Hope all is well. Now that the Olympics are over, and there’s nothing to do in Vancouver except celebrate (and try to ignore the debt): a showing of Facing Ali!

Yes, for one night only, for any Vancouverites (or non-Vancouverites) who would like to see Facing Ali on the big screen, it is showing at the Pacific Cinematheque on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010, as part of a fundraiser benefiting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada. Tickets are ten dollars. I am pretty sure they are available at the door. The film will be showing at approximately 7:30pm.

I’ll be there for a Q&A and just to cause trouble in general.

Lots of love,

Pete

Pacific Cinemateque
200-1131 Howe Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 2L7
(604) 688-8202

There’s a moment in Facing Ali that has the 6′6″ Ernie Terrell in long straight pants and a dinner jacket, two days before his fight with Ali in 1967, singing (and he’s pretty good) on the Jack Benny show. The classic line of the song is, in reference to Cassius Clay changing his name to Muhammad Ali:

“Ain’t it a shame, you changed your name, I’ll change your features too.”

Actually, Ernie got pretty puffed up in that fifteen round loss, with some eye damage.

That has nothing to do with this Jack Benny line which I think is great. Upon receiving some sort of recognition for something, he said:

“I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis, and I don’t deserve that either.”

Not a bad way to look at life—and then really commit to be happy, generous, smile more and keep going. Smiling is a great thing, by the way. Better than great. And easy to do. If I write Big Fat Fart here, you might just smile. Maybe not. But even forcing a smile is a known Taoist Technique towards greater happiness, joy, and a really large forehead. And the famed Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, whom Martin Luther King said should have won the Nobel Peace Prize (during the Vietnam War), understood this when he said:

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

He’s not kidding. It’s science. I’ve been reading about smiling, and the honest to god chemical effect smiling has on the body. It’s something—with the release of dopamine and opioids and other things that make us feel better. Just by stretching your puss a little (please don’t misread that last line). It has to be a real smile—unfortunately called an Echt smile—as opposed to the Queen’s smile. But not a real, real smile. Just a real smile in that it engages the eye muscles, the laugh lines, too. Evidently it deepens the breathing, increases concentration, puts more oxygen and glucose into the blood and if you’re Japanese (who according to the article, don’t smile), it increases sales. Or so they said. Smile, for the love of god! It’s self-medicating in the positive sense. It’s our chance. For freedom. And even though it produces opiates, it’s legal. Prohibition is unlikely—unless you prohibit it yourself—but think of the violence that would cause. I haven’t stopped smiling for about three days now, no matter what, and I’m actually totally stoned right now from the big smile, barely even able to type, can’t drive and have my pants on my head. And I don’t care. I’m blissed out.

God, I love you. Just smilin’ away. What a life.

Pete xox

I read a few disparate things but somehow, my friends, and wrote about them and they link up. Either that or I’m multi-tasking again.

As an outsider, and despite knowing only a little about how the world may actual run, I am, and we are, as human beings, destined to have our own thoughts, opinions, likes and dislikes.

Was it an amazing moment when Evo Morales, the first indigenous head of state in Bolivia since the conquest, was elected President in 2006 in Bolivia? Yes, it was democracy and justice in paradigm-shifting proportions. He and the majority of people, finally represented, were able to come together, finally have say about their own lives, and throw out the Bechtel (Giant Water) Corporation who had become so tyrannical—with government support, no doubt—that the poor indigenous people were not allowed, legally, to even gather rain water. That is moral sickness in the extreme. It was reminiscent of the Machiavelli nature of multinational conglomerate Monsanto’s GMO seed drifting off one farm and landing in another’s farm, then Monsanto suing, and ruining, the second farmer for using Monsanto without permission (see Food Inc.).

So democracy in Bolivia is exciting and hopeful for so many long-disenfranchised (and partially forgotten) humans all across the globe—and for those who are less disenfranchised, too, because equality, hope, freedom, human rights and so on are stunning possibilities in this world and make life’s beauty even more obvious. And Evo Morales—hated by much of the elite in Bolivia, some of that being pure racism, some more being pure Power-based—has to be careful, I am sure, how he picks his friends. And, unsurprisingly, he aligns himself with the Latin American Left. That is understandable. We go where we’re wanted, where we’re embraced.

So on some level maybe he has no real choice. So he throws his political hat in with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. Now Chavez is at least democratically elected, although I think he is unfortunately showing a lot of signs of becoming one of those dreaded so-called caudillos (traditional Latin American Political Big Men, who were and are generally backed by Western interests—Chavez, of course, is not). But let us not forget the Americans supported the botched coup against this democratically elected nationalizer of oil. Hardly heart-warming international relations. And I believe one of the newspapers he has suppressed, also supported not his removal by election, but by the coup itself. Imagine if the New York Times supported the coup of an American president. That’s treason, n’est-ce pas? But you can always tell despotic tendencies by the desire to talk on television for hours on end—and doing so.

As for Fidel Castro? Yes, Castro, of course, represents for many the standing up to imperialists and oppressors—and his health care and education policies in Cuba (and shipping doctors around the world) are laudable, at times remarkable, even more so under the relentless economic embargo Cuba has withstood for forty-odd years.

But Castro has had over fifty years to bring in a democratic election. Just one. He’d probably win, for crying out loud. But he doesn’t do it. He is a dictator, and dictators are, by definition, oppressive, and against free speech. And what do we have, as humans, without free speech? Free speech is something utterly cherishable, and obtained only through stunning solidarity and struggle, and must be vigilantly held on to and refined. Otherwise we have, well…China, I guess.

