When I was a little kid spouting the Pledge of Allegiance, I really believed all that “Indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all” stuff (after I figured out that it was “indivisible” and not “invisible.”) Kid-idealism, of course; but with a grain of truth, at least at the time.
No more. One of the saddest and most heartbreaking results of the incumbent administration’s complete and total “epic fail” is the fact that my countrymen and women are at each other’s throats. I have never witnessed extreme polarization like this in all my 50-plus years, including the dinner-table wars I had with my Dad over Vietnam back in the early 1970s.
It’s not just that the voters prefer one candidate over the other. It’s that the voters who prefer one candidate hate the other candidate’s guts, and on top of that, they also hate the guts of anyone who’s going to vote for the Other Guy. I cannot believe the hateful (and in some cases, ignorant and misspelled) rhetoric that I see on the blogs, in reader response columns, or even hear on the street. And I’ve been guilty of it myself – there is one player on the political scene that I can barely watch on TV out of dread and horror that she could actually sit in the oval office if a certain convergence of tragedies should take place. It’s inconceivable to me that anyone could even entertain the idea, and yet there are people out there who like her. By the same token, I’ve already voted for someone who is viewed as one of those "dangerous Moozlim commies” by people whom I would otherwise think are relatively sane. You see, I am just as polarized as everyone else.
What the hell is it going to take to get us together, people? An alien invasion? Because let me tell you, another war or a terrorist attack is NOT going to do it—that’s already been proven; twenty minutes after 9/11 the seeds for the deterioration of our civil rights had already been sown, and Clear Channel was already drawing up its list of Songs You Can’t Play on the Radio Anymore (like John Lennon’s “Imagine” – so much for “and the world will live as One.”) The event may have initially brought us together, but the response of our leaders over the long haul sowed some mighty divisive seeds. How? By doing the best they could do to make sure that we were all afraid, all the time. The Department of Homeland Security has set the current Fear Level at Orange (or possibly Red, at this point.) The sad polarization of this country has arisen because the current Powers That Be have managed to cultivate a state of omnipresent Fear and Loathing, exacerbated by the goose-squawking frenzy of the media – both sides of the fence – gobbling and clucking about how the sky is falling. Well, it IS falling, but it’s falling because of the situations that are being inflamed by the Fear, and the propaganda that says that Everything That’s Wrong is caused by those Other Folks Who are Not Like You. For some people that means immigrants, hippies, socialists, both welfare recipients AND Fat Cats, and “Muslims” and anyone else that professes to any religion that isn’t “Christian” (whatever the hell that means anymore.) For others that means neo-cons, people on the extreme right, “rednecks,” Bible-thumpers, pro-life activists, and corporate interests (and you know there has been some creative politicking in the last 30 years when Bible-thumpers, rednecks, and corporate interests are now represented by the same party – how the hell did that happen?)
Well, guess what. Everyone wants to be happy. No one wants to suffer. We all have that in common. This is the oldest cliché in the book, but if you want to work for peace, you simply have to start with yourself. Whatever you need to do to pour a bucket of cold water on your rage, do it. As I mentioned in a recent post, one of my spiritual teachers told me that when you are angry or in any kind of extreme state, the only way to get to the other side is to pass through “neutral mind” first. These teachers also suggested the radical idea that it’s possible to work for change with a great deal of conviction and still maintain a peaceful mind—and a mind full of rage may be motivated, but it sure ain’t peaceful, and I know that my mind won’t be peaceful until I can get from extremely frustrated and agitated to neutral. I don't mean a mind without opinion, without conviction, without motivation – but peaceful in the sense of having equanimity. And we won’t have one iota of success at equanimity as long as we are afraid. Am I afraid? Shit, yes—but I’m working on it. It’s important to work on it – because the true opposite of Love is not Hate, but Fear. Fear is the root; it causes all the hate, frustration, anger and venom to arise. I believe that there is a way to exist in the same space as Fear and act sane in spite of it; and I will continue to try. But most of us just fling ourselves against the side of the box and try to find someone to blame, someone or something to eliminate, or - most dangerous -- some authority figure who represents "safety," to whom we will sacrifice anything from money to our civil rights so that the nasty fear will go away. And those who would take away our civil rights know this, and they know that if they keep us all scared and hating each other’s guts, they have us right where they want us.
In her book Practicing Peace in Times of War,” Pema Chödrön writes:
If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That’s the true practice of peace.”
So friends, let’s wake up. Have you never heard the phrase “Divide and Conquer?” Don’t let this polarization and hate continue. Don’t you get it? That’s the bulls-eye that both the Rove-Cheney axis and Al-Qaeda have been aiming for.
