Iraq War protest SF 2003

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Iraq War Protest SF

On February 16, 2003, my wife and I took our young daughter (and her stroller) to the Iraq War protest in San Francisco, CA. It was a beautiful Sunday, and millions of people around the world turned out (during that weekend) to protest the thrust toward war by the G. W. Bush Administration. That war was launched, regardless, on March 20, 2003.

Most of that weekend’s protests were held on Saturday, the 15th, but the protest in San Francisco was delayed one day so as not to disrupt the Chinese New Year parade on the 15th. The crowd in San Francisco amounted to between 60,000 to 200,000, depending on time of day, and how the count was estimated. I can verify that there were people EVERYWHERE, and we were channelled along Grove Street, from Market Street to Civic Center, where the crowd pooled on the Green, and speeches were made, and children played on the swing set.

The most important thing about the event was the feeling of solidarity – for truth without war – with so much of American and foreign humanity. It was so obvious to so many that great injustices and grave war crimes were to be unleashed (as proved to be the case for the next 8 years), and we were making our moral outrage bodily present in the hopes of shaming the Bush Administration (and the Blair government in the UK) to refrain from committing the ultimate crime.

EVERYONE in the U.S. government at that time, who pushed for or acquiesced to the perpetration of that war is a war criminal. Hillary Clinton is one of the more prominent of these criminals, and the fact that so many today consider this war criminal a viable candidate for US president is an insult of any concept of national honor.

This experience can be summed up by Albert Camus’s epigram: “I rebel, therefore we exist.” Here is my photo of that day.

Why Vote for Hillary?

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What motivates people to vote for Hillary Clinton? I think such voters are seeking one or several of the following:

1, financial advantage,

2, aggrandizement of one’s self-image (of personal character),

3, power by association to counter a sense of weakness,

4, validation by association to justify a sense of entitlement.

Financial Advantage

The Wall Street financiers and other Big Money capitalists who are funding Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and pumping money into the Clinton Family Foundation, are making the very logical choice to vote for her because she is their best hope for a continuation of the present corrupt system of payoffs to American politicians (Citizens United style “campaign financing”).

That system, of Big Business control and ownership of the U.S. Government, ensures Big Money’s freedom to continue stealing from the public by:

– manipulating the national economy (evading regulatory oversight and taxes, getting “too big to fail” public bailouts for gambling losses),

– grossly exploiting workers (domestic and foreign),

– violating Earth’s climate and environment (with extractive industries and chemical-GMO agri-monocultures),

– and subverting foreign governments and launching wars (to “open markets”).

Financial advantage is the only logically justifiable reason to vote for Hillary Clinton, and also the only essentially criminal one (“Behind every great fortune is a great crime” – Balzac). Most of Hillary’s voters do not have the financial wherewithal to justify their support with this clear-eyed logic, theirs are emotional choices, as follows.

Aggrandizement of One’s Self-Image

Many of Hillary’s voters are entranced with their self-image of rising to the occasion of helping to make a historic advance by voting for the first American woman elected to the US presidency. The bragging rights and emotional uplift to be gained from this supersedes any other consideration, Hitler-in-skirts could get elected by these people. It is useless to talk logic and facts with such cultists, theirs is an ecstatic blindness to all of Hillary’s failings and the negative potentialities if she gains power.

The more rational among this segment of Hillary’s voters can be lower-level functionaries in the Democratic Party and organizations allied with it, who seek promotion within their organizational and corporate structures. These are “company men” and “company women” who want to feel good about their subservient ambitions, timid joiners who value their acceptance by the DNC-Tammany Hall herd, and need to go along to get along and maybe get ahead.

Power by Association, to Counter a Sense of Weakness

Many women who have been wronged by faithless men feel an instinctive bond with Hillary Clinton (Bill Clinton is a masher). They want to see a reflection of themselves raised to a position of great power, and their vote for Hillary is a subconscious act of vengeance on their male persecutors.

These are votes motivated by a sense of weakness seeking power, and respect, by association. Such women are viewing the election through the lens of their own wounded emotions, and fearfulness, and this exclusive self-focus blinds them to any logical consideration of the benefits to their own children’s futures with a Bernie Sanders presidency.

