If I hate them I am like them. If angry, am like them. If I war w' them I hurt us w' them

[mythyc]

At 8 years old my grandparents took me to see Ghandi w' Kingsley when it debuted and I watched transfixed and reverent. This was the first time I remember feeling respect, thinking this is a great man.

At 16 as a junior in high school I read Dr. King’s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and still today, as a student and teacher of literature, I have read no work with so profound and prodigious a righteous humility as this. There, logic and compassion united in an unimpeachable notice not only of the truth and worth of its cause, but of what our best nature can, must be.

At 21 as a freshman in college I read Thoreau’s "Civil Disobedience" and glimpsed not simply how noble it is to decry the hatred and hypocrisy of entire societies that would silence and oppress the god-given humanity and dignity of others, but how imperative it is to do this with a calm temperament and principled spirit that will not let justice be muted.

It is only today, at 35, that I am realizing how not only essential but so very difficult it really is to emulate the tremendous labors and examples of these tremendous individuals and so many other courageous women and men like them who have given me and us such a paramount and exigent inheritance.

We have all been hearing and witnessing what’s been transpiring in the election these past two weeks. If for any reason you have not, you must make yourself aware; must educate yourself not only as a citizen but as a moral human being so that you have no illusions regarding the severity of the trials this country is facing, and of what it even more so at stake here; must assume your responsibility to know, face, and help overcome the challenges that we are facing at this our most pivotal and critical point of our generation, if not our country’s history.

A small sampling of video clips bares what we are up against:

(I’m posting a range to show how pervasive this has been becoming both in and out of the campaign)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBmO6YAszGU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itEucdhf4Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkFG1ebuKZU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOU9xZ4zcss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsjybbvd__o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyGH-n93r5U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGngj_35D_s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ykBr3SO6sg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQBr7JKhvI4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiESklGDuH4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41yS81RXKIs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJghQMq49dw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMCl49x8BfY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woNYeyOQnuI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvXf9AUHTqM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rUAFUoz3jc

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12rich.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1223813017-2rdB8NEqPARuMI2br4F01w

I watch these in shock and disbelief and my instincts react---they want to make my brain seethe and blood boil. Not simply because it is happening but how readily it is happening and how widespread the contagion so directly is.

Inasmuch my immediate gut reaction is disgust commingled with ire, abhorrence, revulsion, resentment, distress---and most of all nausea from and ill will towards the perpetrators of such hatred, cruelty, bigotry, and greed.

It is a pain wrought by the circumstances we find ourselves and our country, and therefore our shared fate, engrossed in.

But, just like these circumstances, this pain and indignation are not new: they have been there beneath the surface our whole lives, skulking around the various shades between our consciousness and subconscious and unconscious experiences, festering like a cancer of the psyche and nerves.

We have grown up knowing this anger and pain, feeling them in response to the senseless violence and bigotry that we have all our lives witnessed infesting not merely the dregs of society, but some of its most core institutions and venues, figures and characters.

For some of us more or less than others, this experience is like a crucible---at sometimes in the depths of our selves, restrained but constrained, repressed but impressed---at others right here, scratching grating or tearing at the surface of everyday consciousness, incessant and relentless, torrid and riotous.

.

Like many of you, throughout my adult life I have wrestled like Jacob with the erratic degrees of this crucible, but never so acutely or painfully as I have these past two weeks witnessing, as it appears, the full force of their cruelty and abusiveness begin to emerge.

And a sick sense warns it is just beginning.

So I have been getting more and more angry, I want to hate what is so plainly wrong, perverted, and abhorrent.

And it is exactly here that I to am just beginning, just beginning to realize what it means to face evil head on, what it really meant for Thoreau Gandhi MLK and countless countless others to have faced and still face the most destructive element--germ--virus of the worst of human nature----

Not simply to face it, but to take a stand against it. Not simply to take a stand against it, but to do the most essential and difficult work of effecting progress beyond this evil----

This is why I—we—must not simply , but learn by and inhere as and take forward their consummate example:

If I hate them I am like them. If angry, I am like them. If I war with them I hurt my country, my fellow man with them. Just as much I hurt myself with them.

…

We must not forget or neglect that we are and must be better than that, or else everything we strive for is compromised, menaced, threatened. Violence only begets more violence, whether that be physical, emotional, psychological, or social. The same is true for hatred, anger, bitterness, malevolence, discomposure, condescension, disdain, hurt.

And most of all, the same is true for the sources of all these in feelings, gestures, and affectations of conceit, grief, pride, and fear.

Emerson, Thoreau’s mentor, wrote “it cannot touch me”, and I’m beginning to understand that this is what he and the others meant, in both the declarative and the imperative senses: it must not touch me and if I achieve this and you and you and you achieve this, becoming we achieve this, only then can we transcend the infirmities of immediate evils and experience and declare that we—not I or you individually, but we in our common solidarity and stake—will not be touched by these.

