teacherken on life and politics - Front Page

One speech - two more columns

teacherken — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:57:57 GMT

written for Daily Kos, where it did not get much traffic

A WEEK has passed since a black man's burden was nailed to the podium. The burdens of white leaders are never nailed down.

The speech, which has gotten wonderful reviews, should be required reading in classrooms across the country - and in as many other venues as possible. With a worldview that embraces both justice and healing, Senator Obama is better on these issues than any American leader since King.
Unfortunately, what is more likely to happen is that the essence of the speech will be lost in the din that inevitably erupts whenever there is a racial controversy in the United States.

I am White, and I am not a prominent columnist. The quotes are from two prominent Black columnists. The first is from Derrick Jackson's The black man's burden in The Boston Globe, the 2nd from Bob Herbert's With a Powerful Speech, Obama Offers a Challenge in the New York Times. This diary will explore both.
Much of Jackson's column devoted to the reaction to the speech of Mike Huckabee and John McCain, with extensive quotations from both men. Jackson then notes pointedly

Even in their graciousness, McCain and Huckabee know they have a free pass. They and the Republican Party still associate with hysterical agents of religious intolerance and romantics of the Confederacy. Both competed for the endorsements of evangelicals who call the Roman Catholic Church a cult, blame Hurricane Katrina on homosexuals, and say it is America's role to destroy Islam. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was "happy" for the endorsement of Bob Jones III, the chancellor of Bob Jones University, which banned interracial dating until 2000 and still bans "militant" gay alumni from campus.

He then remarks that Hillary Clinton is similarly given a free pass, and reminds us of remarks by various surrogates she has had to dump, how she has lost her once substantial lead among Blacks, and yet despite all this had not been forced to reveal her own racial views even as Ed Rendell makes his remarks about Pennsylvania voter. What he writes next, his concluding paragraph is what most caught my attention:

Once again, America's white leaders play footsie with white intolerance while Obama was pressured to bring the nation the head of Jeremiah Wright. Once again, a black person holds the nation's bag of racial burdens. Whatever discussions Obama started across America with his speech, the fact that Huckabee and McCain offer more comfort to Obama than Clinton is evidence that at the top, the conversation is tongue-tied.

To me the implication of that final paragraph is that Jackson perceives the Democratic party and its leadership as unwilling to address the still festering grievances of many African-Americans. He asks, as I suppose do many Blacks, why the burden of race should be only theirs, when it is a societal issue. The reader will note that Jackson pays little heed to the part of Obama's speech where the candidate acknowledged the grievances of working class whites. Jackson is articulate, educated, and that final paragraph displays what I can only describe as a potentially devastating frustration, even bitterness.

Herbert chooses a different form of expression.

The fundamental message that Senator Obama is trying to get across is that the racial madness that has perverted so many elections needs to stop - and stop now. Time and again, that madness has been employed to undermine efforts to create what the senator characterizes as "a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America."
Racial prejudice, ignorance, hostility - whatever - has caused millions of Americans to vote against their own economic interests, and for policies that have damaged the country.

And yet, even with these words Herbert seems to be reflecting what much of what frustrates Jackson, the recognition that the racism of Whites and the society as a whole is something that we are still not addressing. Perhaps the key expression in Herbert's column is short and to the point:

Far more people will see the endless loop of Senator Obama's frenzied former pastor than will ever read or hear the sober, thoughtful, constructive words of the senator himself.

Herbert's connects Obama's speech with the remarks made by Bobby Kennedy in Indianapolis, to a largely Black crowd, informing them of what he had just learned - of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Rather than merely repeat those words, as does Herbert, I suggest you watch this:

"But that night there was calm in Indianapolis." A White man who knew the loss hatred could cause was able to reach out to Blacks who had every right to be angry.

Herbert concludes his column thusly:

The nation can be proud of the distance it has traveled since 1968. But there are still millions peering fearfully or angrily across the chasm of misunderstanding. Politics aside, Senator Obama's speech is an excellent place from which to start the difficult work of bridging that divide.

It may be an excellent place to start, and it is certainly necessary. But absent equivalent leadership from the White community we will lose this opportunity to heal a nation still bitterly divided by race. We may, as Obama has himself told us, come very far, and thus SHOULD be more hopeful than aremany of those of the generation of Jeremiah Wright. But what if Obama is defeated and the perception - both in the African-American and White communities - is that he was defeated only because he was Black, that this is yet one more example of racism being used to keep Blacks down? Last night Chuck Todd made the point that Bill Clinton's remarks about McCain and Clinton both loving their country had little to do with Obama's patriotism or lack thereof, but was a racial dog whistle: Clinton was speaking at a gathering of white veterans, and the reference to all that other stuff was clearly code words for race, that by supporting Hillary they could avoid addressing the issue of race.

If this nation is ever going to heal we can no longer pretend that we have solved the issues of race. It was an inevitable part of this campaign, as it remains an inevitable part of our society. Had Obama not become what seemed the presumptive nominee of the party, perhaps the issue might not have come up. After all, for quite a while Blacks supported Clinton, many afraid to believe that it was yet possible for a Black man to be nominated. Now having seen the reality of that possibility, were he denied on the basis of race, the bitterness and frustration one sees in Jackson might soon seem mild. There is real perception of a double standard. And that is dangerous for our future.

We should be One America. That is still an aspiration. We still strive for a More Perfect Union - it remains and wil always be a goal towards which we reach, and not a final and ultimate resting place.

It should no longer be acceptable for the use of race to divide, to suppress the hopes of any group, to divide up by fear in the hopes of gaining or maintaining power: the dreams of one group cannot be at the expense of the aspirations of other groups. As FDR told us, "we have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Those who use fear to drive us politically are unworthy of leading us politically. We acknowledge this about those on the Republican side who have gutted our civil liberties and bankrupted our nation with their nonsensical approach to what they have labeled the "Global War on Terror." Most Democrats would agree on that, as would many of the independents and an increasing number of thinking Republicans. It is equally wrong to take advantage of deepseated fears about race and about economic class that are still used to divide and conquer.

And it is despicable for any Democrat to resort to such divisiveness. That adjective is equally applicable to those who seek to roil up minority communities and those who seek to use parts of those minority communities as boogeymen to obtain the votes of segments of the White community.

I think Bobby Kennedy's remarks should be mandatory viewing. And I agree with Herbert that we could do worse than require school students to watch (better) or read (acceptable) Obama's speech.

It is the burden of ALL of us. To remain silent in the face of evil is to acquiesce in that evil. There is no justification now.

This is beyond the current election, as important as that is. This is about the morality of American politics and the culture in which it operates.

We should demand of our political leaders that they acknowledge this. And we should insist that the media do more than analyze the short-term political impact of this statement or that action.

It is the society of which we are all part. Therefore we are all responsible.

Jackson began by reminding us A WEEK has passed since a black man's burden was nailed to the podium. The burdens of white leaders are never nailed down. White, Brown, Black, or any other shade, any gender or sexual orientation, any religion or no religion, we are part of One Nation, and if there is a God and S/He is loving, we are not likely to be viewed as "under God" if we treat ANY of our nation with less than full respect and full equality.

It is up to ALL of us. We can and must disagree on elements of policy, and perhaps aspects of our vision for the future. We will inevitably disagree even within our individual parties on the candidates we prefer. But we must no longer accept any candidate, any party, any institution that seeks to demean or divide us on race. Gender discrimination is important, as are other forms of discrimination. But the unhealed wound in our society is still race, and unless and until we can come to terms with that, we will not be able to heal our other divides.

Peace.

Hope and the universality of human imperfection

teacherken — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:28:14 GMT

originally posted at Daily Kos

'WE THE people, in order to form a more perfect union. . ." So begins the US Constitution, and so began Senator Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia last week. Those remarks sparked such positive and negative consternation because they broke the cardinal rule of political rhetoric, lifting up a question that can be answered only by a deeper question. Obama's subject was nothing less than the American paradox: The people who long for perfection are themselves imperfect.

Those are the opening words of a reflection upon Obama's speech, in a column by James Carroll whose title is the same as that of this diary. I urge in the strongest terms possible that you read it. NOW. Before you go on to read the rest of the diary. Because there is little of value I can add to what Carroll has to say.
Now, aren't you glad you read Carroll before coming here? What? You didn't? Then I will have to convince you.

Carroll places our imperfection first in the context of racism, and in the responses of Jeremiah Wright to that imperfection of our society, while warning us not to be misled, because the underlying imperfections of our society outweigh any we find in responses to those:

People who benefit from an imperfect power structure speak warmly of love, while those who suffer from it angrily demand justice.

He goes on to ask a basic question. Given our human imperfection and thus the imperfection of any society and of those who as citizens comprise it, how do we each deal

with the inevitable complicity of our leadership - our preachers, our politicians - in what ails society? How do we deal with our own complicity?
One answer has been denial.

Carroll then uses the sexual transgressions of the two most recent Governors of New York, and even while acknowledging that Paterson's open admission renders moot some levels of criticism, yet he too will have to

lead with a public persona that will surely contradict the private truth of a flawed person. Spitzer's fate notwithstanding, a certain hypocrisy comes with politics.

That hypocrisy ultimately comes from us, from our expectations that our leaders will somehow be better than us ordinary citizens, because

Society invests its hope in the superiority of rulers, elevates them to status from which they exercise power over those who are deemed less worthy. But whether such power is seized or granted, this pattern has led to terrible abuses throughout history.

By now I should have convinced you of the power of this column, and how little of value I have to add to his words. Perhaps now I can remind you as Barack Obama reminds us that he is not a perfect man, that he has not run a perfect campaign, and will not be a perfect president. That is of a piece with Carroll has to say, for that is also the genius of the American political system. Carroll warns us that the expectation that our political leaders are somehow better than use inevitably leads to abuses, to a movement towards totalitarianism:

Every command society assumes that some individual - or some collective - is capable of perfection, while the mass of ordinary people are not.

And I might note we have seen this far too much in the past 8 years, in an administration whose leadership will not acknowledge mistakes nor listen to dissenting voice before it embarks on courses of action that create even more mistakes.

Carroll uses the Constitutional convention as focal point, because of the words with which Obama begins his speech, and the title he applies to the speech. Carroll states bluntly

The ingenious American framers took for granted the universality of human imperfection. The Constitution is a system of checks and balances because every officeholder in government - from president, to judge, to legislator - is assumed to be flawed. Every power center - from state to federal - is capable of abusing power.