Validation by Association, to Justify a Sense of Entitlement

There are many happily situated American women who are enthused to vote for Hillary Clinton because they also want a reflection of themselves raised to a position of great power. In this case the reflection is of spoiled brats with an overweening sense of entitlement. Hillary’s ascension to the presidency would give such women validation-by-association that their social and economic privileges are “deserved.”

“It’s all about me.”

The unifying principle between the four archetypes of Hillary Clinton voter described here is this: “It’s all about me.” Hillary Clinton is clearly a paragon of this principle, and it is easy to see why others who share it — whether cynically avaricious, pathetically halo-polishing, pitifully acting out, or vainly self-absorbed — would gravitate into her black hole of political careerism.

Variation of Parameters

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My beautiful picture

Perhaps it was a change in the weather
that caused things to happen.
I remember warm winds
blowing up from the south in early spring,
and yellow moons in blue glazed nights.
The melting of the cell phones was first.
Overnight,
they were just frozen puddles of plastic and metal,
nothing seen, no heat felt,
just stone-cold carbonized slag heaps
in their hundred millions.
None have been made since –
they all dissolve –
as if the very form, even the concept
had been banished by some capricious god.
Soon after, every fifth spark plug failed,
crankshafts and turbine blades
inexplicably disintegrate.
No cause can be found, no process observed,
large gasoline motors rarely run, now,
there was much fearful whispering about gremlins.
Still, we all adjusted reasonably soon,
and then the great shock arrived –
all the money disappeared.
One morning,
no account could be found with a balance,
all bills showed zero totals,
all currency had vanished.
Everyone is penniless and free of debt,
work has no pay, selling has no buyers –
no obligations, no inducements.
At first, there was chaos, riots, death,
many went insane or took their lives,
“He’s gone back to look for his money,”
we say now –
our phrase for the departed.
Yet, soon enough, most people found occupations,
either from habit, inclination,
or simply to shake off boredom,
like a group of children
picking through a pile of costumes
to take on roles in a game.
In this game, we trade
for food, for our chores, for our entertainment.
With so much use of time,
and no easy accounting,
no one can accumulate
beyond the stores for a winter.
Our leaders bemoan the fall of civilization,
and, as they are ignored,
it must be so.
Our evangelicals howl in ecstasy,
dancing naked around bonfires through the night.
The children are delighted,
now, with so many schools close by,
and always elders, and relatives in attendance
along with their teachers,
so joyous, compared to what now seems imprisonment
in the old moneyed days.
I think it is the learning joy of children everywhere
that makes one feel as if always walking in a village,
even as it stretches between the oceans.
The young easily try on any role,
experimenting with great fervor,
adding such sparkle to the daily routines,
and reminding us to keep our perspective,
for they can leave without notice
for vacations of unknown length,
to satisfy the needs of the spirit.
Yet, in this ebb and flow,
all social needs are filled,
like the hollows children dig out at the beach;
our social lives are smoothed
by the washing of tides from an unseen ocean.
While the fortunes of many have tumbled,
most have tasted liberation, by now,
and those who have lost are left to their own devices.
Shortly after the money left,
the wars erupted – somebody had to pay.
By two years the shooting sputtered to a halt,
all the bullets were turning out to be duds –
plutonium turned to salt, rockets crumbled to powder –
and so they remain.
No explanations.
Our armies are helpless, vulnerable,
unable to attack, and unassailable.
The great migrations began when the guns died,
but soon quelled
when gold was found dissolved in the oceans,
and laced through the sand underfoot.
It is so common, now, it is worthless,
though most beautiful,
and a warm metal to replace broken teeth.
And so, we live under a mysterious power
we cannot explain.
We are people with a broken history
and a continuously randomized future,
liberated from our parallel lives of isolation,
and the apprehension of survival.
Around here, we each hoe our gardens
while spending long afternoons watching clouds curl,
or walking into town to carry home a gallon of milk.
Just this afternoon,
I heard the pub switched from sports on TV to poetry –
for a change.
Maybe I’ll go down and have a few, tonight.

17 February 2003

About Trump’s 1998 Quote

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Trump 1998

[This is not an actual Trump quote, but someone’s characterization of Trump-speak. Still, I think my response remains a valid explanation of Trump’s popularity with his supporters.]