Only then healing begins, then progress begins.

.

I write so deliberately and urgently because we all knew this was coming, yet who among us are still shocked and disturbed by the ugly and menacing face that it is taking? I have been exceptionally angry these past two weeks, have written and spoken nauseously about what has been transpiring all around us, have felt like the walls are closing in even though I have not once wavered from my faith and strong belief that the truth and what’s right will prevail in this election.

Because this is about more than the election.

Right now we are at a, the critical juncture in our shared history and future. At this moment how we proceed is vital, is everything. With as much as we are up against, everything depends on how we face the challenges that are arising so intensely and exactingly before us.

If we give into the visceral reactions I’ve been describing, we will not succeed, we ourselves will frustrate and thwart the very change we want to bring. Instinct is not always the better nature, and particular challenges call for a higher character within.

This is what I’m finally learning from the three seminal figures in our lives and history of Thoreau, Gandhi, and MLK, and from the thousands and millions of other either like them or following their examples. Righteousness must have patience, discipline, and humility to achieve the best of and for ourselves. To achieve this dignity humanity deserves, strives for, demands, we must have dignity ourselves.

…

At 31, four years ago, now as a teacher myself, I heard Obama attest to exactly this in what is still the most important and transformative speech I’ve heard delivered.

In the four years since and the past year in particular, I have been learning from this great man every time I hear and read him. Like his precursors, his patience and buoyancy and conviction are more than sincere inspiring or even purposeful---they are the foundations upon which change and progress must be built, without which these cannot be built. Foundations as much in the individual as in what we feel and work for in common, towards the vision of the fierce urgency of now. It’s an example that I must constantly remind myself of, the renewal of the most crucial vow: Stay positive, stay dignified, keep believing, and keep working. Only the audacious, determined, and composed hand can steer the ship through the tempestuous maelstrom of the impending storm.

[gateley]

1. Bravo. nt

[Sodan]

2. K&R

[BeFree]

3. Yes, well, indeed...

all that and numbers. Overwhelming numbers. We must out number those who are willing to use violence as a lever. One way to do that is to be an example to those who are willing to use violence to change their evil ways.... which is what Thoreau, Ghandi, and King all did.

And somehow, someway strive to make people quit ignoring the truth. We do all that and progress will progress.

[mythyc]

4. numbers indeed

One of my favorite words is crisitunity, homer simpson's neologism built on the Chinese word that means both crisis and opportunity. No question about it, this country is at a crisis point, but never have we had a greater opportunity to move ahead, and the numbers momentum and motivation all signify the scope of this opportunity. I believe great things are ahead of us, but only if we seize upon this opportunity and do the great work as a nation that is required of us. Only one aspect, a fundamental one, is to purge the blights of racism and ignorance that have afflicted us for so long. The energy and stimulus and impetus to find inventive, humane, and responsible ways to face and address the many other challenges before us follow from this, and you're right that the numbers and the will, particularly in the generational awakening this election is inspiring, are on our side.

[BeFree]

6. It seems

Ignoring some things is beneficial. That people are ignoring the racists is good. That people are ignoring McCain and Bush, and paying attention to the possibility that we can change things.

Too many folks don't have any trust that what they say and do will make a dif. But our old heroes and this new one, Obama, are proving to them that by setting out on a proper course we can make progress.

[mythyc]

8. I don't know if ignore is the right word, with either "enemy"

Thoreau Ghandi and MLK all practiced a very very active form of civil disobedience, and between them built a new model of galvanizing populations without the endless cycles of hate violence and enmity that had up to that point always characterized contests of will ideology and right.

Myself, I don't advocate ignoring anything, the racists especially. Note that I urge for being informed about what is currently happening--because we are going to need to be for practicality's sake, but also because we need to unite in solidarity to condemn this. My own stance is what disposition we take into that protest, which I believe should not perpetuate similar methodologies, rhetoric, or divisiveness. Not simply becuse this runs entirely counter to the progress and greater good we are seeking, but because such only amplifies and further breeds these evils.

dissent, on the other hand, is absolutely vital. All the more so against the Bush regime and neoconservative media/corporate conglomeration that has enabled and facilitated such wanton destruction and ignobility. Education, responsibility, active citizenship, and balanced reasoning are all absolutely key, and this is one of my primary purposes for being a college instructor. My students are currently completing a unit on propaganda analysis to that end, among others.....

[BeFree]

16. Ignoring

I don't propose that we ignore anything, only that the mass of people do. Basically they have ignored all kinds of problems and just went on their merry way.

The only good that comes from ignoring some things is that in so doing, our minds are freed up to concentrate on what we can do to make change happen. In my view, the people are ignoring the racists, bushco and McCain, and moving ahead.

We can't change the masses, but the masses can change us. But we musn't allow the mass to change us. We must be the change we want to see happen in the mass of humanity.