He reminds us that our prerogatives, those of "we the people" are enshrined in our Bill of Rights. All, even with separation of powers and checks and balances is accountable to us, the citizenry.

If you are still reading me, and have not yet read all of Carroll, shame on you. You force me to quote his conclusion, including its set up, and thus its connection with Obama. And I will empahsize (using boldthe first and last two sentences of what I now quote:

Constitutional democracy, even balancing majority rule with protections for minorities, is the political system that came into being when humans stopped pretending that perfection was possible. The American paradox is that this rejection of utopian ambition is the beginning of authentic political equality.
Barack Obama acknowledges the imperfections of his friend and mentor, Jeremiah Wright, but he simultaneously shows how they are rooted in the imperfections of American history.
By daring to explain himself so forthrightly, Obama has submitted to the checks and balances, too. He not only speaks of American hope. He embodies it.

Now, even if you have not read all of Carroll (for which I will forgive you if you will yet do so), perhaps you see why I think this column is so important. It puts the speech in a much broader context than Obama defending himself politically with respect to Jeremiah Wright. It goes beyond reading the speech as a noble challenge to the American people about our continuing problems with racism, even if many of such analyses also recognize that Obama in the speech also spoke about the fears and aspirations of working class whites. It is beyond even the idea that Obama treats us as adults, giving us complete and somewhat complex ideas with which to wrestle.

Carroll sees the historical context in which one can not only understand the imperfections of a Jeremiah Wright or of those who react so negatively to Wright's expressions taken out of context. He acknowledges the very imperfections of American History, the thing that far too many of us failed to adequately address in our education, even as our Founding Fathers recognized the inevitable nature of political failure because politics involved imperfect human beings, who themselves would at times transgress, fail, demonstrate their imperfections. Which is why they gave us a system of laws and not of men. Which is also why they provided for being able to formally change the system through amending the Constitution, something to which they had to commit themselves in order to get that document ratified by the requisite 9 states. Thus they proposed 12 changes, of which ten were immediately accepted and became our Bill of Rights, and one more finally some two centuries later became the 27th Amendment. They knew they were imperfect, and attempted to give us a governmental system that could function despite our cumulative imperfections.

The genius of Obama is as Carroll puts it. Perhaps it is his experience of having grown up hapa. as the Hawai'ians say, "half,", mixed, and able to see the imperfections of both black and white. I his speech even as he acknowledged the causes of the anger felt by the generation of which Jeremiah Wright was a part, he reminded Blacks of their own responsibility, of their need not be defined solely by that experience to the loss of the hope that change was possible. Perhaps it is his experience of of community organizing, where to be successful one ust take the time to listen to the hopes and the fears, the disappointments and the aspirations, of the community with which you work, because they will only succeed in change when they are ready to take ownership and responsibility for their lives: then the come together in a force that is powerful enough to require response from those in power, and even to assume the powers of government from which some levels of change can be effected. First they have to commit to changing themselves. Only then will meaningful political and societal change take place.

Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence borrowed from John Locke, but he substituted a different construction from Locke's use of property as one of the rights that were basic to the human condition. I often tease my students that "the pursuit of happiness" means they could never be happy, only that they were allowed to chase after their dreams. But in my teasing is a recognition that parallels Carroll's column. We need to be reminded that we will never achieve final perfection, that we need to recognize our limits even as we strive to overcome them. Our Founders were correct in using the term "more perfect union" rather than "a perfect union." Life on all levels is a process. We can always do better, as individuals and as a society. And because it is "we the people" who bear this responsibility, we need leaders who do not pretend that they will do it all for us, but who can encourage and provoke us to our share of the responsibility. Perhaps this is why it is not "just words." This is why the ability of a leader to use words to inspire and provoke us, to reflect back upon us our aspirations in a way that reminds us that WE can do better, but that we also will from time to fail and yet cannot let those failures intimidate and dissuade us.

I was not originally an Obama supporter. As I have noted elsewhere, he is the fifth to whom I have attached my own hopes and aspirations this cycle. And while I have understood parts of his appeal, now having read Carroll I think I understand more completely. I think of the man who I his first book openly discusses his failings, some of which have been already used against him, such as his acknowledgment of his own drug use many years ago. And his insistence to us that he is not perfect should be the counter to any who claim a cult of Obama, because that is certainly not what he seeks, and I don't think it is what engenders the response he gets.

As a teacher I know that if I am in any way artificial with my students they will call me on it: adolescents have terrific bullshit detectors, and if they either trust you or do not respect you they will call you on it. I prefer that it be from a condition of trust, because in my own imperfections I do need to be reminded when I am full of myself, or blowing smoke. My sense observing this campaign is not just that Obama is speaking to the political and societal challenges in which we find ourselves, he is doing more. In his words, his actions, himself, he holds up a mirror to us, enabling us to see the possibilities of moving towards something "more perfect." It is audacious, as Jeremiah Wright taught him, and that is the very nature of hope, without which we shrivel and become small in our aspirations if we do not completely abandon them. That applies to us as individuals, and to what we can expect of our society and our government. And it applies to how our nations should act with other nations. With audacity. With hope.

Let me conclude with Carroll, repeating what I have already quoted. I think he has helped me understand more fully about Obama, who is neither a perfect man nor a perfect candidate, which since he acknowledges it is a major part of his appeal.

By daring to explain himself so forthrightly, Obama has submitted to the checks and balances, too. He not only speaks of American hope. He embodies it.

Peace.

Obama's Promise -- And Its Limits

teacherken — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:27:36 GMT

also posted at Daily Kos

In many ways, Obama's appeal flips the politics of race on its head. Without using the phrase, he promises something akin to "white liberation," a term I first heard growing up in the dying days of the Jim Crow South and then again in reporting from apartheid-era South Africa as white rule there began to crumble. Only by thoroughly understanding and rejecting the politics of race can whites liberate themselves from their own chains of exploitation, hatred and, yes, guilt, at least for older Americans.

That paragraph is from a column in today's Washington Post entitled, as this diary, Obama's Promise -- And Its Limits. The author, Jim Hoagland, won Pulitzers for International Reporting in 1971 and for Commentary in 1991. And as can be seen in the paragraph quoted above, he offers an interesting perspective on Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech which this diary will explore.
Hoagland is an associate editor, senior foreign correspondent, and columnist for The Post, who was born and educated through college in South Carolina. He describes Obama as an optimist who believes people AND NATIONS can change themselves for the better, with a belief this will be driven "more by their differences than by their similarities."

Reading that, which Hoagland offers in his opening paragraph, immediately got my attention. Often in our attempt to find common ground and avoid disagreement we ignore what separates us, makes us different. I had not thought about the possibility of using our differences to bring us together for necessary change. Hoagland describes what Obama is offering as he idea of "creative diversity," a notion he says is not only the core of the campaign but also the very core of the candidate's being. And applying this within a campaign means one believs human behavior and psychology is malleable. As Hoagland write:

If the Obama crowds were to accept the ultimate logic of the words they chant, they would be shouting, "Yes, we can . . . change ourselves and others." This vast and uncertain endeavor is one, I suspect, to which they are unevenly committed.

Hoagland says the subtext to Obama's approach is the belief that race can unite instead of divide us, reminding us that Carter and Clinton, the only Democrats elected in the last 40 years,

were white Southerners who had helped turn their states and region away from the cruelest excesses of segregation.

The column offers praise for the speech as well as cautions for those followers of Obama who were inspired by it. After reminding us that Clinton had promised a dialog on race that seemed to be forgetten after he was inaugurated, he tells us

By strongly rejecting Wright's view "that sees white racism as endemic" in the United States, Obama invites a lively colloquy far beyond this campaign.

He then uses Obama's description of his diverse and globally=spread extended family as illuminating

ar better who Obama is than do all of the carefully scripted, opportunistic position papers on Iraq and NAFTA.

But he warns us

At the same time, it is naive, or extremely self-serving, of Obama followers to suggest that the election of a black president will cause other nations to reconsider their most deeply held attitudes or policies toward the United States or open doors for him abroad that are closed to others. They -- and he -- will be surprised at how short the "Obama effect" will be in international politics if he is elected.

But his background shapes his view of the world more than it does the world's view of him or of this nation:

The back story of his multiracial, multinational ancestry and his rise from humble origins to success and idolatry would carry little weight at the conference table.

Here I have to offer some observations of my own. Hoagland is an internationalist by orientation. I have been reading him in the Post since moving to the DC area more than a quarter century ago. He is somewhat influenced by the idea of Realpolitik, of what is actually possible in the relations among nations. But he also has, I believe, shown an inclination towards the use of diplomacy, even if forceful and backed implicitly by the possible application of force, over the quick movement towards military intervention. In that sense how one functions at the conference table is critically important to him. I suspect, although I cannot prove, that he is drawn towards the idea that Obama offers of willingness to talk even with our nominal enemies and possibly without strict preconditions, but he also worries about the language one uses, and how it might define the parameters of what would happen at such discussion. Earlier in the column he commented upon Obama's use of the phrase"so-called allies" to refer to Egypt and Saudi Arabia in his 2002 speech and noted that these countries

would judge him on such remarks and on what he says and does about Israel, Iran and Iraq.

That is a valid concern, and yet I think one that may have already been answered by Obama, if one has been paying close attention to the entire sweep of the campaign. Obama has consistently demonstrated a remarkable ability to apply words to elevate hope, to encourage positive action, and as we saw in the speech in question, to acknowledge the grievances of those who might be in opposition to him.

Hoagland recognizes that Obama still has some way to go before he would be in a position as president to be interacting with foreign nations. He writes that Clinton and McCain still have the opportunity to make their cases that their vesions of "historical optimism" are better suited to the place in which we find ourselves, more realistic in todat's world. Here I might quibble - I would argue that McCain's view of the world is far from optimistic, and put his expressions about perhaps staying in Iraq for a century and the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism as an existential threat to the US as an example of mind operating more from fear than from optimism.

What really catches my attention is how Hoagland closes this piece. I am going to pick up in midsentence in the penultimate paragraph, giving you his final 2.5 sentences. After describing the possible chances for Clinton and McCain already described, he begins by putting a caveat on their visions, and then concluding. We read

even if they spring less directly from the long American struggle to overcome the corrosive consequences of this nation's racial divides. Fair enough.
But Obama has defined his campaign with a remarkable piece of political rhetoric that appeals to the entire nation's better instincts. For that, he deserves the attention and appreciation of his fellow citizens.

a remarkable piece of political rehtoric that ppeals to the entire nation's better instincts

and he deserves the attention and appreciation of his fellow citizens.