MG,Jr. (on Trump 1998, see picture): Probably 1/3 of the people voting for him think precisely the same thing.

Ella Garcia (on above comment): That doesn’t make sense. Are you saying there are Democrats that are voting for Trump?

MG,Jr response:

There are blue collar (craft & trade laborers, and non-professional workers, non-college types) and rural workers (wage earners [poorer], rather than dividend-earning [richer] investors), who can be:

1, anti-immigrant because they fear labor competition (that lowers wages offered for jobs that become harder to get), and

2, racially bigoted (which is often how poor people convince themselves they are intrinsically superior, and “deserving”),

3, who can also be religious (Christian) fundamentalists, and so also

4, often sexist (women are 2nd class people and need to be controlled by men, so abortion is “immoral,” and “murder” punishable by government)

who are ALWAYS suckered to vote for the Republican Party, which is controlled by very savvy college-educated Big Business/Wall Street types (bankers, financiers, defense industry executives, major media owners), who play on the fears and biases of these “hicks” and “rubes” and “white trash,” (which is how these Republican Party insiders think of their “voter base”) to get their Big Business-owned candidates elected (like Ronald Reagan [1981-1988], George H. W. Bush [1989-1992], George W. Bush from 2001-2008).

These “populist” Republican Party voters have been called the “Tea Party” in recent years, and they have come to HATE the rich snobs who play them for votes (for Republicans), and then never work to make an economy that provides them with decent jobs. Also, the Tea Party people HATE the rich/corporate R.P. snobs for never following through on any of the “punishments” the Tea Party people want to see inflicted on the “inferior” and “threatening” people Tea Partiers want to be “protected” and “distanced” from, and who “should” be prevented from competing with them economically (in the labor market): blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, “uppity” women.

The smarter and/or more thoughtful of these Tea Party Republicans (right-wing populists) want to up-end the Republican Party, and that is why they are so enthused about Donald Trump: someone who spouts their views and is NOT owned and controlled by the Big Business “East Coast Establishment” that has owned the Republican Party since the Civil War [since Abraham Lincoln, from 1859].

In that 1998 quote, “Donald Trump” said aloud what the Republican Party Establishment thinks but does not say aloud (to not anger “the base” and then have a mutiny), and many in that base now know this, and are voting for Trump PRECISELY because he is what the Republican Party Establishment DOES NOT WANT. Hillary Clinton is the most favorable (and widely popular) candidate today for the interests of the Big Business establishment (whether under the “Democratic” or “Republican” labels). So, right-wing populist Tea Party “disrupters” are voting for Trump to vote AGAINST the continued control of the Republican Party by the Big Business interests.

This is quite similar to Bernie Sanders’ voters, who are supporting Bernie (and hating Hillary) because they want to wrest control of the Democratic Party from the Big Business interests (called the Democratic National Council = DNC, a Big Business-financed party-control group founded by Bill and Hillary Clinton).

So, YES, there are plenty of grassroots Republicans who are voting for Trump because HE IS NOT A HYPOCRITE; he has “outed” the R.P. establishment (by saying aloud what they think in secret but deny publicly), which demonstrates he is not controlled by them, and that is a rebellion that the populist Tea Party people are excited to join.

What the candidates represent are the following:

Donald Trump — bigots in rebellion against control and exploitation of the (“superior” and “deserving”) working people, by Big Business (i.e., the East Coast Republican Party establishment);

Hillary Clinton — Big Business in a fool-and-control-the-public campaign to maintain the corrupt system they now have (of payoffs to politicians) for freedom to manipulate the national economy for their benefit (e.g., shamelessly exploiting labor), by ownership/control of the government;

Bernie Sanders — an inclusive (non-bigoted) rebellion against control and exploitation of all the people, by Big Business (i.e., the DNC/Wall Street establishment in the Democratic Party, as well as the long-standing Big Business establishment in the Republican Party).

When Bernie Sanders said that the national election he is hoping for is between him and Donald Trump, he meant that such an election would be the result of the first part of his revolution having occurred: the Big Business controllers of BOTH the Democratic and Republican parties would have lost the the allegiance of the people (the majority). In that case, the national election (between Sanders and Trump) would be a contest to determine what kind of populist administration we would inaugurate in 2017: Trump’s right-wing nationalism (like early Mussolini, with some crudeness similar to that of Berlusconi), or Sanders’ all-inclusive democratic socialism (like the best of European systems).

