Category Archives: Politics

Garden, Great Work, Politics, Travel

The Sons of the Soil

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 37  bar steady 29.78 0mph windchill 36

   Waxing Crescent Moon of Winds

 

Below is a reply to my brother Mark about this e-mail he sent to me:

Charles, This is pretty amazing. It really needed to happen. Mark ** Penang abandons pro-Malay policy **The Malaysian state of Penang says it will no longer follow a government policy favouring ethnic Malays.< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7289509.stm >In re:  the sons of the soil.  When I was in Hawai’i, I learned the natives call themselves kama’aina, literally children of the land.  Businesses offer a kama’aina discount and there has been some effort to get civil service preference to kama’aina.  In Hawai’i, where the indigenous population has experienced considerable oppression (plantation slavery for sugar and pineapples) and marginalization (numbers cut by 90% thanks to disease), it seems just.

It made me think a lot about this notion of belonging to a land, or a place.  The problem with identifying one ethnicity or one particular population as sons of the soil is its ahistorical nature.  That is, at some point in time, virtually every population on earth, outside of a miniscule group in Africa, emigrated. In other words, kama’aina is not a permanent characteristic, rather it reflects an acquired relationship, one that reflects a love for this place.  Others, too, can become kama’aina.  That is the essential injustice in the Malaysian situation.It is, too, an injustice in Hawai’i, if Filipino, Japanese, Chinese and white inhabitants cannot, at some point, also be kama’aina.

 

As I thought more about it, I realized I am kama’aina of the American Midwest, the heartland of the North American continent, yet I am also a son of immigrants.  Am I less wedded to this land than the Annishinabe or the Lakota?  I don’t think so.  My life depends on it. When I return, I see home in its lakes and forests.

In fact, the whole notion of an ecological consciousness comes down to seeing ourselves, each of us, as kama’aina of the planet earth.

Anyhow, thanks.  I agree, amazing and hopeful. 

Politics

Hillary Needs to Quit

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31  bar steady  29.86 0mph SSW windchill 31

     Waxing Crescent Moon of Winds

Hillary Clinton got an e-mail message from me tonight asking her to quit the race.  She can’t win, the mathematics of the upcoming races don’t allow it.  No matter how you feel about her it’s time for her to get out, unify the Democratic party and get going to whip McCain. 

This does not have to be her only year, nor has her campaign been in vain.  Ever after this year a female candidate for office will be a serious contender if they have the political credentials and more and more women do.  She has proved that women can run presidential campaigns.

Obama is not so much a better candidate, as an acceptable candidate who has done what the primary process demands, collected votes.  The differences between them are not great and the hair-splitting over who would be better on day one comes down hard beside the point.  The point is, who has convinced the Democratic party faithful that they are the candidate for this race.  Obama. 

Has he done it in an overwhelming manner?  No.  Praise be to God we have two candidates with good qualifications.  In that case the method of choosing between them is just as it was when we were choosing among them, go to the voters and follow the process.

In a political campaign the voters decide the outcome, not prior expectations or the hopes of any one constituency.  This primary season has had the most excitement and genuine campaigning I can recall since I became aware of politics at age 5. 

Politics, World History

Is Integration Always Good?

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21  bar rises 30.00 1mh WSW windchill 19

    Waning Crescent of the Snow Moon

Ethnonationalism may seem an antique or xenophobic topic, but this article in Foreign Affairs suggests not. 

Singapore made me scratch my head about an American article of faith segregation bad, integration good.  Little India, Chinatown, Malaytown, Arab Street and the old English quarters exist alongside each other with little apparent friction.  Apparent is a key word because speaking to Singaporeans I found Malaya’s and Indians who talked about discrimination in the larger community. There’s also the matter of the undercover police that monitor Singaporean’s daily activity.

White’s and Chinese have long been part of Singapore’s ruling elite so they tend not to have the same concerns.  Even so, I noticed a vibrancy and a sense of cultural identity in the ethnically defined communities that I do not notice in similar communities in the US.  Also, well after midnight, I saw women walking alone through relatively deserted city streets. 

To expand on experiences from the same trip the Thai people have a wonderful sense of identity and cultural assurance based on their long experience in the same geopolitical region; likewise the Cambodians, though their situation has deep seated corruption and the legacy of the Pol Pot years that complicate their situation.

I don’t know if all this has any application in the US where our value of  the melting pot has long history behind it.  Even that history though has an ethnonationalistic twist.   The Civil Rights law of 1964 opened immigration to countries outside western Europe, especially to Asians who had been excluded since the days of the Yellow Peril.  Until 1964 our immigration policies favored Anglo-Saxon countries.  Then there was the 3/4’s compromise and the resulting shame of slavery for which we paid in blood and destruction.  

Part of what made me think about this was recent material I’ve seen advocating separate  classrooms, even schools, for boys and girls.  Are we blind to some truths about human nature, or are we visionaries, a city on the hill, lighting the way for the rest of the world when it comes to a multicutural society?  God, I don’t know, but this article made me think.