I have repeated those two phrases because I believe they are key to understanding this column. As noted, Hoagland is a southerner, raised in South Carolina in a period of segregation and the turmoil of the Civil Rights movement. He was born in 1940,and after graduation from the University of South Carolina studied in France before attending graduate school at Columbia. It is worth noting that his first Pulitzer was for his coverage of the struggle against apartheid in the Republic of South Africa." Issues of race clearly have concerned him.

I am six year younger than Hoagland, and was raised in the North. But perhaps my age is close enough to his to be able to offer an explanation. During the 1950's and 1960's our problems domestically with race were also an issue internationally. As former colonies became independent and people like Nehru and Sukarno developed the non-aligned movement in the midst of the Cold War, our persistent problems with racial issues often served to weaken our position among the newly independent nations: many of their leaders had experienced the European sense of superiority, they had experienced a form of racism themselves. And the USSR did not hesitate to use issues related to American segregation to attempt to gain influence, even if within their own "empire" they had used a form of racial superiority (of Russians over any other nationality, especially those who were Asian) in their own nation - absent the opportunity to protest and given the restriction on foreign press to cover any unrest there was an uneven picture: in fact our very openness made the troubles and conflicts of the day that much more visible internationally. One can argue that absent that American openness Martin Luther King, Jr. would not have won his Nobel Prize).

Hoagland is an internationalist, very concerned with international relations. He is also a product of the segregated American South who was able to see, perhaps through the lens of his experiences observing South Africa, of the damage that racism can do. And while he is in this column making no endorsement of Obama, I think it clear the possibilities he sees in this candidacy, in the potentiality of an Obama presidency not only to heal this nation but also in its ability to bring some additional level of understanding, dialog, and possibly even healing in the larger world.

Read the entire column. It will be worth the brief amount of your time. And I would be honored if you would then choose to share your reactions, even if you interpret it far differently than I do. For it is in open and honest dialog that we both grow. Is not that a key part of the Obama campaign message?

Peace.

Principles, purity, and politics

teacherken — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:13:15 GMT

originally written at Daily Kos

One criticism of politics I often heard from my college classmates is that politicians would do anything to get elected. They lacked any meaningful principles. And one recurrent issue at any political site today is how this politician or that is abandoning his or hr principles for the sake of gaining or keeping elected office. But principles can be in conflict. This site is dedicated to the election of Democrats, and for those who may see themselves as liberals or progressives, some of those who run under the Democratic standard seem not to uphold the same principles or beliefs on some, often core, issues. How do we support them? But then, how to we achieve implementation of at least some of the policies that flow from our principles without the support of those whose own principles require them to oppose us on others? Is not the political process one of ever-changing coalitions in order to achieve the goal at hand? And is that political process therefore inevitably in conflict with the purity of our principles?

My understanding of this seeming conflict comes from the knowledge of monasteries. Bear with me.
I have for much of my adult life had an affinity for monasteries and monks, having on more than one occasion made extended stays in monasteries in both the Episcopal and Orthodox churches. I have often felt that the monastic calling is misunderstood, for one who wishes to totally withdraw from the mess of living in the world and with family may find even more difficulty living in a close community with other monks, and monasteries are in fact not totally removed from the conflicts of humanity. In both religious traditions with which I have experience what holds the community together is a willingness to surrender some independence in the name of a greater principle, the dedication to Christ and a common life. It is not that the foibles of humanity are absent from the monastic life: if anything, they may be far more obvious, as some of the things that can occupy one "in the world" such as accumulation of personal property are alien to the monastic life. But there is still the opportunity to seek position or prestige within the monastery, and as a relatively closed system this can lead to real conflicts. A wise monastic leader may choose to rotate responsibilities within the community on an annual basis so that people do not become proprietary of their roles, and he may require that people do tasks that they do not prefer or even for which they are not particularly suited so that they - and the larger community - learn something of humility, and recognize their need to work together if the community is not going to fragment.

Monasteries do have some common purpose. While different houses and orders may have particular rules of obedience and even unique forms of the participants affirming their willingness to bind themselves to these rules and this community, ultimately the loyalty and obedience is to Christ and the church, with the responsibility of the leaders to be to care for the spiritual well-being of those who assert that loyalty and obedience by their affirmation of the leadership of the house or the order. Potentially an abbot or a novice-master is a despot in the original sense of the Greek from which that word comes - he (or she in female monastic institutions) is the Master, the one whose command is to be be obeyed without question, in return for which the Master assumes spiritual responsibility for the members of the community, and any sins or transgressions by those following the words and directions of this master fall not upon the followers but upon the leader. The brothers or sisters of the House may elect the abbot or abbess, but thereafter owe complete loyalty and obedience as if to Christ, in return for which the abbess or abbot must be prepared to die physically or spiritually on behalf of the brothers and sisters. The freedom to be dedicated to the principles of the monastic life are the key part of the lives of the ordinary monks and nuns: they have been freed from the awful responsibility of making most of the decisions in order to be free to dedicate themselves to service, the most important of the services being to pray - not just for themselves or for their particularly community, but for the world entire. The awful burden of constant decision making falls upon their leaders, who by assuming that role lit the burden from those for whom they carry that burden.

Some political parties and political systems may seem to have the outwards trappings of this kind of structure. They demand complete loyalty and obedience to the dictates of the party and its leaders, punish severely any transgressions of the doctrine and the discipline. In return for obedience the followers may be told their needs will be provided for, or they will be indoctrinated to believe that the goals o the party are so important that the individual is wrong to have doubts, or to oppose in part the goals. One who does may be accused of selfishness, or of disloyalty. S/he will be threatened with loss of position, or even being driven into the outer darkness, apart from the party. S/he may be reminded that s/he lacks the knowledge or the experience to assert a leadership role, and hence should not question the judgment of those in leadership positions.

As I said, on the surface it might seem the same. And yet there is a difference. There are monastic houses that have lost their purpose, that become concerned with their prestige or the power of their leaders. These are not spiritually happy places, nor are they places where people grow, personally as well as in their sense of spirituality and of faith. I have seen such places, and I cannot imagine why one stays except that one has no choice, that the fear of being abandoned or driven out is so great that change rom within becomes impossible.

I was drawn to the monastic life when a pre-teen: I greatly admired Benedictines and the idea from the rule of St. Benedict that the ordinary implements of the garden should be treated with the same respect and honor as the implements of the altar used for the Eucharist. I admired the scholarship and the life of dedication to something beyond oneself. I thought of being a Benedictine, but I was preparing for my Bar Mitzvah, and had no desire to be a Catholic. And thus I missed a key part of what motivated the Benedictine life, something I did not begin to understand until I spent 6 weeks in my late twenties living with Episcopalian Benedictines exploring my vocation, my sense of calling. A true monk is transforming himself in many ways, but not for the purpose of self-aggrandizement or even because of what he believes is his individual destiny, but because he becomes more fully human in surrender to something beyond himself, his own instincts, what he might think is the higher goal.

A political party may have many goals. In some systems it is the goal of the party to totally dominate - the adherents want a one-party system so that the agreed upon principles of the party may be implemented with little disagreement or opposition, you know, those messy things that are part of individual humans and their rough edges. The party leaders, whether a sole leader or a collective leadership, offer words and directions that once spoken or issued are to be obeyed without question. Your choice is to adhere absolutely or to get out of the way. These parties want an absolute control of the agenda, with no dissent once the party has spoken. Some might say that is similar to the monastic structure I have been describing, but it is not. Most monasteries do not presume an absolute monopoly of wisdom or of insight. They are not demanding that all become monks, or even that all become Christian or their particular flavor of Christianity. Upon joining you bind yourself to a particular way of life and a particular vision of the world and of humanity, to be sure, but it is not for the purpose of achieving political power to implement a partisan agenda.

Perhaps in multi-party systems the party agenda will be all-encompassing, or narrowly defined, with little room for disagreement. But such parties rarely succeed in gaining control of a government with aligning with other parties, without forming coalitions. And in the moment one moves towards coalition one is no longer absolutely pure in one's principles: one is making common cause, and to achieve that requires one to make compromises. The only question becomes what is negotiable for the common good, and what is not.

In our two-party system, the two major parties, Democratic and Republican, are themselves both coalitions. Neither can claim to be a majority, as at any moment about 1/3 of the electorate does not identify with either Democrats or Republicans. In order to achieve an electoral victory except in some local and a few statewide constituencies, one must offer something of value to draw those independents, or even those of the opposing major party, hopefully without losing too many of one's own adherents. And even in legislating, a party in control of the legislative body may find that it needs some support from the opposition to overcome the techniques available to a minority to delay legislative progress, and to assure that its own members do not defect. Oh to be sure, it may be possible to assert strict party discipline as we have seen done by the Republicans in the U S House and in the Virginia House of Delegates, imposing from the top down and brooking no dissent: one who opposes the party leadership can lose position and authority within the caucus, one's committee roles, and even face a primary opponent. Both the carrot and the stick will be used to ensure loyalty in the hopes that one does not have to negotiate with the opposition. The problem is what it means to be a Democrat or a Republican is never so all-encompassing that dissent can be totally eliminated: what is necessary to achieve a majority coalition contains the seed of the dissolution of that very majority, because any part of the coalition which feels its needs and aspirations are not being granted due recognition can sit out the next election, or switch sides. There is little permanent beyond the label to bind its constituent parts together. And no laws or party rules can carry the same weight as the vows taken by the monastic upon entry to the life in common.

I am a Democrat. When I was growing up a saw a conflict among Democrats. Those in the North where I lived were pro-union, in favor of including minorities and of broadening the electoral franchise, while when I looked South of the Mason-Dixon line I saw segregationists, people whose vision excluded and limited the franchise. During my life I have seen many of those Southerners who called themselves Democrats switch to the other side, Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott being two notable examples. I have seen the Democratic party wrestle with issues of conscience for some of its adherents, whether it was Vietnam in the 1960s or abortion since the early 1970s. I have seen a party struggle to find commonality within its own coalition, with its leaders often operating in fear of offending any part lest it lose its chance at the 50% + 1 necessary to win elections or pass legislation. And lacking a common vision, even one with room or individual disagreement, it did not have something to draw people to come together for a common purpose beyond that of electing people whose label was a big "D", to have the votes to organize a legislative body, to perhaps elect an executive leader. And lacking that common vision, it was far too easy for the Democratic coalition to fragment, for people who felt their needs were not addressed to depart from the coalition, temporarily on a single vote in an election or in a legislative matter, or permanently by withdrawing from the coalition either to function openly as independent operators or to affiliate with the opposition on some more permanent basis.