Una Rosa de Francia — Español-English

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Una rosa de Francia,
cuya suave fragancia
una tarde de mayo
su milagro me dio.
De mi jardín en calma
aún la llevo en el alma
como un rayo de sol.

Por sus pétalos blancos
es la rosa más linda
y hechicera que brinda
elegancia y amor.
Aquella rosa de Francia,
cuya suave fragancia
una tarde de mayo
su milagro me dio.

Una Rosa de Francia is a bolero-son composed in Santiago de las Vegas, Cuba, in 1924 by Rodrigo Prats, based on a lyrical poem by Gabriel Gravier. The poetic lyrics are a reminiscence of a lovely white rose from France that flowered in the poet’s garden and unforgettably captivated his senses one afternoon in May. Though unspoken, the poem communicates the memory of receiving a gift of love one May afternoon of a past life, and of retaining the warmth of that experience in a grateful heart.

The bolero part of Una Rosa de Francia is the slower-tempo melodic-romantic first part of the song, which presents the poem. The son part of the song is the second, upbeat rhythmic part with Afro-Cuban lyrics (of course, the entire song is both melodic and rhythmic, but each half has a different emphasis).

The original form of the song was all bolero, with the music accompanying the second verse of the poem being a bit more animated. In the recordings listed below, Barbarito Diez and Esther Borja perform the original form of Una Rosa de Francia, while the later version with the added Afro-Cuban montuno section is performed by Los Guaracheros de Oriente, and Compay Segundo with Omara Portuondo.

I do not know what the Afro-Cuban lyrics mean, and I have adjusted the spelling of these lyrics to correspond to the manner in which Los Guaracheros de Oriente sing them.

The following two articles (in Español) describe the composition of Una Rosa de Francia. The first article concentrates on Rodrigo Prats. The second article describes the contribution of Gabriel Gravier, the lyricist, and was written by his son Leonardo Gravier.

Sobre Una Rosa de Francia, de Rodrigo Prats (I)
Josefina Ortega
5 February 2013
http://www.habanaradio.cu/articulos/sobre-una-rosa-de-francia-de-rodrigo-prats-i/

Una Rosa de Francia florece en Santiago de las Vegas
Leonardo Gravier (hijo de Gabriel Gravier)
Jueves, 14 de Mayo de 2009
http://sdlv.blogspot.com/2009/05/una-rosa-de-francia-florece-en-santiago.html

<><><><><><><>

Una Rosa de Francia
(Bolero-Son, 1924)
Rodrigo Prats (1909-1980) y Gabriel Gravier (poema/letras)
Interpretación de Los Guaracheros de Oriente.

Una rosa de Francia
Cuya suave fragancia
Una tarde de mayo
Su milagro me dio.
En mi jardín
En calma,
Y aúm la llevo en el alma
Como un rayo de sol,
Y aún la llevo en el alma
Como un rayo de sol.

Con sus pétalos blancos
Es la rosa más linda
Hechicera que brinda
Su elegancia y olor.
Y aquella rosa de Francia
Cuya suave fragancia
Una tarde de mayo
Su milagro me dio,
Y una tarde de mayo
Su milagro me dio.

[coro]
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá.

[primera voz]
A—
Iborele, iborele
A coroná siraguá
Iborele, iborele
A coroná siraguá.

[coro]
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá.

[instrumentál]

[coro]
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá.

[primera voz]
E—
Iborele, iborele
A coroná siraguá
Iborele, iborele
A coroná siraguá.

[todos]
Iborele, iborele
A coroná siraguá
Iborele, iborele
A – co-ro-ná – si-ra-guá. —

<><><><><><><>

My Rose from France
(Bolero-Son, 1924)
Rodrigo Prats (1909-1980) & Gabriel Gravier (poem/lyrics)
Interpretated by Los Guaracheros de Oriente.
Translation by Manuel García, Jr.

There was one rose from France
of such delicate fragrance
and to me one day in May
its miracle gave.
Now, in my garden
in its calmness
my heart holds to that fondness
like a ray of the sun,
my heart holds to that fondness
like a ray of the sun.

