, 2016

“In the word question, there is a beautiful word - quest. I love that word. We are all partners in a quest. The essential questions have no answers. You are my question, and I am yours - and then there is dialogue. The moment we have answers, there is no dialogue. Questions unite people.” (Elie Wiesel)

Walking beside the river of thought, experience, insight and wisdom that comprises the lives and writings of Elie Wiesel and Martin Buber, I am always surprised and exhilarated in the joy, the freedom and the ecstacy of the encounter.

Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, recently deceased, did one of the most heroic and under-reported acts in twentieth century history. He returned to the podium in the Bundestag to speak from the same lectern used previously by the Fuhrer in an act of defiance, hope, promise and courage. Wiesel, through the instrument of his survival and the remaining years of his life, is and will always be a role model for succeeding generations not only of Jewish children but of children of all races and ethnicities. Clearly, his little body had compacted within its frame, its mind and heart a depth and range of emotion reserved for only those vessels capable of both appreciating the blessing and of sharing it with the world.

The quote above that points to the energy and the life-giving quality of the question fits beautifully with Buber’s notion that whenever and wherever the sacred “I” and the sacred “Thou” meet God is there. If you and I are simultaneously and synchronously sharing the exploration of the same essential question, if we are on a similar, shared “quest,” then we are united in a way unique to that pursuit. It is when either we diverge on the nature of the question, or come to the dialogue with a pre-conceived, static and rigid answer to the question that our “sacred” moment dissolves or experiences its own demise before the dialogue even begins.

·      What is the relationship between the purpose of life and the experience of love?

·      What is the purpose of a meaningful life?

·      What is the relationship between God and humans?

·      What is the optimum relationship between the genders?

·      What is the path to the reconciliation and collaboration between and among the various world faiths?

·      What is the role and purpose of the military arsenal already compounded by the world’s nuclear powers?

·      What part can history play in bringing the world to comprehending the true nature of shared demons, and their ‘de-fanging’?

·      What do sacred texts share as a common heritage and what methods of inculcating those beliefs and values among the young are worthy of critical examination beyond the reach of each faith community?

·      In a world divided against itself (as a house divided against itself) where are the existing bridges that need to be crossed, and what bridges still await their construction?

·      What have our parents and grandparents bequeathed to us that gives us strength and hope and courage in ourselves and in our shared future?

·      How have the poets, shamans and artists helped to birth the new explorations in science, medicine, law and faith in each of our cultures?

·      How can the world community expand and enhance the cultural, educational and fiscal underpinnings of the creative imagination?

·      What is the purpose and role of truth-telling in a contemporary world of dissembling?

·      Who are the characters from history, literature, the arts, the sciences and the law who have inspired their generation and succeeding generations?

·      Is there a God?

·      Is there an afterlife?

·      Is there a specific person designated to love each person?

·      What is the significance of human will and decision-making in our life?

·      How is evil conceived, experienced, thwarted or moderated?

·       How can we have peace, if turmoil is the common experience of each human soul?

The list of “quest” type questions is inexhaustible, circumscribed only by the range, depth and resilience of our courage to explore.

Birthing the questions, of course, requires a culture in which such midwifing is not only expected but also valued as normal. And clearly, most of the current secondary and post-secondary education at least in North America has been dedicated to the acquisition of skills, processes, procedures and the theoretical bases of those learnings, all with an overall purpose of securing a living wage, or better yet a considerably higher than average income. Questions that really permit and require continual exploration, dialogue, without necessarily coming to a final answer, in such a culture, are necessarily given little formal classroom time, with the possible exception of the philosophy or literature classes.

As the humanities fade from the curricular menus of many colleges and universities, with the silence compliance, or overt lobbying for their replacement with the skills required in a digital universe, the pool of students and scholars pursuing these questions grows exponentially smaller by the day. Many parents, too, are fully occupied with the multiple tasks of earning a living, guiding their children and pursuing a minimal social, cultural, religious experience. And many of them also will find the explorations of such questions in dialogue, without the expectation of “final answers,” to be a waste of time.

One of the cornerstones of a culture in which such dialogue is possible and celebrated, as well as pursued, is a profound acceptance of ‘not knowing’ and of being quite comfortable with ‘not knowing’. Even within  the range of many academic and scientific arenas, the ultimate practitioners continue to learn just how much they ‘do not know’ while continuing to practice their skills, talents, insights, curiosities and speculations. And whether their “questions” and “dialogue” is motivated by political or purely scientific reasons, those discussions, dialogues, are geared to pursue all feasible options, within the range of the experience and the imagination and the courage/vulnerability of the participants.

It takes great courage to accept vulnerability, the not knowing, on which such dialogue can only take place. And it is this bottom-deep vulnerability, at the core of human experience of having been drained of all pretense, of having been emptied of all sense of importance, and of coming to a total comfort and acceptance of that state of unknowing, that is the “sine qua non” of humility, and the potential for real sharing with the other. So there are two requisites in the “dialogue”: the perception that the questions have no final answers and that the participants are open to and comfortable with their own unknowing.

In so many circumstances, whether they are domestic, pedagogic, academic, spiritual, or economic/transactional, the exchanges are too often lopsided, with one person being the ‘one who knows’ and the other, ‘the one who does not know’. Information and direction are the primary contents of the communication. And most often, a solution to a problem, rendering the communication primarily one of function, not of the kind of unity envisioned by Wiesel in his “quest”.

It is the tilting of our culture toward the transactional, the functional that demonstrates to young people the benefits of “knowing” and the scarcity of not knowing. And, in so doing, perhaps through innocence or indifference, we participate in a kind of hierarchy that cannot and will not unite. It may provide short-term remediation, recommendation, or even a sharing of responsibility. However, it will not bring people together in unity of heart, mind, spirit and the ensuing community.

The questions that do not have answers, by their very existence, also preserve the mystery of life, the wonder and the awe that accompanies every new morning, and every new birdsong, every new smile, and every new encounter. When we remove our “assumptions” that we know how things are going to “be” or to develop, we open ourselves to the fullness of the moment, thereby allowing us to be fully present both to that moment and to the other with whom we share it.

At the root of theological reflection is the premise not only that there is no absolute answer and that none of us knows the ‘mind of God’.

On this first day of Hannukah, it seems appropriate to reflect on the wisdom, the insight and the spiritual counsel of Elie Wiesel, Martin Buber and the birth of new “light” in all of our lives.

Surely, Christians too would welcome the birth of new light and new life as the essence of the manger in Bethlehem, on this Christmas Eve 2016 when the darkness all around us is crying out for each of us to light the lights not only of the Menorah but the lights in our hearts and minds to the wonders of the universe and the wonders of each “other” in our path.