In the more than four years since I joined this site I have seen these conflicts play out repeatedly. We are dedicated to electing Democrats. But what if a person is a DINO, or abandons or opposes the party on some key issue? Do we oppose them in primaries as we did Joe Lieberman and Al Wynn? Do we read them the riot act as we have done with just about every important federal Democratic office holder one could name? How are these people when they disagree with us, even on key issues like Iraq, or FISA, or approval of judges and cabinet positions, or on whether we should initiate impeachment processes, taking themselves beyond the limits of the Democratic coalition?

And if someone asserts something as a matter of principle, do we not sometimes then turn around and browbeat them with the cost of their living by their principles? If someone asserts as a matter of principle that they will not vote for a particular presidential candidate, do they not immediately get browbeaten with the image that they will be personally responsible for what happens to the Supreme Court or some other dire consequence, when they could fairly argue in response that the actions of the presidential candidate which have however reluctantly caused them to withhold their support are in fact what puts the Court in jeopardy.

I have at least been on the edge of politics my entire life. And during that time I have wrestled with what are issues of principle for me, when they are negotiable around the edges and when I cannot move further. I believe so long as we are responsible for own actions we will each confront this conflict between what we hold dear and the goal of electing Democrats. On matters of conscience, when fully tested, we need to be less harsh with one another. That one may wrestle with issues and determine that the particular situation allows them to speak more freely in the hopes of shedding light on the agony they and others may feel about such a matter should not result in them being accused of situational ethics: all ethics are ultimately situational, unless one surrenders one's own responsibility and I would say one's humanity. Even in the near total obedience within the monastery, one still has a conscience, and as important as the religious obedience is supposed to be, in good monasteries the religious superior will tell you that you may find that the demands of your conscience do not allow you to remain within that community. The commitment is supposed to be permanent, extending beyond temporal life, but if in conscience you must do other than what the monastery demands, then you should not stay and suppress your conscience.

Political life is something different. After all, it is not unusual for Democratic presidents to include Republicans in their cabinets, or to seek to reach out across the aisle to find common ground where possible. We are not a hierarchical community, whose members swear loyalty to one fixed set of principles, nor do we agree to accept the dictates of our party chair or our elected president on all matters.

Do we have principles? Certainly as individuals each of us has a point beyond which we will not go, some core that perhaps is almost never negotiable. I say almost never, because to me I still must recognize the existence of other humans who may disagree with me, but for whom I also have some responsibility. Thus although I am against the taking of human life, in my role as a teacher I am prepared to violate one of my core principles in favor of another, my sense of responsibility for the safety of my students. A good monastic leader is often confronted with a similar conflict in the spiritual realm, although I fear that some here may misunderstand what this means. No matter, I offer it merely as one ray of light which might illuminate the dimensions of the problem of being human, and the conflicts a feeling and caring leader may encounter in his responsibility for those who follow however rigorously his leadership.

I know what it means to me to affiliate with the Democratic party. It means I want as broad an electoral franchise as possible, and woe unto those who claims to be Democrats and seek to exclude the participation of those who might political oppose them. I believe in a responsibility of government to assist those less well off, whether as a temporary condition or as a result of the economic class and situation into which they were born. I believe there is a responsibility to give back, and hence support heavier taxes on those who have benefited more from what America has given them. And I believe that we cannot survive as anything resembling a democratic republic, a liberal democracy, unless we are willing to give beyond the taxes that are imposed upon us, and unless we can see some sense of service to a community larger than ourselves as a communal responsibility incumbent upon us all.

I know my principles will not exactly coincide with yours. I hope and believe that as Democrats we can find broad areas of agreement. I further expect that when we are willing to listen to to reach out, we will find some across the aisle with whom we can reach common agreement on at least some issues. We may contend against them fiercely in order to achieve electoral victory. And because we use the mechanism of party to try to implement our policy goals, we will at times subsume at least some of our passionate concerns on behalf of some point more important at that particularly moment. Politics in a democracy inevitably involves compromise, and compromise may make us seem a bit less pure on our devotion to our principles.

My common humanity requires that of me, requires of me that I wrestle with the meaning of my immediate action. Honesty requires that I express my disagreement, but also to recognize that one can honestly disagree about important matters. In Christian theology the idea that a person can by any action or word place themselves totally beyond redemption is to argue that that person is at least the equal of God. For a nation to argue that its motives are always pure and beyond criticism is to display an arrogance that for a religious person should be horrific. And yes, that is a reference to the words of Jeremiah Wright, place in context. How one actualizes one's own principles and deepest concerns will vary from moment to moment, from situation to situation, and - yes - from person to person. Hopefully we try to determine common threads that bind our actions and words together, and to these we may ascribe the word "principles." For me my principles are not a matter of isolated intellectualism. They are instead the product of living more than 6 decades, of constantly challenging myself, of trying to understand my connectedness with others. Perhaps you approach principle in a different fashion. I can no more impose my methodology upon you than can I impose my conclusions. And even though we may disagree, at times strongly, on the method and the content of principles, that does not preclude our working together where we can. It is why I am reluctant to demonize, even though as a human I am prone to resort to language that in my frustration is excessive, that seems to be personal.

Politics does not exist in isolation. I participate because I do not believe in surrendering my conscience, nor can I demand of someone else that they surrender theirs. I can invite, I can challenge, as I myself are invited and challenged.

I do not believe an effective politics is possible if we insist on a set of principles from which one never strays. In the Jewish understanding, any of the 613 Mitzvoth can be transgressed in order to save a life. Of course, that expresses a principle with which some might disagree, that the individual human life exceeds in value the idea of adherence to a principle no matter how important.

Principles, purity, and politics. All in all messy business, lacking at least for me the certainty that allows me to ignore the reality of the person(s) before me.

Sorry that I can offer no final answers or definitions, for I have none. Perhaps it is my experience with monasteries where even in a discipline of love and faith and surrender those in leadership and those who follow them never seem to fully escape from these dilemmas, even with a fully agreed to common purpose. It is certainly my experience as one who has participated politically for many years, albeit rarely in a position of official leadership.

I do not know what of what value a meditation such as this, which offers no final conclusions, may be. I offer it in the hope that it may benefit someone, even if only in provoking her to argue strenuously against what I have offered. From such dialog and exchange we can perhaps all benefit.

Peace.

What I commemorate on March 21

teacherken — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:02:38 GMT

written March 21 for Daily Kos

Eisenach, in Thuringia, in Germany. The calendar read March 21, not having yet switched to the Gregorian method. From there comes a part of my soul, my very being. On that day, in 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach was born.

I am by background and more a musician. If evaluated on Gardner's Multiple Intelligences I come across heavily musical-rhythmic. I taught myself to read music at age 3. I grew up playing piano and cello, and by junior high school also sang. We always had a record player, and I have never been without collections of recorded music to go along with the massive amounts of sheet music and miniature scores I have accumulated over the years. And I love many composers, and have on the occasions of their births or with connections to dates associated with their music written about them. But if forced to choose only one composer, and never be able to listen to or play anyone else, today's birthday boy would be my immediate choice. And so this diary is a birthday offering, to the man who gave us a Musical Offering, and so much more. My words cannot match the gift he has given me in his music, but I will offer them nonetheless. I invite you to share them.
My primary instrument is piano, and Bach has been an essential part of that experience. Even beginner's albums often contain music from Bach, perhaps from a minuet from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena, his second wife, later with the rhythm changed the music for a pop song which opens "How gentle is the rain" and is called The Lovers Concerto, performed by a group called the Toys. A key part of the experience of any pianist is to work through much of the keyboard music, the Two-Part Inventions, simple two-voiced pieces that seem deceptively simply but which at time are magnificent, or the Sinfonias, their three-voice equivalent. Or at least part of the First Book of Preludes and Fugues of the Well-Tempered Klavier, of which perhaps my favorite is the 5-voiced Fugue in C#-minor. Or the collections of dances, French Suites, English Suites and Partitas. As a child and an adolescent I played many, and when as an adult in my late 30s I bought a piano I returned to Bach, and began to learn even more of these works.

As a cellist the Suites for Cello were an essential part of one's development. Over the years I came to appreciate the different approaches great violoncellists took to these pieces, and in different formats own versions by Starker, Casals and Yo-yo Ma. Along with these I treasure performances of the works for unaccompanied violin - my slightly elder sister was a superb violinist, with whom I played string quartets and accompanied on the piano. But the violin by itself is perhaps as close as we come to the human voice, and what Bach provided - let me say that to listen to Milstein perform Bach is a pleasure that cannot be exceeded.

But there are concertos as well, sometimes for multiple instruments, sometimes for consorts (the set Bach wrote for the Margrave of Brandenburg), sometimes for one main instrument. And it was not unknown for Bach to reset a work from one instrument to another. I have played a number of the Brandenburgs in small groups, among people who would come together on a Friday night for the sheer joy of playing music. we might do Beethoven, or Schubert, or Haydn, or Mozart, or Arriaga, or Brahms. But our highest joy would be to play one of the Brandenburgs.

I did not really come to appreciate the choral music of Bach until I was in College. Oh, I had been amazed at Leonard Bernstein's exploration of the Matthew Passion on TV, and had heard the occasional cantata on the radio. But then Haverford College sang the entire B MInor Mass, with Sarah Lawrence. And it blew me away. I knew a lot of choral music, having sung in high school, at Interlochen, in Westchester All-County Choruses in 9th grade (junior high where I had a solo in Mozart work) and senior year. I had done a complete Messiah under the great Margaret Hillis, and explored Vivaldi, Vaughan Williams, Brahms, Poulenc - a wide range of composers and styles under several gifted conductors. But I had never sung Bach. And that work simply exploded my mind. Here was a Lutheran writing a Latin Mass (although the Lutheran churches of his day did retain the Latin mass), weaving in and using material from the plain chant settings - in the Credo, in the Confiteor. And the range of musical expression demonstrated genius, with the music working even when repeated, such as the Gratias Agimus Tibi notes reappearing at the end in the Dona Nobis Pacem. I am well aware that it was not written as one complete work, but worked on over more than two decades, with the final manuscript complete near the end of Bach's life, as a man in his 60s. And yet, and yet, . . . it seems so complete, so entire, and to sing the entire thing, over 2 hours of music, is both exhausting and energizing. I first sang it as a tenor, as a sophomore in college, later as a bass. And as a bass the final entrance on a low A near the end of the Dona Nobis seems impossible - one's voice is almost gone, and yet one is able to pull that out of oneself one more time.