With the white of its petals
the most lovely rose flowering
magically offering
elegance and sweet scent.
And that one rose from France
of such delicate fragrance
to me one day in May
its miracle gave,
to me one day in May
its miracle gave.

[chorus]
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá.

[first voice]
A—
Iborele, iborele
A coroná siraguá
Iborele, iborele
A coroná siraguá.

[chorus]
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá.

[instrumental]

[chorus]
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá
Iborere, iborere
A coroná siraguá.

[first voice]
E—
Iborele, iborele
A coroná siraguá
Iborele, iborele
A coroná siraguá.

[all]
Iborele, iborele
A coroná siraguá
Iborele, iborele
A – co-ro-ná – si-ra-guá. —

<><><><><><><>

Recordings of Una Rosa de Francia on the Internet:

Los Guaracheros De Oriente — Una Rosa de Francia
(Bolero-son, with “Iborere…”; 1950s-1970s country style)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuzTam0NrSw

Barbarito Diez — Una Rosa de Francia
(Danzón Cubano; no “Iborere…”; 1930s-1950s ballroom style)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P726IiOi-7c

Esther Borja — Una Rosa de Francia
(Bolero, aria; no “Iborere…”; 1930s-1950s concert style)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWwTeV6qcI

Compay Segundo – Una Rosa De Francia (#1)
(with Omara Portuondo at L’Olympia Theatre, live in Paris 1999, with “Iborere…”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVuHTQm0810

Compay Segundo — Una Rosa de Francia (#2)
(1999 studio recording, with “Iborere…”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhDxXq6rp0c

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Bernie versus the Leftist Halo-Polishers and Clinton Vanity Queens

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These comments were written after reading articles (on Counterpunch and Facebook, 26-30 March 2016) by sanctimonious leftist “anti-imperialists” (Paul Street and Eric Draister, in particular), complaining about Bernie Sanders, who they see as not being a “real” socialist, and of ‘certainly’ being another pro-US military imperialist and pro-drone War On Terror adherent.

These writers find the many enthusiasts for Bernie Sanders to be naive and simplistic for being distracted from organizing “real” and “authentic” anti-war and social justice movements, by the excitement and drama of the Bernie Sanders campaign and by their participation in American electoral politics in general. Presumably, those yet-to-occur authentic socialist anti-war movements would recognize the authors of these articles as essential mentors and leaders of those virtual movements of higher vision for the greater good.

On the other hand, maybe these snobbish blowhards, enamored with the loftiness of their visions, the superiority of their acumen, and the goodness of their secular holiness, missed what is obvious to millions: the Bernie Sanders campaign is the authentic mass movement in America for social justice, and against war and imperialism.

Empire abroad has its domestic reflection in colonialism at home. Democratic socialism at home has it projection abroad as a more diplomatic and internationalist-collaborative foreign policy. No political leader, including Bernie Sanders, is “perfect.” The issue here is to recognize reality, and to take advantage of a historic opportunity in the here-and-now of our imperfect country in an imperfect world, to make some tangible changes in the near future for the better, for the real lives of real people (millions, perhaps billions of them). “In a land without sheep, a goat is a prized possession.”

Nitpicking the color scheme and appointments of a lifeboat plucking you out of the ocean after a shipwreck, or of a firetruck arriving to hose down your house that has burst into flames, or of Bernie Sanders’ misalignments with your personal vision of a worthier “foreign policy” despite the current reality of US foreign policy (of a Clinton-Kissinger and Obama-Reagan variety) is definitely the symptom of a self-righteous snobbish elitist sense of entitlement: “I am holier than thou (y’all simple-minded clods) because I am the most refined gourmand of utopian political philosophies, and I polish my halo and pedestal thus (as I shall school you in my erudite sermon of complaint).”

This nation has too damn many spoiled brat privileged white boys and girls, from the over-educated under-achieving, self-important anti-imperialist internet leftists who can’t bring themselves to vote for an “imperialist” Bernie Sanders, and who don’t have any concept of what a minimum wage raised to $15 an hour means to tens of millions, or of what a revolution that would represent in this country. Also, we have too many self-absorbed high-earning white female “feminists,” who want to safeguard their “right to choose” but don’t particularly care if their daycare nannies earn less than $15 an hour (minimum wage in South Carolina is $7.75/hr., unlicensed daycare workers get “whatever”) or gain socialized healthcare. They have to vote for Hillary Clinton, regardless of the consequences, because Hillary is just like them: vapid and entitled.