[mythyc]

17. agreed!

sorry, thought you were forming that inference from what i wrote rather than extending this vital and consequential point (my fault for being so damn self-conscious! guess i unwittingly turned the same stroke back around on ya ;)). great discussion, and thanks for your dialogue and insight

:patriot:

[chieftain]

5. I have never been a turn the other cheek type of person where

politics is concerned. I have always believe in warring with those who have declared war on us. And I admit to enormous anger at W and his cohort for what they have done and continue to do to my country and the world. That said, I am tremendously affected by what you have written. I don't know that even your superb use of language and compelling use of logic can talk me down from my basic confrontational approach to RWers. I will admit, though, that governance in this environment is going to require an attitude and temperament closer to your model than mine. But I am not certain that one can get to the point of governing unless we are willing to war with them.

[WinkyDink]

7. It's war, just like it was in 1941---vs. NAZIS. Obama isn't being passive.

HERE is what we are up against:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7421156

[mythyc]

11. see my post #8 above....

I know what we're up against, all too well, which was my reason for posting so many of the clips and the Times Op.Ed.

How one approaches battle determines the nature not just of the combat, but of the aftermath and reconstruction. On the metaphorical level, I was studying the catastrophic aftermath of WWI the other day, where it is common consensus among the historians that the Allies' impetuous and punitive approach to punishing Germany and haphazardly chopping up the Mediterranean had devasting effects not only in accelerating the course to WWII, but still today in regional conflicts and ethnic cleansings around the Med, especially in the Baltic regions (think Milosovich), between Greece and Turkey, and by extension between India and Pakistan....

Ghandi and MLK knew this all too succinctly, and I shudder to think how much worse off India and America would be had they used violent, vehement, or even vitriolic means to pursue their more noble ends.

[mythyc]

18. tried clicking that link but it came up blank. could you repost it?

thanks!

:dem:

[graywarrior]

9. When the student is ready....

Thanks, man. I really needed that.

[saltpoint]

10. What we are up against indeed.

A couple of observations.

You invoke King and Thoreau -- et al -- against what we're up against. It's powerful how a handful of great hearts & minds is worth so much more than an avalanche of bigotry and cruelty and ignorance.

One inroad toward diminishing bigotry and cruetly and ignorance is to teach young people that the example of a King or a Thoreau is superior to its opposite, and as a teacher, you are strategically positioned to do just that. Your students will evaluate models of adulthood now and 20 years and 40 years from now. My guess is that most of them will value the models you have held high before their attention.

The teaching your grandparents did for you in taking you to see that film is also crucial. You were lucky to have grandparents who did that kind of teaching so that you could do the kind you're doing now years later. And your grandparents are fortunate that you were the kind of grandchild who paid attention. Their instincts were right about showing you that film. Yours were right in interpreting it as a stay against bigotry.

Bravo.

[mythyc]

13. funny thing here is my grandparents were republicans....

irony has an interesting way of knitting and defraying generational fabric.

I disagree with most of their politics, but they were good people and valued humanity, justice, and responsibility very highly, and fostered that awareness in me and my brothers and cousins. I'll always be grateful to them for that.

:patriot:

[Teaser]

12. You do it your way, I'l do it mine

and mine includes hate and rage.

[mythyc]

14. I can only sanction righteous indignation, a powerful force

if the weapon is handled properly and wielded right

[saltpoint]

15. Yes. I don't see any argument anywhere that says that isn't

exactly what you are doing, and doing well. Carry on, and take the gratitude of other progressives with you into the battle.

Great post.

[hootinholler]

20. Ah WeedLeaper

Hate and rage are reactions. As H2OMan put it earlier in the year, how will you respond?

Forgive your enemies, but remember their names. - JFK

The Buddha teaches all are connected and that when you harm another you harm yourself.

Hate begets Hate, Rage harms yourself, Empathy is the teaching path. When you kill the father, you teach the sons hatred, when you heal the father, you show the sons empathy and teach love.

The greatest of these is love.

-Hoot

[mythyc]

19. too late to edit the original post, but I wanted to add the below clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utXFkXwaG7A

[NanceGreggs]

21. For once, I am speechless ... (K&R)

Incredibly inspiring post, my friend.


:patriot:

[JeffR]

22. A well reasoned, well written ode to being civilized.

Ironically, watching the videos was an exercise in trying to maintain calm, but we cannot triumph over barbarism by being barbarians.

Well done.

[Narkos]

23. Good reminder, Thanks for your thoughtful post.

I have been consumed by hatred for right wingers for several years now. It's almost an obsession. It's affected my relationships with my conservative family members. It has affected my emotional life in ways that are probably not healthy. Sometimes I feel like I need to be confrontational with these guys, but you are right that logic and reason will never appeal to these people. What will appeal is a calm and deliberate example of the rightness of your cause in action. I'm not there yet.

[jberryhill]

24. Thank you /nt