My keyboard explorations ceased advancing when I left high school. I would periodically return and get my hands into decent shape. And the beauty of Bach is that even the technically simple pieces are so musically complete. There is so much that seem essential - the Matthew and John passion settings, the Mass, the motets, but there are three additional crowning works without which my life would be bereft. Well, at least two of them, as I am not quite so devoted to the Musical Offering as the other two. The Art of the Fugue is sublime. It can be done in many instrumental settings. My favorite recording is by the Emerson Quartet, who leave the end as unfinished as Bach left it.

And then there is the Goldberg Variations. I have as an adult worked my way through most, as an exploration, as a way of stretching myself. I own three recordings - the early and the late versions by Glenn Gould, and the new - and absolutely magnificent - recent recording by Simone Dinnerstein. It was to that I have been listening on my car CD player on the day before the date of birth, as I prepared to draft this diary. Like much of Bach, it is an intellectual challenge as much as it is a musical challenge.

My wife shares much of my passion for Bach. Between us we have accumulated half a thousand volumes of recordings, counting each vinyl disk and each CD as a separate one. We have a complete set of the Cantatas, many recordings of individual works, and a recent acquisition was a CD box with hundreds of discs containing all of the known work of Bach. Sometimes the greatest delight is to pull out a CD at random, insert and play it, and discover yet another brilliant work I had not previously known. I can never have too much of Bach.

I am not alone in my passion for Bach. Felix Mendelssohn helped the world rediscover the genius of his earlier musical forebear when he arranged and directed an 1829 performance of the Matthew Passion in Berlin. Mendelssohn had a direct link to Bach - his great aunt Sarah (Itzig) Levy had been a pupil of Bach's gifted son Wilhelm Friedeman Bach, and one who pays attention can see the strong influence of Bach in some of Mendelssohn's music.

Brilliant Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote a series of pieces in homage to Sebastian Bach, entitled "Bachianas brasilieras" (Brazilian Bach-pieces), the movements of each are dually named with a Bachian form and a Brasilian label. As a cellist I have performed the first of these, written for 8 cellos. Most are perhaps most familiar with the 5th, for voice and 8 cellos - and among my recordings of this is one with Joan Baez, whose voice somehow seems appropriate to the music.

Douglas Hofstadter wrote a remarkable and award-winning book entitled "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid"

And many sre the musicians who have delighted in performing Bach - David Oistrakh recording the double concerto in D minor with his son Igor, for example.

And for me? I am most complete when I play Bach at the keyboard. It can be an invention, a French Suite or a Partita, or perhaps nothing more than a figured chorale. I am aware of the intellectual quality of the music, but I do not think - somehow I transcend the limitations of my intellect and to some degree of my digital dexterity. Somehow I become one with the music. My last piano teacher while in high school, who at Julliard was known as the man with the Golden Ears, once paid me the highest compliment I have ever received, beyond Leaves on the Current deciding to marry me. Joseph Bloch sat briefly in silence after not quite 17 year old Ken had finished playing the First Partita in B-flat, then told me that within the limits of my technique I played Bach as well as anyone he had ever heard. I think it is because Bach so suits me, so completes me, so allows me to go beyond my shyness, my awkwardness with people. His music frees me and elevates me. It is for me a form of worship, of prayer, of meditation, of spiritual and emotional exercise. I cannot explain, but those who have experienced any sense of it will know what I mean. And for all this I am deeply appreciative, to a man who died in 1750, 196 years before I was born, but whose music penetrates my very being.

I am writing this the day before the occasion, because I unfortunately will be spending a chunk of the early morning in a dental chair - it cannot be avoided. But most of my day will be spent listening and playing - living the genius of old Sebastian.

Perhaps you will find some time to join me in wishing the old man a happy 223rd natal day, by listening or perhaps yourself playing.

And thank you for taking the time to read my offering to Johann Sebastian Bach. I cannot ever hope to give back what he has given me. At most I can hope that my passion for Bach might encourage a few more to explore his genius.

Peace.

How diverse and interconnected we are becoming . . .

teacherken — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:00:59 GMT

written for Daily Kos on March 20

So there I was, a couple of weeks back, sitting under a mango tree in western Kenya, when Senator Barack Obama's half-sister Auma says to me:
"My daughter's father is British. My mom's brother is married to a Russian. I have a brother in China engaged to a Chinese woman."

So begins Roger Cohen's Obama's Brother In China in Monday's NY Times.

It is worth reading, to see how diverse and extended his family is, and you will encounter at the end:

If elected, Obama would be the first genuinely 21st-century leader. The China-Indonesia-Kenya-Britain-Hawaii web mirrors a world in flux. In Kenya, his uncle Sayid, a Muslim, told me: "My Islam is a hybrid, a mix of elements, including my Christian schooling and even some African ways. Many values have dissolved in me."
Obama's bridge-building instincts come from somewhere. They are rooted and proven. For an expectant and often alienated world, they are of central significance.

But my wife makes this more personal.
In passing on the Cohen piece to her family, she remarked on how she could describe herself. I enclose, slightly edited to keep names (other than mine) unidentified, what she sent:

Dear family--
I found the following NY Times article really interesting. Obama's global web of kinship may seem strange--until you look around you.
Love,
--(Leaves on the Current)
Mostly white Northern European but also a little bit Jewish, a little bit Spanish, and (I hope!) a little bit Mi'kmaq
Married to a Jewish guy
Sister-in-law to a Hispanic guy
Aunt to a half-Native American niece and three half-Hispanic nephews
Aunt by marriage to a Jewish niece and nephew
Aunt by marriage to an African-American woman (Ken's sister's son's wife), great-aunt to their two African-American-Jewish daughters
Step-aunt by marriage to an African-American man (R's daughter's husband), step-great-aunt to their African-American-Hispanic daughter
First cousin by marriage to another Jewish branch of the family (Aunt B's son M's wife)
etc., etc. Isn't this fun?
(We Americans are going to have the best--because most diverse, and therefore strongest!--gene pool of any nation in the world by 2100!)

And of course my wife's observations also apply to me, since we share the interconnections.

I would add connections through marriage to people who are gay and bisexual as a part of the diversity of family to which we are connected

And for me, a further diversity is my religious peregrinations: raised as a Reformed Jew, baptized as an Episcopalian in my late 20s, a few years later joining the Orthodox Church in America for 14 years, getting a Masters from a Roman Catholic Seminary, returning to Judaism in an Orthodox Shul, then a Conservative synagogue, and finally to the Religious Society of Friends, and I have maintained friendships across those wanderings.

I have served as adviser/sponsor to our Muslim Students Association. I do walking meditation after the teaching of Thich Nhat Hanh. And my students cover every imaginable religious orientation, including Jains, Druze, 7th Day Adventists, Unification Church, Eckanckar. . .

So ask yourself - how diverse is your family, and perhaps share with the rest of us? For if we can see one another as family - and genetically we are more connected than we often realize - then maybe, just maybe, we can overcome those things that too often are used to divide us?

Peace

there is an elephant in the political room

teacherken — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:58:29 GMT

from Daily Kos, where it was posted March 18

and it is called race

eventually Obama was going to have to directly address it

far too many Americans do not understand how Jeremiah Wright's words are reflective of attitudes in the larger black community, born of the pain of the ongoing experience of racism in this country.

Despite the advances made in the Civil Rights movement, despite the number of blacks now able to succeed in sports, industry, politics and academia - all changes that have occurred in my own lifetime, as I was born in 1946 - far too many blacks are still left out of the process.
Cities become increasingly black and whites flee to the suburbs. Until they decide they want the convenience and coolness of living in the city and then black communities are disrupted by gentrification

express frustration in any fashion and see the rhetorical talking heads criticize, comment on the dysfunctional black family, a family that might be dysfunctional because a black man is far more likely to be incarcerated than a white man

see other groups insist that racism is less acceptable than say sexism at the same time as your own daily experience still includes indignities such as being stopped for driving while black, or being followed around the convenience store, or being treated as a thug merely because of the style of dress or music you favor

I am a white male senior citizen, from an upper middle class family, who had access to good schools, private music and art lessons, private tutors when I struggled in French and Latin, summer camp, etc. Perhaps it is because I teach in a county that while middle class is predominantly African-American, in a school system that is heavily African-American, that I remain at least partially aware of the discrimination that still exists, of the resentments many blacks feel towards the indignities they still suffer.

Perhaps had America been paying attention, the words now taken out of context from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, rather than shocking, would remind us how far we still have to go to address the open sore of the issue of race in this country.

I am glad that Obama will address this subject today. I will be watching. I am actually less interested in what he will say, because I doubt anyone paying attention will be surprised by what he says. For me the test is not for him, it is for us - the media that will comment immediately, and the larger American population. I suspect that his address will frame this as something much more than political,and that the tendency of many commenting immediately will be to measure its political impact. That would be the wrong measure. Far better to measure its moral and societal impact.

This has begun as a comment and will be posted where it was originally intended. I will also post it as a diary, separately, because I do want a few other to see it, and perhaps offer their responses.

I am a racist. That is, I am shaped in part by the advantages I have of being white, and my attitudes have largely been shaped by being white. In that sense the vast majority of us are racist. Not Obama, not my two grand-nieces, whose father is the son of my sister and whose mother grew up in a church-going African-American family in California. I am of a generation where race was still far too defining. I say "I am" because at times I still find myself thinking and speaking and acting from a white frame - despite years in the company of people different than myself at times I realize that I have not totally transcended the limiting framework that I mean when I use the word racist. I am certainly not a hater, nor do I think one race superior or another inferior. I totally reject the idea of discrimination based on external characteristics of race, gender, religion, or sexual preference. But I still benefit from the attitudes of those who do, from the structures of our society which have never completely removed themselves from racial discrimination or preference, even if stated in other ways, like alumni preference for college admissions when the parents were of a generation that largely excluded blacks.

We are overdue for confronting the sin - yes, the sin - of our history of racism, our ongoing problem with the issue of race.

And I hope and pray - yes, pray - that we use this occasion for more than an evaluation of one political candidate, but recognize that we have the chance to confront ourselves and our society and make some meaningful changes in both.

Peace.

and if we stay and listen to the preacher?

teacherken — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:56:36 GMT

from Daily Kos, where it was posted March 17
Many people who don't like Obama are using the fact that for many years he was a congregant in the church where Jeremiah Wright preached. The fact that he may not have been present when the most "problematic" words were offered is actually irrelevant to what I choose to offer today. So is the fact that many of the words in question are well within the prophetic tradition. Yesterday Devilstower showed how much milder those words are than those offered by Jesus of Nazareth. I would be tempted to provide a parallel using texts from the Hebrew bible.