Realistic revolutionaries take the favorable opportunities that history may surprisingly offer them at a propitious moment — with gratitude (easily felt if you have a family or cultural memory of oppression) — and then subsequently try to eliminate the blemishes of these imperfect gifts of historical quantum jumps of liberation, after the revolution is established.

People are people, they are imperfect, they will never be perfectly agreeable, so politics never ends. Peace is an endless continuing process, it is not a static finality; there is no perfect politics, no perfect state, no utopian terminus to actual human societies.

Get real, and stop complaining that reality always fails to match your ideal — it never will. “In politics, the choice is never between good and evil, but between the preferable and the detestable.” In the reality of America in 2016, Bernie Sanders is by far the preferable. Don’t waste my time with your vain navel-gazing and halo-polishing.

Today’s View of Campaign 2016

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To refresh your memory about the status of Campaign 2016: Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Party’s Nixon, and is the opponent that the Confederacy prefers Donald Trump to beat in the general election. Bernie Sanders is the candidate that the American people prefer to be the next American President.

Even though Hillary Clinton is the donna of an organized crime syndicate known as the DNC-controlled Democratic Party, many Americans are keen to vote for her.

What do I say to “proud Hillary Clinton voters” who protest over my characterizations of their candidate and their voting choice: if you know what your are doing, it’s criminal, and if you don’t know what you are doing, it’s stupid.

The criminals-for-Hillary are simply cold calculating careerists, logically pursuing self aggrandizement. For them the vote is an investment. The muddled-brained-for Hillary are “I will make history by voting for the first American woman president” cultists. For them the vote is a pathetic grasp at self-importance by association.

Why else join the parasites whose career hopes cling to the Tammany Hall DNC-Clintonite Democratic Party, and cling to the establishment’s duopoly in general? Why else vote for a continuation of the Wall Street owned, duopoly-fronted, Citizens United underwritten, American economic plantation?

Trump is leading a bigot’s liberation insurgency in a Pickett’s Charge against the right flank of the duopoly: the Republicans, and seeking to separate the “wheat” from the “chaff” — as he sees it — in the many-flavored mix of the American people. Sanders is leading a workers’ (wage earners’) insurgency in a broad assault on the duopoly across its entire line, and seeking to harmonize the many personal bubbles of self-centered world view within the American popular mix, with a unifying democratic-socialist vision.

If Donald Trump wins the presidency, The Wall Street ownership club will restructure a Republican Party around him, and through it slowly reabsorb him into control, like a Venus Flytrap gradually digesting a captive insect.

If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, nothing changes. We will all continue to pick Wall Street’s cotton with Scarlett O’Hara Clinton (whip in hand) benevolently smiling down upon us.

If Bernie Sanders wins the presidency, the rebels in the Democratic Party will have won, or at least gained the upper hand, in the intra-party civil war between the socialist reformers and the corporate kleptocrats, and Bernie will carry on with the reform movement on a national scale.

Choices 2016

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Trump versus Clinton,
bigotry versus corruption.

Clinton versus Sanders,
corruption versus liberation.

Sanders versus Trump,
liberation versus bigotry.

Trump versus Clinton,
disgrace versus defeat.

Clinton versus Sanders,
defeat versus renewal.

Sanders versus Trump,
renewal versus disgrace.

We are what we choose,
“character is fate.”

Renewal

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My beautiful picture

Renewal

The cherry blossoms have been unfurled for over two weeks now, and they are beginning to flutter down like snowflakes illuminated by sunlight with each gusty wind. Two Robin males scuffled in an oak, quivering the leaves and then dropping as a roiling mass to the ground, sweeping out clouds of dust with furious wingbeats till one bird shot into flight and away, and a satisfied female Robin glided from her viewing perch to join her victorious mate. The hummingbird chicks have already fledged. Crickets and frogs sing after dusk and well into the night; and showers fall gently like velvet curtains that soon lift, unveiling a crisp brilliant world. The days are longer, the sun is warmer, the air soft and perfumed; it is spring.

