Two Steps Back

I've mentioned before that I believe that the US took a significant step forward by electing Barack Obama as President. However, I would argue that this week we took two steps backward regarding the torture debate.

First, let me come right out and say that I am absolutely against torture (my fantasies of Dick Cheney, jumper cables, and a waterboard notwithstanding). Now, I watch 24 and I get how useful it is as a storytelling device. But just like clicking my ruby slippers together won't actually transport me back home from the mystical land of Oz, torture doesn't work as a method for interrogation. It is effective as a tool for vengeance, but that's a big reason why it shouldn't be used. Even if it did work as an interrogation method, committing an act of violence to prevent a possible act of violence is an immoral act, something conservatives of this nation don't seem to understand no matter how many times they are reminded that Jesus allowed himself to be tortured to death for the sins of the world rather than fight back in self-defense. But what do I know... I'm just an agnostic who was required to study the Bible from front to back while attending a religious college.

Having said that, I wish Obama had not backed down like a little bitch about releasing those torture photos. On his first day in office, President Obama pledged openness in his administration. Now, he shows a willingness to cave under pressure from the largely irrelevant and immoral Republicans while trying to hide behind "protecting the troops", a tired retread of an excuse from the Bush days. Secrecy almost never serves the greater good. And generally if you must hide the truth in order to "protect" someone or something, the only thing being protected is your own self-interest. And anything you'll need to hide tomorrow typically isn't worth doing today.

Which brings me to Nancy Pelosi. While I'm inclined to believe that the CIA may have lied to her about the use of torture (after all, how can you trust an agency which is paid to lie to people for a living?), I'm also inclined to believe that Speaker Pelosi is just trying to cover her own worthless ass! She, and the rest of the Democrats in Washington, didn't have the balls to stand up to Bush and Cheney when it mattered and now, as her reward for cowardice, she must back pedal like a juggling unicyclist on a tightrope!

America likes to pretend it is some shining beacon on a hill. In reality, America is nothing more than a degraded crackhouse in a ghetto. How can it be any more than that when conservatives pretend piety while promoting ideals like torture (ie., revenge) which are antithetical to the values of Christ, while liberals promote intellectual truth, equality, and dignity for all but lack the personal strength to stand up for those values when the political winds seem to be blowing against them?

I still believe in that hope that Barack Obama was peddling during the election season. But now I have to have hope that he will eventually learn to stand up for what I believe.

Have fun and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

Call Me the Prime Optimist

I've been called a pretty negative person, at times. I admit it. In the past, when something bad would happen, I would often expect the sky to fall on me at every turn. And the thing is that if you go looking for trouble you tend to find it.

The strange thing is that I actually think of myself as uncharacteristically optimistic when it comes to my view of individual humans. As a group, humans can go to hell as far as I'm concerned since groups inevitably fall to the sin of group think. Let's face it, a bad idea is still a bad idea no matter how many people subscribe to it at the same time. But, individually, humans can be reasoned with, most of the time. And individuals tend to want to do what is right even at their own inconvenience.

The reason I bring this up at all is because I had lunch today with Maryanne, an old friend who is the mother of the first girl I ever fell in love with. Maryanne doesn't seem to trust government at all, regardless of who is at the helm. For my part, I'm pretty fond of government so long as it is run by people I like and agree with; otherwise I see government as obnoxious at best and oppressive at worst.

Maryanne and I got into a discussion about capitalism, socialism, and communism. Since I grew up in a trailer park, once lived out of my car for a month or two, and have grown to hate the hypocrisy of wealthy, religious, conservatives, I've become rather fond of the romantic notion of pure communism. (Before you freak out, with the exception of a few experimental villages or a couple of primitive tribes, there has never been a purely communist society on the planet. Nor has there been a purely capitalist one. Both are extremes along a continuum.) But since communism is so hard for capitalists to wrap their heads around (capitalism almost seems like a religion to some people) I'm happy to compromise with socialism.

What does this have to do with optimism? Well, in order to believe that pure communism could work you have to believe that people are intrinsically good. I do, because I see it all the time. When Raleigh was devastated by Hurricane Fran in the Fall of 1996 the city was without power and phone service for a week. The area could have descended into chaos, but it didn't. People came together and helped each other to cope with the situation until our technology was restored. And that is how most people respond to a disaster.

But the good in human nature goes deeper into psyche. Think about our entertainment (books, movies, TV shows). We don't normally root for killers, or rapists, or greedy businessmen. Our heroes, the ones we really like and root for, save the little guy, protect the distressed damsel, and fight the oppressive system for the betterment of society. We like watching characters do the good thing because intrinsically WE want to do the good thing. And we want to do the good thing not because some antiquated religious text tells us to; we want to do the good thing because we are good to begin with, and need to be, in order for the species to survive.

Granted, we don't always succeed at doing the good thing, but that doesn't stop us from trying.

Have fun and keep living life... and be good to one another!

The Magic of Hope

This is probably where I lose the attention of the conservatives. Just bare with me for a moment. I LOVE Barack Obama. Granted, he has lost some of his luster since the early days when even I mistook him for the second coming of Christ. But still, he's an impressive man with a fascinating background, beautiful family, superior intellect, and reflective demeanor.

But this isn't really about Obama. At least not directly. I'm curious about our fascination with hope. Of course, hope has always been an overarching theme of Obama's campaign, but he certainly wasn't the first, or the last. Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee both proclaimed themselves the men from Hope (Arkansas). Ronald Reagan's famous "Morning in America" ad was basically about hope. In pop culture, Star Wars: Episode IV is titled "A New Hope". A Google search for "Hope" returned 83,100,000 results. There's the movie Hope Floats, the old soap opera Ryan's Hope, the Hope Diamond, an incredibly large number of organizations use HOPE as an acronym or part of a 1-800 phone number, and even the Olivia Newton-John song "Hopelessly Devoted to You"!

So why? Hope implies that there's something wrong with the way things are now. Just looking at references to hope from the last 50 years you'd have to conclude that something is perpetually wrong with the world (or at least the US). Since the word hope appears in the Bible between 120 and 160 times depending on the translation I'm guessing that humanity's want for hope extends at least a few thousand years.

I would describe my first 32 years of life as definitively without hope. I hated the world and was sure it hated me back. Relationships would never last very long. I had a bunch of dead end jobs. By a rough calculation I'd estimate I had thoughts of suicide on around 10,000 separate moments. I seriously considered acting on the thoughts at least two dozen times, and I've had to resist the sudden urge to jerk my car into a concrete divider or oncoming traffic perhaps a hundred times. For some reason I never commited suicide. And I guess that reason was hope. No matter how horrible my life got I always had this dream that things could get better if I just lived long enough to see it happen. Well, that's not completely true, but you'd think I was nuts if I told you what I really was thinking. Suffice it to say, it had something to do with Einstein's theory of infinite universes.

So, I think hope is that thing which keeps us alive. Without a hope that things will get better we'd probably kill ourselves or the people around us. And the thing is, hope isn't that hard to find. Some people find it through religion, others through science, or, in my case, through my imagination. If your life is without hope don't give up. Keep looking until you find what it is you need to see you through. Start thinking of life as a game: You win if you survive long enough to beat it. And, as long as you're alive, that thing which will bring you hope is out there waiting for you to find it, even if sometimes that thing ends up feeling like a kick to the face.

Have fun, and keep living life... because it's the only way to win!