Let me instead take a slightly different path, which I invite you to explore below the fold.
When Mohandas K. Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Western Civilization, he said

I think it would be a good idea.

And I think the way we tend to find the single thing, or even collection of things, on which we focus, out of context, to prove our case for or against political and other figures is a demonstration that Gandhi may be quite correct in challenging our assumptions of how civilized we actually are.

More relevant to the topic at hands are the insights of my spouse, Leaves on the Current. She listened to the remarks of Tony Perkins to the effect that one could not sit in the pew for 20 years hearing words like those of Wright and not have it affect them. On the way to dinner last night she told me she was tempted to respond that both Perkins and she both knew people who had sat in the pews for 50 years hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with it having no discernible effect on their behavior.

We unfortunately are still doing our politics in the fashion of "gotcha" journalism, seeking to find one thing to use to disqualify a candidate with whom we disagree or to force the candidate to distance from a supporter for whom we can similarly find such a gotcha.

A persistent pattern of words and behavior should be questioned. But words, especially sermons, are meant to challenge, to provoke, to make us uncomfortable, less morally sedentary. As such, they need to inspire, to comfort, to challenge, to provoke. One who preaches must balance the mixture of such approaches and a gifted preacher uses words in so many words that it becomes easy to lift them out of the total context of his or her ministry.

St Paul, in Romans Chapter 12 tells his readers to "hold fast to what is good." While I am not a great fan of the Pauline writings, I apply this standard to his work. And in the same chapter we also read "Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all."

To listen to a sermon is not necessarily to agree with all that the preacher says. And if an offensive statement in a sermon is grounds for rejecting the preacher and removing oneself from his presence, our churches should be emptied out, or else we should be condemning all those who stay, because beyond those words which we do condemn they find moral uplifting and comfort and challenges to live more loving and fulfilling lives.

On the one hand we are told that speeches, especially by Obama, are only words. On the other we are admonished that the words of Jeremiah Wright are supposedly so horrific that Obama's failure to leave his church somehow demonstrates a moral failing on his part. These two ideas are obviously contradictory. And while we might reject some of a person's words, to reject one or more statements is not the same as rejecting the totality of a person's life work. None of us is perfect, and to insist that others achieve a standard of perfection in words and deeds that we know we cannot ourselves meet is hypocritical. Hypocritical, and destructive of the kind of growth towards wholeness that we should seek in ourselves, in those we encounter, and in the society in which we live.

Challenge a statement with which you disagree - that may be incumbent upon you. But be certain that in reading the statement you do not see it outside the context in which it was offered, or apply it to a purpose for which it was not intended. Even the most noble and inspiring words, when lifted from their original context and applied to a different purpose can seem quite destructive in a way not imagined by the original speaker. Were we to apply the same standard to our own words we might be tempted to cease from speaking completely, lest our words be construed in manners we would find horrifying, totally alien to what we deeply believe.

And if we stay and listen to the preacher? We may agree or disagree, we may be challenged, angered, comforted, inspired - any or all or none of the above. Our presence does not signify agreement. It does represent a willingness to listen, to hear, to ponder. And for others to interpret for us what our actions represent is as much of a distortion as is taking words out of context for the purpose either of demonizing an opponent or elevating and glorifying one whom we support. If our politics is intended to help us achieve our highest aspirations, we need to forgo using lower means to achieve such ends.

Peace.

the argument - a contrarian view

teacherken — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:54:58 GMT

crossposted from Daily Kos, originally written March 16

As the Democratic primary battle continues, we continue to hear concern that it will damage the party, that we need quickly to come together and refocus our attacks on John McCain and not on one another. After all, many party officials will say, it is hard to imagine any scenario where Clinton can catch up with Obama in elected delegates and only barely possible that she could in popular vote, and of course it is too late for her to catch him in states won. Yesterday I heard this argument from one of the most important Democrats in Virginia, who argued that we needed to get field operations organized as part of a unified party, and it was hard to do that until they knew for whom they were organizing. All of this constitutes the argument

I am an Obama supporter. I fully expect that he will be the nominee at the end of the day. And I have decided that I disagree with this argument, which is the conventional wisdom of most Obama supporters.
As I look back earlier in this cycle, Obama was not an effective debater. The numerous debates have enabled him to hone his skill to the point that he would be a formidable obstacle for any Republican, and clearly will be a commanding presence on a stage with John McCain. That is one indication of the advantages of an extensive campaign.

While I have great concern about the types of attacks offered by the Clinton campaign - and have explained why I view her campaign as a justifiable reason not to support her - I think even these are actually serving a positive purpose. Obama is receiving a far more thorough vetting than he might have received absent a continued vigorous campaign. He has had time and opportunity to work out his responses, and as the coverage of his explanation of Rezko by the Chicago papers demonstrates, this enables him to take even areas of potential weakness and use them to demonstrate once again his strengths - his willingness for transparency, his ability to handlo the questions thrown at him by the press, his core integrity. And in the process he may realize that he is fully capable of winning the press to his side sufficiently to offset whatever McCain has gained over the years in his "straight-talk" approach to the press. And the openness OBama is showing may even force McCain to have to answer questions about things he has avoided in the past as he has used his chumminess with those who cover him to sidestep direct challenges on more troublesome areas.

But what I have written is subtext, and not the core of why I take a contrarian view. That core has two main parts, and a third possible additional one.

The first is I think that by allowing the Clinton campaign to continue further, say through May 6 and NC and Indiana, Clinton supporters will see they have had every opportunity to try to make their case to persuade Democrats to their point of view and will not feel resentful that party elders stepped in and deprived them of that opportunity. At some point it will be necessary to bring the process to an end. As an Obama supporter I do not fret about Pennsylvania. My own opinion is that Clinton will win the state by less than double digits in the popular vote, and I accept the current assessment of Chris Bowers that she is likely to gain an advantage of at most 10 delegates. While people like Mark Penn might want to try to use that as part of their big state argument, the acknowledgment by Governor Rendell that either Obama or Clinton could win the state in the general election will undercut that argument. And absent a huge win in Pennsylvania, which I do not see happening, Obama will win NC , probably comfortably, and will do no worse than split in Indiana. At that point the numbers will be so overwhelming that Clinton will be unable to close the gap. If we assume that at the end of May 6 Obama's lead among elected delegates remains anything near its current margin, of around 150, consider this:

May 13 West Virginia 28
May 20 Kentucky 51
Oregon 52
June 1 Puerto Rico 55
June 3 Montana 16
South Dakota 15

TOTAL additional 217

Now those numbers include District-level, At-large and PLEO delegates, but not super-delegates. And even were Clinton to win 70% of these delegates, which is not really possible, she would still trail in total delegates. In fact, were Obama to go into May 13 with a 150 elected delegate lead, and he were to do no better than split the 73 delegates in Oregon, MT and SD 36-37, there would be less delegates left (144) than his margin.

So at some point the numbers will become impossible. Not yet, not even after Pennsylvania.

In the meantime, the process of continuing the primary contest means that Obama staffers and volunteers are out making every effort at registering additional voters - in Pennsylvania some of what is happening is getting independents and Republicans to re-register as Democrats, and in all states it is getting new voters to register for the first time. I think it might be easier to get people to register when they are going to vote in the very near term - a primary or caucus - rather than 5-6 months in the future in a general election. I believe the continued primary contest means the Democratic party has a chance to significantly expand the electorate in its favor, and this will have positive consequences not only in the presidential contest, but also in down-ballot races. At the same time the Obama campaign and local Democrats will have the opportunity to develop networks and structures that will be useful in the general election campaign.

There is an additional reason, but one which can cut both ways. A continued contest means a continuation of intense media scrutiny. Granted, that could magnify any missteps, and of course reporter will be inclined to maximize any possible discord they detect between the camps of Clinton and Obama, as it makes for a good story line. But in the meantime, it provides massive free media, during a period of time when McCain may have struggle for media oxygen. And the continued high visibility of Obama will get people more used to the idea of seeing him as commander in chief, as someone who would be coming into their living rooms for four years as their president.

So that is my contrarian view. I think it is beneficial for the primary contest to continue, with vigorous competition, at least through May 6. I think overall it will benefit Obama in the Fall. And as an Obama supporter, I believe the continued scrutiny is to his long-term benefit.

I suspect that many reading this will disagree in part or in full with my analysis. So be it. And Clinton supporters are likely to argue that even after May 6 it is still possible that she could close the elected delegate count toa point where the superdelegates could make the difference in her favor. About that latter point, I think it worth noting that if one divides superdelegates into elected office holders and others, Obama is now either ahead or even among elected superdelegates, and Clinton's entire margin comes from DNC officials and the like. And I think those superdelegates who must directly face the voters would be very reluctant to overturn the nation wide decision of millions of Americans in giving Obama a clear majority of elected delegates. At the end of the day, I will be surprised if his margin among elected delegates is much lower than his current margin, and I would be shocked if it drops below 100. And then, having survived a vigorous contest he will be a better position to reach out to Clinton supporters, who will feel that they have had a more sufficient opportunity to make the case for their candidate, to bring the party together, and to take advantage of the excitement and interested generated by the continued contest.

What do you think?

... the categorical imperative and the acting politician. . .

teacherken — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:53:09 GMT

posted at daily kos on March 14

I'm sorry I have not been all that active the past few days. I was finishing up grade for our 3rd quarter before heading for Williamsburg, from which I now write, for the beginning of my participation in the Political Leaders Program of the Thomas Sorensen Institute of the University of Virginia. Much of the benefit of the program is that it is off the record, so that political figures from around the state who talk to us can do so candidly, and so that we can can build relationships among ourselves. I assure I have seen evidence of both.

One of our speakers in his handout had something I thought worth sharing, so I asked and received permission to do so. It is words of Helmut Schmidt, who served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1974-82, and is described as his attempt to "establish the relationship between the categorical imperative and the acting politician"...

Below the fold I will explain a very wee bit about this Kantian approach, then offer the words from Schmidt which I encountered today.
Immanuel Kant is certainly a very important moral philosopher, and is generally considered a key founder of modern deontological ethics. He developed several formulations of the statement we call his categorical imperative. Before going on to Schmidt, let me share these as they are quoted in the Wikipedia article on the Categorical Imperative

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means.

Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.