Despite the crises of humanity, and despite our own urgencies and preoccupations, Nature cycles majestically on, renewing itself at every moment and in every gesture, oblivious to our preferences. The streams swollen with spring meltwater or the runoff of spring showers carry the weathered chaff of mountains down to the sea, slowly feeding the creation of future rocks from the destruction of older ones. The warming earth slowly exhales organic vapors once trapped in frozen ground or as living plant matter, even as new shoots and blossoms emerge. Nature is an entwinement of cycles in continuous change, a completely dynamic reality that has no static state nor time of pause, however calm it may momentarily seem to us. “You cannot step twice into the same river,” said Heraclitus (c. 535 – c. 475 BC), and so it is with the continuous flow of reality. The only constancies in Nature are the processes that cycle matter, energy, and life through the evolving sequence of forms manifested as the universe we perceive.

Every now and then it is good for us to break the spell of our everyday preoccupations, the “ten thousand and one things” that distract us from seeing fundamental reality, the “Māyā” as it is called in Sanskrit, and simply feel our connection to the authenticity behind all our abstractions. Despite our ephemeral externalities, like our financial situation, the amount of marriage counseling we’ve been assessed as needing, the love or indifference of our children, our degree or lack of employment, “whatever” (the epithet for understanding, these days), we embody Nature and thus the only eternity that has actual meaning. “Man is something Nature is doing,” Alan Watts (1915-1973) said in one of his lectures, and remembering that can help you to renew your outlook and produce your own attitudinal spring to counter the psychological gravity of our very imperfect and probably terminal global civilization.

Our externalities will soon enough fade away, and even our bodies will fall apart, ultimately exhaling our consciousness back into the churning void that continuously erupts matter, energy, and life as the Nature we are immersed in and express while visibly alive. During our time as flashes of life we can make our radiance sparkle instead of fading as a monotonous glow, by renewing our minds in ways that are simple and have long been obvious. In our obsessively acquisitive and unfairly competitive political economies, we can find someone to love by being faithful and caring, we can find trusting friends by being trustworthy, we can see some improvement in social conditions by resisting participation in schemes and occupations that are parasitic, mean-spirited, and dehumanizing. We can come upon beauty to enjoy by devoting time to the crafting of thoughtful and beautiful things and motions. We can be courteous, honest, and honorable despite their competitive disadvantages.

It is impossible to live without moral compromise in our civilization since so much of gainful employment involves exploitation of people and Nature, so we must forgive ourselves of our own sins and refuse judgments and guilt cast by others, but we must also make it a matter of personal honor to see that our actions propagate as little harm as we can manage. Attitude is character, and as Novalis said in his paraphrase of Heraclitus, “character is fate.” We experience a life that reflects the attitudes we express.

This ramble is not to be taken as a sermon cataloging a list of do’s and don’ts, but as an invitation to let the conscious part of you have a renewing spring regularly, just as the unconscious part, along with all of Nature, renew themselves on so many timescales with so many cycles: the beating of your heart, daily with the cock crowing, monthly with the Moon’s cool light, yearly with Spring’s resurrection of life; or at any sudden moment when you choose to empty the mind, dispel the Māyā, and actually experience life by sensing your breath.

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Originally published:

Renewal
8 April 2012
http://www.swans.com/library/art18/mgarci45.html

Poo-Tee-Weet (Happy Easter)
9 April 2012
https://manuelgarciajr.com/2012/04/09/poo-tee-weet-happy-easter/

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We Don’t Have To Be A Sow’s Ear

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There is an old saying: “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” After the primary elections of March 15, I see the American electorate as a sow’s ear, and I’m hoping the primaries between now and July change that view. Here is what I mean:

After the primaries of March 15, a friend observed: “Rubio and Kasich have both indicated that if Trump is the nominee of the Republican party, they may not be willing to support him, a dramatic break from tradition and previous pledges to do so. Presidential campaigns cost almost a billion dollars these days and many of the establishment Republican donors and PACs are starting to indicate that they may not be donating money to a Trump presidential bid. Trump may have to make good on his boast that he is self-funded. So far, he has been spending mostly other people’s money on his campaign, only about $250,000 of his own. It would be such sweet justice if he wound up bankrupting himself and lost to boot.”