Great Work, Our Land and Home, Politics, Travel

Kama’aina of the Heartland

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15  bar rises 30.17  2mph WNW windchill9

    Waning Crescent of the Snow Moon

“People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this, that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it.” – John Jay Chapman

I would add to Chapman, it often means a taking a bone from a vicious dog and a strong one.  That’s why it’s fun.  And dangerous.

Just made an attempt to sign up for the Sierra Club’s political committee for this election year.  I want to put my hand back in, but with Taoism as my mentor this time, rather than liberation theology or neo-marxism.  We’ll see what that means if I get selected.

Slept late today.  Still getting used to the center of the continent. 

One realization I had while in Hawai’i is that I am kama’aina of the heartland, the center of a large landmass, the actual geographic opposite of island life.  As a child of this land, I relish significant even sudden changes in weather.  The cycle of planting, growth, maturity, harvest and a fallow time is as essential to my Self as it is to the rhythm of life here.  I am, in every sense of the word, an American.  A Midwesterner.   A Northerner.  Each of those geographic identifiers impacts key aspects of my person, my approach to life and my deep values.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Politics, Travel

The True Radicals of Today Are Conservatives

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7:45AM.  Bright sun.  Blue water.  Breeze off the ocean.  Mourning doves coo.

The mourning doves have had it goin’ on the last week.  Males walk up to a female, bow, stomp their feet, then spread their tail feathers.  Oh, yeah.  I saw that move before.

Last post from Da Fish Shack.  My bags are packed and I’m ready to go.  Just 12 hours until my jet plane.  Da Fish Shack check-out is 10AM and my flight doesn’t leave until 8:15 PM so I have time to do some more sightseeing, shop, visit the museum in Lihue, have lunch and dinner.

One point of comparison I forgot between Da Fish Shack and the Hyatt was showers.  At the Hyatt the shower was an ordinary shower in a tub, found in most hotels.  Here at Da Fish Shack showers are al fresco although with appropriate screening.  Kate suggested I use flip-flops when I used the shower.  Although I would not want to take showers outside at home, here in Hawai’i’s wonderful climate, it provides a note of adventure to a routine task.  You can hear the surf and feel the wind all over.

On driving back last Sunday night to Da Fish Shack after supper in Wailua, I turned on NPR.  Guess who was on?  Garrison Keillor and Prairie Home Companion.  Right here on route 56 headed north toward Princeville and Hanalei.  This morning I read the NYT while I ate breakfast.  Lead story in travel?  Skiing on the Gunflint Trail.  

Something I’ve started rolling around.  It appears to me that the true radicals of today are conservatives.  No, not the George Buckley, Russell Kirkland variety or the neo-con versions that got us into this damned war, but conservatives who focus their conservative tendencies on species and eco-systems, on cultures and life ways.  These eco-conservatives are in fact conservative over against enlightenment liberals,  free-market economists and raging bull capitalists of multi-national corporate organizations.

In tandem with this thought, which still percolates, is another.   Rather than the nexus of evil, the world’s faith traditions are vast resources that represent the human heart and mind at its most integrated, its most daring and its most compassionate.  Yes, the religious institutions that accrete around these faith traditions often become like the coral reef, rigid and sharp, but the faith traditions themselves preserve the world’s oldest stories and humankind’s most radical dreams. 

When anti-religion dogmatists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens rail against these institutions, all they are doing is raising the enlightenment flag of REASON.  Well, here’s the big news guys, REASON is not all there is.  In fact, reason works its magic by dividing and parsing, by reducing the world to manageable portions, to forumlas and laws.  Not a bad thing as far it goes, but turn the process on its head and move out toward the whole, toward life and the solar system, the galaxy, the cosmos. 

These things are.  And, they were before science and reasons and they will be after science and reason has passed away.  They do not need to consult either Newton or Einstein to go the speed of light or engage gravity.  It is this whole, the buzzing, blooming whole that is most precious and it will not be dissected because there are too many variables, too many data points moving in too many disparate directions.

And so forth.

Memories, Politics

Cisco Kid, Ramar of the Jungle and Sargent Preston of the Yukon

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22  71%  26%  3mph N bar29.99 falls windchill19 Imbolc

               Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

 A late night.  Every time I stay up late watching election returns, as I have tonight, I recall the Stevenson/Eisenhower race.  Dad and I sat up until 3 in the morning watching election returns.  It was a magical time for me.  I got to stay up late; Dad stayed up with me.  We shared an interest in the political realm, even though I was only 5 years old.  You may think that’s odd, but at the age of 6 I proved the point.

Mr. Gross had picked me up at church to drive me to a meeting with some friends.  As we drove out in the country, he asked me, “Charlie, are you a Democrat or a Republican?”  I said, “Democrat.”  He said, “Well, I don’t allow Democrats to ride in my car.” 

“Stop the car, Mr. Gross,” I said, “I’ll get out and walk.”     