Our speaker offered these three quotes, as well as one additional one from Kant, for which I do not know the source, but which I think is also worth sharing:

A true system of politics cannot . . . take a single step without first paying tribute to morality. And although politics is in itself a difficult art, no art is required to combine it with morality. For as soon as the two come into conflict, morality can cut through the knot which politics cannot untie.

And now on to Helmut Schmidt. Remember, we are discussing the relationship between the categorical imperative and the acting politicians. These were listed in our handout as bullet points, but I will in the blockquote below separate each statement by a blank line. The "he" is of course the acting politician:

he has a duty to think ahead and to weigh all the consequence critically;
he has a duty to weigh all interests critically;
he has a duty consider not only the morality of the end but also of means;
in a democracy he must take upon himself the tremendous cost of making his reasons clear to others and convincing them, because he needs majorities;
he must answer for the consequences of his actions, those he has striven for and those he did not foresee;
he must do everything in the awareness not only of his onw fallibility but also of democratic decisions generally;
consequently he has the duty to carefully judge each step on a long road.

As I encountered these words today, I immediately thought of many situations, and of course of multiple politicians, for whom such words would be a rude awakening, because they do not consider all of the aspects Schmidt thinks are important.

And of course I also immediately realized their relevance to those of us whose political participation is largely through the words we offer others, in our speaking and in our writing, especially in on-line forums such as this.

In offering these words for your consideration, I am painfully aware of how often I do not live up to the goals and aspirations to which, by these words, Schmidt points. I thought perhaps a few others here might also find them of value, hence my taking these few minutes to offer this diary.

I look forward to any responses this might engender, even as I must note that our busy schedule this evening may mean that my acknowledgment of what you write might not be immediate.

In any case, I offer my normal closing salutation.

Peace.

Thoughts on Pennsylvania from a former resident

teacherken — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:51:26 GMT

originally posted at daily kos on March 12

Please note - I did say FORMER resident, but someone whose connection with the state began upon my arrival as a freshman at Haverford in September of 1963, and in a sense has never ended.

This diary began as a comment on dday's Everybody's doing a preliminary Pennsylvania analysis, why can't I? from earlier today. I came to realize it was long enough to justify posting separately as its own diary. What you see below the fold is a modified and somewhat expanded version of the original comment.

I think that Obama will be far more competitive than the current polls would seem to indicate. And I would not be at all surprised to see him win the state, if his campaign is willing to devote the necessary resources, including the time of the candidate.
Like you I have a lot of Pennsy connections

having attended Haverford several times, first in 1963-65, and finally in 1971-73. After graduation I stayed in the general area until moving to Virginia in 1982, living in Rosemont, Ardmore and Media, and working at various times in Philadelphia, Langhorne, and Franklin Center (yes, I worked for Franklin Mint). Because of membership in the Orthodox Church of America, and my holding of national and diocesan offices, I had occasion over a 14 year period until 1990 to occasionally go to the Scranton - Wilkes-Barre area. In in 1983 and 84, I somehow while living in Virginia became responsible for field organization for Fritz Hollings and his abortive bid for the 1984 nomination (and if anyone here calls him a racist again as they did on my Saturday diary, they are ignorant - yes, he was on the wrong since of the Clarendon case but that opened his eyes - his final act as Governor was to ensure that Clemson was integrated without disorder, for which Harvey Gantt was forever grateful, and he was the first US Senator to have an African-American chief of Staff, Ralph Everett). My wife grew up in Wallingford while her father taught at Swarthmore.

Much of what dday says about the state is accurate. Sometimes the mix of college and working class is fairly close - after all, Swarthmore is not that far from Ridley Park (with a big Boeing plant), and many of the small colleges are mixed in with farmers in the Susquehanna Valley or the old steel mill communities of the Mon Valley.

And some of what had been the traditional antipathy towards Blacks in the Western part of the state began to be overcome because of the success of the Steelers in the 1970s (corrected - thanks and h/t to uncle cosmo) - it was hard to root for Franco and Mean Joe and then be nasty to your neighbors and coworkers who looked like them and like you rooted for them.

People have to remember that for all the supposed demgraphic similarities with Ohio, Pennsylvania is a closed primary, so you will not get Republican crossover fueled by Limbaugh or dog whistle rhetoric. And while there are many towns that have suffered from international trade, that has been a process that goes back way before NAFTA. Pittsburgh is far less of a place of heavy industry - it has no steel mills - than it is a center of education, health, and some high tech, and there is also a fair amount of high tech in the Philadelphia suburbs - my various jobs in the area were always with computers, so I had some connection with the beginnings of that growth.

I also think that the kind of dog whistle politics Clinton has had associated with her campaign will cost her some votes among suburban women who don't like that kind of conflict. There are lot of them in the Philadelphia suburbs.

And do not discount the impact of having Pat Murphy chair your campaign. Not only does he have strong family roots in Philadelphia, he also has connections in the Northeast, having attended Kings College.

I still get back to Pennsylvania three or four times a year, usually in conjunction with my connections with Haverford (I am active in admissions and some other areas of support of the college, and as a member of several classes have reunions 2 of every 5 years). My sense is that the preliminary polling data is unrealistically favorable to Clinton, and that with 6 weeks to compete Obama will eliminate most if not all of the gap. While Clinton should still be favored, I would not consider it a huge upset were Obama to win. And I do not think that Clinton will come out of the state with a huge delegate advantage, despite the size of the delegation.

Ultimately, if the Obama campaign wants to be successful, he should take advantage of the extended time before the primary and go into the smaller towns and let the people get to know him. Sure, have a rally at Penn State, but then maybe have a town hall meeting in Williamsport - oh, and they have a college there, called Lycoming. Go to Erie, which is so often bypassed - and yes, they have a university, called Gannon. NO matter where you go in the Keystone state you will never be far from a college or university. Go into the countryside of Chester County and you can visit Lincoln University. Or perhaps stop by Cheney State, where both John Chaney and Vivian Stringer won national championships in basketball and where the football team once had both Jim Vance and Ed Bradley.

Perhaps you can talk about the kind of damage we can suffer from the increased ferocity of storms due global warming - I am sure the people of Wilkes-Barre will be able to relate after their experience of Agnes, no longer a hurricane by the time that it flooded much of the city - oh, and they have a college called Wilkes.

Let the people around the state get to know you. There a multiple media markets, and a visit to a smaller one might dominate the news coverage. If Senator Obama will do that, who knows what could happen?

Just a few thoughts from someone whose connections with Pennsylvania go back more than 40 years.

House Democrats and educational policy

teacherken — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:49:02 GMT

originally at daily kos on march 10

this will be brief. I had occasion to talk today with a House Democratic Congressman who told me that the House Democratic Caucus is meeting tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 on educational policy. They have come to the conclusion that NCLB is going no where as a complete package for reauthorization, so some of them are looking to see if they can move parts they care about as separate bills.

I was also told that Ted Kennedy was going to cross over and talk with them. The Congressman in question told me that it was his sense that Kennedy cannot move a complete bill through his committee either.

I have been busy with finishing out the 3rd quarter at school - one reason i have not been here much the past two days. But I find it fascinating that the Dems may be willing to move meaningful educational legislation while ignoring the overall framework of NCLB.

The Congressman in question promised to stay in touch. If I find out more I will let people here and elsewhere know. But please accept that I cannot identify the particular Congressman.

peace.

In Sorrow - with updated explanation at the end

teacherken — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:47:39 GMT

This was posted at Daily Kos on March 08. The update apparently confused people. The original had over 1,500 comments and created a lot of controversy.

I have written in the past that to choose the lesser of two evils is still to choose evil. Sometimes the choice, in sorrow, to make such a choice. Sometimes however to make such a choice is too violative of all that one holds dear.

Once before in a presidential election I found myself confronting such a choice. The situation was somewhat different than it is now. But my choice then was, in sorrow, not to cast a vote for president.

I have, in sorrow, come to the conclusion that should Hillary Clinton be the Democratic nominee, I will not cast a vote for president. I live in Virginia, which she has no realistic chance of carrying, so perhaps it takes little courage for me to make that decision, should it be necessary. But given that I am politically active, that I teach government to adolescents, that I encourage them to participate, it is truly in sorrow that I find I must make this decision.

I will try to explain, if you care to keep reading, why I have made this decision.
Once in my adult life I did not cast a vote for president, because I felt that there was no candidate whom I could legitimize by my vote. It was 1984. The Democratic candidate was Walter Mondale. I lived in Pennsylvania, in theory a state that would be competitive, although by six weeks before the election it was clear to me that Reagan would win comfortably and would also carry PA, so perhaps my abstention did not seem of importance. I would not vote for Reagan, and with all I knew about Mondale I could not bring myself to offer a vote on his behalf. It was not just that I had earlier supported another Democrat, Fritz Hollings, but that for me to vote for Mondale would mean that I violated my own conscience, that a vote for someone I viewed as manipulative, willing to twist things for his own benefit, who had a history of self-aggrandizement at the expense of what was best for the people of the nation he purported to serve was further than I could in conscience go.

Perhaps it was that I remembered the role Mondale played at the 1964 Democratic national convention on behalf of Hubert Humphrey, who had been tasked by LBJ to get the Mississippi Freedom Democrats not to insist on a floor fight, which they might well have won. Perhaps it was because of my own involvement in Civil Rights the previous year that I viewed that as a betrayal of Humphrey's legacy, perhaps it was that I felt Johnson would win so comfortably anyhow that this was a time that political capital could be spent on something important, such as equality of political participation. There was more, but Mondale had never apologized for that, nor had the great civil libertarian Joe Rauh, who was also part of the effort. And that opened my eyes to something I have never forgotten - that sometimes people one might otherwise admire are so committed by personally loyalty or some other reason not as easily identifiable that they take actions that seem in contradiction to the thrust of the public lives which led one to admire them in the first place.

I began this political campaign as neutral, wanting to take my time to evaluate many things. When my friend Tom Vilsack came out against reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, I cam out and endorsed him - here, in an environment which had a great deal of hostility towards him because of his leadership of the DLC. I always knew he was a long shot, but because of the one issue I felt he was entitled to some visible support. One clear sign of his weakness as a candidate, beyond the inability to raise enough money to be competitive, was that I was perhaps his most visible supporter in the blogosphere, and I am simply not that important, influential, or even visible.