Getting Hillary as president is no consolation for me. I’ll never vote for Hillary, and if the result is Trump, so be it. I will not be manipulated into voting for the oligarchy/plutocracy. Given a choice between voting for corruption (Hillary) or accepting chaos (not voting for Hillary, and Trump winning), I choose chaos. If America is not ready to reform itself yet, then maybe a few years of Trumpian political chaos will dispel some illusions and stiffen some spines in favor of renewed revolution.

If it is Hillary that wins this November, then the Wall Street plantation will have weathered the storm of 2016 and Hillary will get a few years of cracking the whip — like Scarlett O’Hara — to keep most Americans picking cotton for Wall Street. I wonder what’s in those $225,000 speeches Hillary gave to Goldman Sachs, privatize Social Security?

However, Bernie Sanders has led a young generation to see the light, and they will persist against America’s corrupt gerontocracy beyond Bernie’s time in public life.

Trump is an American Mussolini, a blowhard who surfs high on the wavecrest of the accumulated frustrations of legions of underachieving less-educated white males (and females!) who are envious of wealth, impatient with critical thought, and who gain emotional uplift venting their noise in Trump’s bigots’ liberation movement. Trump is a branding expert who knows how to get maximum attention with minimum cost, he won’t have to spend much for a continuing campaign. The media will cover Trump religiously because he is total entertainment, brings in mega-viewership, and thus maximizes the networks’ ability to charge and get top dollar for advertising that frames the video clips of his antics. You have to think of capitalism as a disease, a virus of the mind that reprograms the body into an obsessive compulsive behavior of blind accumulation: zombies, the living dead of thoughtless grab.

For the general election campaign, Trump’s legion of fanatics will pony up if need be, especially if they are told it is to ward off the evil Hillary (and she is evil). Also, numerous of the Republican moneybags will want to put some of their chips in with Trump’s campaign stakes on the political poker table, because they will want to buy into some access in case Trump actually pulls it off and then has real power to grant favors. Remember: mental disease.

What I get out of the less-than-desired vote for Bernie in the primaries of March 15 — assuming that this is the trend from here on out — is the following.

1. The American political system is completely corrupt, which is a natural consequence of it being entirely in the service of a thoroughly corrupt economic system (of slavery, basically).

2. A majority of Americans — male, female, white, black, other — support that system, and are voting to keep it.

3. A majority of Americans — male, female, white, black, other — are not willing to vote for (support) a movement to reform America’s political and economic system, as is clearly shown by their unwillingness to vote (in majorities) for the Bernie Sanders campaign.

4. You can’t vote for the system and then whine about being a victim of it, and justifiably expect any sympathy.

That the electorate’s preference against reform (and redistribution) is entirely against its interests is obvious to all, and negates any justification to feel pity for this electorate. Spartacus gained history’s everlasting respect because he revolted against his slavery and lead a multitude of other slaves in a war to free themselves. Slaves who vote for their slavery gain neither pity nor respect, and their subsequent pleas for more scraps from master’s table will fall on deaf ears.

5. If you support the system, you share its characteristics.

Based on the primary returns to date, a majority of Americans — male, female, white, black, other — are corrupt, that is to say morally weak. They are not innocent and undeserving victims of capitalist exploitation (which they yowl about when it’s their turn to get screwed), they are enablers, the lowest grade of perpetrators but perpetrators nonetheless.

In this sense our democracy is working, the ruling class, which is selected by: acclaim, popular votes through consumption dollar choices, and ballot box choices, does in fact reflect the character of the electorate. If that character is one of corrupted morals and ethics, small-minded selfishness and intellectual mediocrity, then the ruling class distilled from the popular stew will also be a morally bankrupt mediocrity, and obsessively compulsive about self aggrandizement.

If we get Trump as president it will be undeniably horrible, where that “horrible” is in comparison to what could have been (what we could have been). A Trump presidency would be honestly bad.

If we get Hillary as president it will be a horribleness in denial of its true nature. A Hillary Clinton presidency would be dishonestly bad.

I would prefer not to believe what I have written above about the majority of the American electorate. So, I hope that voting in favor of Bernie Sanders increases significantly in the primaries to be held between now and July.