We had one of the first televisions in our little Indiana town because Bob Feemster, a Wall Street Journal executive who own the Times-Tribune, the paper my Dad edited, thought the newspaper editor needed to keep up with the new technology.

Most of the time I found the Cisco Kid, Ramar of the Jungle, Captain Midnight and Sargent Preston of the Yukon much more to my taste, but around elections, I watched right along with Dad.  Very soon after that I became a poll watcher, which meant I stationed myself at one of Alexandria’s precincts and when the vote count finished I called in the results to the paper. 

Tonight I can’t tell what the numbers mean quite yet, though I did hear an amazing number if it’s true.  Hillary Clinton wins voters making 50,000 and below, while Obama wins with voters making more than 50,000.  If these are accurate numbers, it’s an interesting story and one to ponder.

This is the best election I can remember, ever.  Issues.  Candidates.  Momentous decisions.  Perhaps a turning point in American history.  I hope.

Politics

Obama Wins Andover #8

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25  73%  26%  4mph NW  bar30.04 steady windchill23 Imbolc

            Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

Just back from caucus.  A blessedly short event.  Obama won our precinct 58 to 36.  Kate’s PNHP group passed out a sample resolution for universal health care, single payer.  I presented it and it passed.  Though not without some troubling debate.  One young voter said, “Wouldn’t that be a monopoly?  That’s against the constitution and Federal law.”  He had a worried look.  So did I, after that breath taking example of civic ignorance.  A woman said, “It’s been shown that competition makes things better.  The Canadian and British systems don’t provide good care if you have a special case, just for most of the people.”  Well, health care for most of the people would be a hell of an improvement on what we have.  As I left, a man came up, took my hand, and said, “Good job.  Thanks.”  Felt good.

My political impulses are all contradictory these days.  Don’t know what to make of it. 

Cinema and Television, General, Politics, World History

Ten Thousand Schools

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29  87%  26%  5mph NNW  bar29.89 rises windchill25  Imbolc

                  Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

Saw Scarlet Johanssen talking to a group of Minnesota students tonight.  She’s pushing Barrack.  The political firestorm that will sweep the nation tomorrow will have a brushfire here in the Minnesota caucuses.  It remains to be seen whether a strong youth turnout for primaries and caucuses will  translate into votes in November, but I find the youth surge a hopeful phenomenon.  Maybe we’re getting back to a situation where the politics of compassion, not compassionate conservatism, and the politics of economic justice, not unjust foreign policy will prevail.  It’s got my vote.

The snow petered out, a dusting only after the vigor of the mid-morning.  Things did get freshened up.

Watched an anime on the Science Fiction Channel.  Saw why Miyazaki is considered an anime god.  This stuff is much more slapdash, also has a slasher feel to it without the grace of the samurai or wu shu movies like Crouching Tiger. 

I seem to find myself digging deeper and deeper into ancient China, especially the Warring States period when Taoism, Confucianism and Legalism plus many others–the Ten Thousand Schools–emerged.  It is also the time of the Qin unification and Qin Shi Huang Di fascinates me.  After the Qin the Han dynasty began and lasted for four hundred years or so, one of the first golden ages of China.  Later, the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties would, each in their own time and in their own way, count as golden ages, too.

Politics, World History

Castrate Him!

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26  87%  28%  2mph NE bar 29.88 steady  windchill23 Imbolc

                Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

A good senate race has run under the radar of the Clinton/Edwards/Obama vs. Romney/McCaine/Giuliani primaries.  It’s a shame, too, since the Democrats have a real opportunity to win back a Senate seat.  I was skeptical of Al Franken, but it seems he’s run hard, straight and with serious intent.  I’m gonna support him on Tuesday, along with Barrack Obama.  I read a convincing article in the Nation that portrayed Obama as the only candidate with true left credentials.  Progressive is a weasel word, not least because Bull Moose Teddy Roosevelt used it of himself and his movement.

If you enjoy the numbers and drama of politics, this has been a great year.  Lots of poll data, lots of actual votes and plenty of campaign back and forth without, so far at least, too much mudslinging.  Even a pinch of political junkie in your bloodstream would get you into the fray.

Wish for snow and voilá, it snows.  Six inches today they say.  Paul Douglas called this one.    

The perfect week shapes up for me:  up north for four days in a time of snow, home for a night and then off to the Sandwich Islands. 

Started reading last night in the annals of the Grand Historian, Sima Qin.  He’s a fascinating character. He inherited the task of completing the history of the Chinese people his father, also the Grand Historian, began.  Living in the time of Emperor Wu, a great Han dynasty emperor, he made the Emperor mad.  Apparently, at the time, making Emperor’s mad resulted in castration.  And, the usual response was suicide.

Sima Qin, however, felt he had a duty to finish his history so he lived for 21 more years, in spite of the indiginity.  His work is readable, at least in translation, and more than that, interesting.  Just ordered his volume on the Qin dynasty.

Now then, off to Maple Plain for some new shoes and to the coop for bread and cheese.