Because of a long-time relationship, going back to his wife's sharing a cubicle with Hillary Rodham at the House Judiciary Committee, Tom decided to support Clinton. He took a lot of grief, especially here, for that decision. I attempted to explain why he made that choice. Some accused Clinton of buying him by offering to pay off his debts. I reminded some making those accusations that as Deaniacs they had not raised similar objections when Howard Dean put Carol Mosely Braun on his payroll.

I thought I would remain neutral. The first chink in that position came when Clinton argued against college students whose families lived in other states, particularly Illinois, participating in the Iowa caucuses, even though it was legal for them to do so. I had this discussion offline with Vilsack, who complained that the caucus was supposed to be a party building exercise. I reminded him that come November those very same students might well want to vote in Iowa, where their votes could return the state to the Democratic column, and given that Illinois was heavily Democratic in its orientation their votes would not be missed. Tom's response was that what was happening is that instead of being a caucus, the increased turnout was making Iowa into a primary election, in all but name.

I repeated that last communication from Vilsack because of what I heard this week. After all the complaints about caucuses by the Clintons, the former president told people in Wyoming they needed to increase the turnout and turn it into an election. In other words, the approach now is precisely what Clinton's most prominent Iowa supporter objected to at the beginning of the year. I think that is hypocrisy, or selective ethics, or inconsistency - whatever it is, it is bothersome. But by itself it would not be enough for my sorrow, and thus my decision.

I had previously watched as the campaign developed, for quite some time. I chose to remain neutral, because many of the candidates were acceptable to me, and had I ranked them the only two who would have stood out early were Edwards and Dodd, with a group behind them of Biden, Obama and Clinton. I wanted to be able to offer my analysis, especially on educational policy, without being accused of writing what I did because of whom I favored or disfavored. If I praised or criticized, on education or other issues, I wanted my words to be read as independent of support.

At times during the campaign there were things about each candidate that bothered me. I criticized Edwards for what I viewed as grandstanding on contributions from Federal lobbyists in his remarks at Yearly Kos, noting that as he had expressed it perhaps he should return my $100 contribution. I do not have to agree with all a candidate says in order to support them. But at some point a threshold is reach which makes support impossible, not if one is able to maintain a sense of personal integrity. Before Iowa I reached that point with Clinton, at least as far as the primaries. The attitude towards the young people had been key - after all, I teach government because I want the young people for whom I am responsible to feel that their participation can make a difference. And as one who is a Democratic post 1964 (Civil Rights Act) and 1965 (Voting Rights Act) it is more than a little objectionable to me that anyone seeking a Democratic nomination would attempt to dissuade or suppress anyone's vote. When I also looked at the tactics of many in Clinton's campaign, whether Billy Shaheen or Robert Johnson or Mark Penn (in his case twice in one minute raising the issue of cocaine) I decided that I could not in conscience reward Clinton by a vote in the primary, although at that point I was still willing to support her should she achieve the nomination.

I have gone from Vilsack to neutral to Edwards to Obama. I will not repeat all the reasons why. When I finally settled on Obama after the effective withdrawal of Edwards, that was an affirmation of Obama, and not an unwillingness to support Clinton in a general, only the impossibility of supporting her in the primary.

The Virginia primary is now almost a month past. And what I have seen from the Clinton campaign in the past weeks has increased my discomfort and unease. Others have written about the details,far more lucidly than can I.

A political candidate is ultimately responsible for the campaign actions done on his or her behalf. If one acquiesces, remains silent, gives winks and nods, one is accepting or even encouraging actions that should be beyond the pale. If one rationalizes that what the Republicans would do would be even worse, then one is participating in the kind of degradation of the political process that has so turned off so many Americans. This election cycle offers a real chance to change our politics for the better, and perhaps rescue this nation from its current downward spiral into political apathy. That should concern all who seek something better.

Two images were a part of my thinking this week. Both come from decades back, and have been essential parts of my memory since. One is a cartoon from the late Walt Kelly, of Pogo looking out at the devastation of the swamp and saying "We have met the enemy, and he is us." The other is of the American field grade officer in Vietnam saying that in order to save the village we had to destroy it.

We began this campaign season with enthusiasm and hope. Many Americans were drawn to the Democratic party as one of hope, of the possibility for something different. To be sure, some were dissuaded by the lack of meaningful action in the Congress to end the war and the other depredations of this administration. Still, for more than a year it has been clear that the enthusiasm this season was on the Democratic side - it was visible in new registrations, in money contributed, in the size of crowd, and as the primary season began in participation in primaries and caucuses. We could look at the Republican field of all white men and a Democratic field that included white men, a woman, an Hispanic, and a Black. On their side the candidates had to maneuver so that the did not antangonize A Republican base which still supported the President. As a result we heard candidates urging doubling of Guantanamo, how tough they were on terrorists, or being willing to bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. No one on the Democratic side was arguing in a similar fashion.

And now? I think some actions place a candidate beyond the pale. I recognize that for each of us we will draw the line differently. In sorrow I have reached a point where I cannot support Hillary Clinton. Her willingness to accept a campaign that uses half-truths and in some cases outright dishonesty is not what I am willing to accept in our leadership. I cannot reward in any fashion a candidate who is willing to denigrate a Democratic opponent and imply that he is not ready to be president. In light of a statement only a week before that she was honored to be on the same stage as him, I can only look at THAT statement in light of the later statement, and read it as an attempt to manipulate people in order to gain a political advantage.

If she does not believe he is qualified to be commander in chief, she should have the courage to say so to his face. And it is shameful what we have seen, including the remarks from General Clark in recent days which you can read for yourself.

If we cannot as Democrats learn to compete with one another without seeking to destroy our primary opponents for our own temporary advantage, we are no better than the Republicans whose leadership we seek to replace And we may find that an increasing number of the American people will begin to agree with Ralph Nader that there is not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties.

Please note - I fully acknowledge that on many stated policy issues any Democrat is superior than any Republican. But stating policy in an attempt to win votes is insufficient. How one campaigns is a clear indication of how one will govern. And a campaign that does not at every moment seek to broaden the Democratic electorate will also not help Democrats down ballot to achieve success in what COULD be a transformational election.

This is personal statement. No one else has read it. My wife is out of town, and will neither read nor recommend it. Were she to read it, she might disagree on some details, but she is so angry at the Clinton campaign right now that she might well append comments with language and expressions far stronger than those I am using.

And I realize that in posting this I may sunder some friendships. There will be those who accuse me of various transgressions.

I have to live with my conscience. For months I have at times sought to put the best case on things that bothered others. No longer.

Let me be blunt. As I look at the campaign run by Hillary Clinton, not just the words and actions of her surrogates and employees, but her own words and actions, I have regrettably come to the conclusion that based on that campaign, and in light of that campaign her record as a Senator, that she is morally unfit to be President of the United States. Thus I cannot and will not support her, should she achieve the nomination of the Democratic party.

Because, IN SORROW, I have come to this conclusion, for the duration of this election season I am likely to write about things others than the presidential contest, I will not be completely silent. I will comment on stories and diaries by others. I will devote my own efforts to things like house and senate races, or policy matters like education.

IN SORROW. At some point I may have to explain to my students why I have made this decision. At least two of my current students read all of my diaries, and are likely to ask me about it in class. I will be challenged on the apparent contradiction between this decision and my pointing out to them that if one does not participate in a political contest then one acquiesces in the outcome. It is a sign of my sorrow that I being to see on too many things that matter to me insufficient difference between Hillary Clinton and John McCain to be able to justify voting for one or against the other.

It did not have to come to this. Clinton could have run a very different campaign, even when she was behind. There were legitimate issues that could be raised, questions with which to challenge Obama. It is not merely the issues, it is the manner in which the challenges have been done. She - and her campaign - have chosen the path on which they now tread. There are consequences for each decision we make. There will be consequences for the one I make in this diary - I may lose friendships, and I will certainly not be offered any position in a Clinton campaign or administration. The possible loss of friendships will sadden me.

The consequences for Clinton may be far greater. I know I am not alone in coming to the decision about which I have written. Some have reached that point in the midst of great anger. I have not. My decision is the result of wrestling with many things, over several weeks.

I accept that have you read this far you may seek to dissuade me. Please do not waste your time. I also accept that many of you may strongly disagree with me. That does not from my end mean that we cannot maintain friendships, nor work together on other issues. Some few may wish to use my words as some kind of bloody banner. I also ask that you refrain from that. This is a personal statement. I recognize that it may have some influence on others. That is unavoidable. But my intent is one of announcement and explanation, not of persuasion.

I reiterate several key things that motivate me, not merely in politics, but in life as a whole.

we have to learn to disagree without being disagreeable.

Reasonable people can disagree on things of great importance without either necessarily being venal or mean-spirited.

Choosing the lesser of two evils is still to choose evil, and one must be willing to recognize that when making the choice.

Often we have no choice but the lesser of two evils.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent in its presence.

There are some actions and words that cannot be excused, and must be challenged, lest we abandon our own sense of morality and rightness.

Here's what makes this in sorrow. The key words that have guided me for much of my life, increasingly so in the year since I officially joined the Religious Society of Friends, are those of George Fox, to walk gladly across the earth answering that of God in every person we encounter. Right now there is no gladness in what I have just done, only sorrow.

Peace.

UPDATE I find I have to keep pointing out the same fact, so let me do it here in the diary. I live in Virginia. My vote might make a difference in an Obama - McCain race, in which the state is competitive. Were Clinton competitive in Virginia, it would mean that she is going to win well over 300 electoral votes and be elected. Similarly, if I lived in NY, my vote would also be irrelevant to the outcome, because if McCain had any chance of winning that state it would mean he was winning going away. Thus my decision to vote or not vote in the presidential contest has no bearing on who appoints Supreme Court Justices, or what tax policy we have, or how long we stay in Iraq. Living in a state that would not be competitive in a Clinton-McCain race, I interpret my vote as either offering my approval of one candidate, or my strong disapproval of the other. I certainly have strong disapproval of McCain. As my friend Mark Kleiman has noted, someone who can tolerate torture, as McCain did by opposing the provision binding the CIA to the Army manual, does not really meet what I would consider the threshold for commander-in-chief: to me torture is non-negotiable. If my vote then represents the possibility of affirming the other candidate, I cannot in good conscience affirm Clinton.

I think Richard Nixon was an immoral man. I think he did this nation much damage. I think he would be considered a better president than, say, James Buchanan, or George W. Bush. But knowing what I know about the presidencies of both men, I would not vote for either, unless truly believed my vote would make a difference in the outcome. Absent that, my vote represents a moral choice - to give it to a candidate is to morally affirm that candidacy. I cannot do so with Hillary Clinton.

Again, peace.