Farewell To A Friend

 In loving remembrance of my dear friend John Charles, I am happy to share an account of my last meeting with him and some reflections/examples on the character of this extraordinary human being.

Knowing that Debby and I would be returning from a trip to Oregon in Early September, John and I seized on the opportunity to meet up in Yreka upon our return to California on Labor Day, 9/6. As planned, we met for lunch at the local Black Bear Diner where we enjoyed a meal and the time together sharing our thoughts on a variety of subjects. He began by speaking about his daily routine, which notably included participation in his local Sangha (discussion/reading group) as well as his daily yoga practice and trip to the local gym. As is our practice, we then discussed our sons (Christian and Jake), their progress, and our mutual desire for their happiness. He reflected on Christian’s recent work as a pitching coach and the prospect of pursuing a more permanent career as a baseball coach going forward. As always, his love for his son was clearly evident.

We then began to reminisce about the time John visited us in San Francisco several years ago when we walked the cliffs at Land’s End, continued the stroll through Golden Gate Park, shared time at the local coffee house, and attended a Thich Nat Hanh seminar. This led to reaffirming our mutual attraction to and love of the work of Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) and our ongoing commitment to being peaceful warriors in an environment not necessarily committed to the same values. This, in turn, yielded a lively discussion about our respective interactions with the FBI in response to our past and present efforts to resist violence as a means to resolve conflict. The work of Gandhi was invoked as I noted that John singularly reflected the principle of embodying the change that one might want to see manifested in the world. And that was the beautiful and inspiring thing about John: he actually walked the talk; he was consistently and persistently kind in word and deed. True to form, John then shared with us his happiness that a recent refund of money could then be used to help a friend in need...walking the talk indeed! Our time was short and the road southward soon beckoned so we said our goodbyes with palm to palm and a heart to heart embrace...this image will remain with me in the wake of his absence.

John Charles embodied peace and kindness, and, in so doing, made manifest a new way of being in this oft-troubled world desperately in need of a change of direction. These qualities were on clear display in what was to be our final encounter and they will continue to inspire me as I attempt to emulate his excellent example. John has been called home to the source of his gentle power and influence during his allotted time on Earth. Those of us privileged to have known him are forever grateful for his presence in our lives.

Veterans Day

 Remembering and honoring all the veterans (many of whom are also military veterans) of the peace movement and their service to this country in an continuing effort to eliminate the archaic, counterproductive, and barbaric institution of war.

In The Aftermath

 Thought regarding the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd: One measure of justice achieved and noted...let us all now work ever more diligently to make it commonplace.

Improved Relations

Hoping that, as we move away from the toxic madness of the previous four years, good-faith debate and reasoned argumentation will replace cynical mockery and mean-spirited name calling as our prevailing mode of interaction and discourse.

An American Spectacle

 As we prepare for our annual celebration of Americana, gaudy pageantry, and rank consumerism that the Super Bowl event is guaranteed to invoke, we also might be reminded of the way in which Trump and his entourage experienced the events of January 6th. Clearly captured on an in-house video, we see the likes of Don Jr., girlfriend Kimberley and other rather jubilant participants reveling in a party-like atmosphere with music blaring while Kim happily dances before our eyes. Meanwhile nearby, the President of the United States views, on massive TV screens, the soon-to-unfold spectacle of the nation’s Capitol being ransacked by an incited and violent mob of angry white nationalists in much the same way he might enjoy a Sunday afternoon game of football. So come this Sunday, after the obligatory fly over (our ritualistic homage to militarism) and the fully anticipated barrage of pyrotechnics, we too might enjoy the uniquely American display of jingoistic pride as we, yet again, collectively divert our attention away from the reality of our decline and, instead, revel in the illusion of our magnificent, superior, and exceptional facade.

Predators Exposed

 Saw the movie The Assistant last night (Hulu) and offer the following observation: an excellent and understated exploration of sexual harassment in the workplace and the larger issue of cultural male privilege as it relates to sexual predatory behavior. The film is wonderfully spare and economical as it chronicles a day in the life of an assistant to a movie mogul with Proustian attention to detail. The pace and tenor of the scrip reminds one of the 1952 classic, High Noon. Writer/director Kitty Green has, like Carl Foreman and Fred Zinnemann before her, created an insular world in which the moral dilemma of the protagonist (brilliantly played by Julia Garner) is revealed subtly without forced emphasis. Garner accomplishes this with an amazing ability to render her internal straggle to the audience largely non-verbally devoid of hyperbole or dramatic excess. This, in turn, allows the lean dialogue to have an even more permanent and meaningful effect. Another outstanding aspect of this film is the way in which sexual abuse/harassment is portrayed as part and parcel of a culture that has normalized and allowed for such wrongdoing to exist. The complicity of the mogul’s subordinates was shown with stunning nonchalance so as to underscore their participation in a such a system for preservation of their own professional survival. The upshot is that Green and Garner have teamed to present the everyday workings of a world in which the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, Jeffery Epstein, et al have been allowed to continue their pernicious and evil practice relatively unchecked. The Assistant goes a long way to put these actions in their proper perspective and hopefully, in so doing, shine new light on an old and enduring societal problem.

Begging Your Pardon

 In the shadow of Trump’s outgoing and excessive use of the presidential pardon, it might be useful to remember that the intended purpose of this executive power is to right an existing wrong, to correct a judicial mistake, to heal a societal wound, and to uphold the rule of law; not desecrate it. Nor is it to be understood as an assertion of regal authority but rather as the exercise of a solemnly considered act of restorative justice.

Individual And Collective Accountability

 Prior to last week’s Trump-led assault on our nation’s capitol, the conventional wisdom within the Democratic establishment was to, in the words of House Majority Whip Hakim Jefferies, ‘look forward; not back’ on the isssue of holding the Trump Administration accountable for the myriad of transgressions during the past four years, the most recent of which was DJT’s attempt to coerce the Georgia Secretary of State into committing election fraud by allocating the requisite votes to insure a Trump victory in the state after the results had been legally certified. This willful dismissal of wrongdoing is consistent with the Democratic Party’s track record of ignoring the need to pursue justice in deference to the perceived need to move ahead with the business at hand while allowing the sins of the predecessor to go unchallenged. The classic example of this approach was embodied by the Obama/Biden Administration’s decision to give the war criminals (entering a war in Iraq on a pretext based on the lie of non-existent WMD’s, subsequent atrocities involving the deaths of thousands of civilians, and the explicit policy of torture) within the Bush/Chaney regime. Sadly in 2021, it took an act of insurrection to finally persuade the Democrats to realize that accommodation for law breakers was not in the best interests of the country and that failure attend to the transgressions of the past does not lead to reconciliation and a clear path forward. As we might now see clearly, such a position will lead to the normalization of wrongdoing and the implicit assurance of its replication in the future.

This is precisely why all of the individuals responsible for last Wednesday’s act of wonton domestic terror need to be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This group should include not only the active participants in the violence at the Capitol building but also all of those enablers who quite consciously incited and encouraged a violent attempt to halt the lawful recording of the certified results of the Electoral college’s vote for the next President and Vice President of the United States. In so doing, this mob of insurgents attempted to subvert the will of the people and the democratic process itself. These actions, unlike the unaddressed crimes cited above, must be adjudicated and the perpetrators and enablers must be held accountable in order to preserve the rule of law, which is a bedrock of our democracy.

There also is a larger reckoning that we must embrace here in this still-relatively nascent republic. We must collectively decide between the hopeful promise of genuine patriotism and the narrow confines of rank nationism. This will entail, perhaps for the first time, a decision as to who we want to be as a people. This, in turn, will require us to confront the ongoing and persistent presence of an ethnocentric nationalism that holds that whiteness, as a functioning cultural institution, is endemic to our consciousness and is in dire need of serious and permanent repair. The recent hate-filled actions of white-nationalists at our nation’s doorstep underscores their anger and fear of losing historical dominance while the clarion call of the Black Lives Matter movement provides testament to the fact that time is indeed up for us, as a nation, to accept the challenge of coming together in brotherhood and sisterhood by embracing our common humanity and rejecting the paradigm of separation based upon race. The drama currently being enacted on our streets serves to remind us that the time is at hand to finally take a deep dive into truthfully answering the questions of who we have been, who we now are, and whither we all shall go into the future. We can chose to continue to follow the path of division as clearly displayed by those who would blatantly exercise their privilege on behalf of the preservation of that same privilege thereby proclaiming white-nationalism as our ultimate identity; or we might now rise, as patriots, to actually embrace, embody, and fulfill the promise of an America at once enriched and empowered by its diversity in the service the ideal of authentic unity. The events of recent days have made it abundantly clear that our collective choice of national identity will determine our future as a functioning, vital and self-sustaining democratic entity. It’s up to us...we the people must choose well, decide, and create a more perfect union.

Swimming Against The Tide

 One of most enduring and self-indicting images from yesterday’s assault on the nation’s capitol was the photograph of Josh Hawley facing the mob of insurrectionists with a raise clinched fist thereby affirming and abetting the attempted coup about to unfold before our eyes. 

As we have previously stated, Mr. Hawley stands poised to inherit the Trump legacy of lawlessness as the titular leader of a GOP now transformed into a cult of aggrieved zealots dedicated to the hopeless cause of maintaining white supremacy while the nation undergoes a long-over due and welcomed transition to a multicultural and ethnically diverse society that more accurately reflects the reality of an emerging democratic representation of who we actually are as a people. Stanford and Yale educated, Hawley hopes to advance his personal political ambitions by becoming the freshly scrubbed, meticulously sanitized, and properly credentialed face of 21st century American fascism. Yesterday was an ominous precursor to the havoc Hawley and his minions would plan to inflict on an otherwise forward-advancing and hopeful majority of citizens equally dedicated to the realization of the American dream of a truly authentic democracy.

A legacy Of Chaos

The Trump inspired insurrection currently on display in our nation’s capitalist final evidence of the long-standing g need to remove DJT from office. The  The principal advantage of a second impeachment in the House and subsequent conviction in the newly constituted Senate is that DJT would be banned from ever holding an elected office again.

His role in today’s act of sedition only adds to his legacy of mendacious behavior, undermining democratic institutions, and unparalleled corruption. Today, not unlike his entire reign of staggering incompetence, will live in infamy.