The incarceration rate in the United States is appalling and insidious, astronomically greater than any other country, per capita, in the West (if not the entire world), with well over 2 million people behind bars today. Under President Clinton, for the record, the number jumped from 1 million to 2 million. The US, allegedly, has 4% of the world’s population, and 25% of the world’s incarcerated population.

In admittedly undemocratic China, in the dreaded Laogai, forced labour camps, with the motto “reform by labour”, have imprisoned between 40 and 50 million people (who knows how many for exercising free speech?) since 1949. Consider the remarkably courageous dissident Liu Xiaobo’s case here. Take a moment to consider what some people are right now going through simply because of their commitment to speaking freely. heart-breaking.

As critical as I have been of the democratically disastrous bailout and other things, I will say I do appreciate President Obama talking to the Dalai Lama. To not talk to the Tibetan spiritual leader because of Chinese threats and grumblings (and in light of the decades long brutality in Tibet) is to really say no to the most remarkable accomplishment of all in the West, the right to free speech, and from that, the right of assembly et cetera (none of which are perfect, of course). But god, defence of free speech is a beautiful thing, and that should never be dismissed or taken lightly. And a definition of real free speech is: ‘The willingness to defend the right of others to express ideas you abhor.’

I also deeply appreciate how the Dalai Lama has always said that Tibet was no perfect place before he was forced into exile, but rather feudal and backwards. Don’t you just appreciate honesty? Massive posters of Chairman Mao still hang all over China, looking down paternally (and, wouldn’t you know it, abhorently, on occasional Western T-Shirts, too—in much smaller numbers, thank god, than Che T-Shirts).

Check out this radical monk from Tibet, Gendun Chophel, from the first half of the 20th century. From one of his astute poems:

All that is old is proclaimed as the work of gods
All that is new conjured by the devil
Wonders are thought to be bad omens
This is the tradition of the land of the Dharma.

But where was I going? God knows. Oh yeah, what inspired this writing: Castro’s right hand man during the revolution? The T-Shirt-emblazoned Che Guevara. Morales speaks of him as a symbol of Latin American freedom. Fair enough—he may well be that symbol. And if anything, Morales is that.

But is Che Guevera that man? Granted, everybody chooses their own heroes, but as historically interesting as he is—and the reasons for his appeal as a symbol are obvious—I just don’t celebrate him, and the reasons why are utterly simple: Guevara executed a lot of people and also allowed the execution of even more people without trial (untried political prisoners—and, hey, I donate to Amnesty and believe in what they fight for) which makes him, to me, not unlike like the despotic Bolsheviks as Emma Goldman described them: largely a replacement for the previous Tsarist regime of the despotic Romanovs.

This from 1923:

The dominant, almost general, idea of revolution—particularly the Socialist idea—is that revolution is a violent change of social conditions through which one social class, the working class, becomes dominant over another class, the capitalist class. It is the conception of a purely physical change, and as such it involves only political scene shifting and institutional rearrangements. Bourgeois dictatorship is replaced by the “dictatorship of the proletariat”—or by that of its “advance guard,” the Communist Party. Lenin takes the seat of the Romanovs, the Imperial Cabinet is rechristened Soviet of People’s Commissars, Trotsky is appointed Minister of War, and a labourer becomes the Military Governor General of Moscow. That is, in essence, the Bolshevik conception of revolution, as translated into actual practice.

And so on. Unavoidable in terms of human nature? I don’t think so. But challenging, to be sure, in the extreme. But there is a very old saying from Pindar that goes something like this: “We become like that which we hate.” So Jesus says, tough luck: “No longer love your neighbour, love your enemies.” Hey, I can still have trouble with neighbours. But what a daring concept.

This is from Rolf Potts, entitled Che: The Ronald McDonald of Revolution
SPEAKER’S CORNER, in which he writes about some of the spewed clichés of Guevara’s supporters and detractors.

Actually, a couple of more things first. The mention of Ronald McDonald is, in this moment, somehow apt with Guevara, too, and not just because his face on T-Shirts is a marketing and propaganda bonanza. But because with the health plans of America (and even Canada) more and more at the mercy of anti-health insurance companies, and childhood obesity booming and diabetes sky-rocketing, I’m no fan of McDonald’s, either—in fact, quite the contrary. Not to paint with too broad a brush, but I like respected animals and conscious health and real food and dignified labour way too much.

McLYMPICS

McDonald’s is the Official Restaurant of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Personally, I never even think of McDonald’s as a restaurant, in the food experience use of the word. But sponsor of the Olympics? Is this athlete food? And even if it is because you’re young and remarkably fit and burning 5,000 calories a day, what about once you’re past 22 and working out 8 hours a day? Does it work for anyone, or is it just one expanding Super Size Me?

McDIGENOUS

And the film Avatar, with its grand indigenous motif and call for sustainability, is also sponsored by McDonald’s. I see a clash, but maybe I’m just picky. Shouldn’t we all be a little pickier? McDigenous is more like it. Maybe McDonald’s could sponsor the upcoming Canada Truth and Reconciliation Commission about residential schools and the attempted cleansing of indigenous culture in Canada over about 150 years. Nah, McDonald’s has already contributed enough: to spiking and deadly Type II Diabetes among First Nations people in Canada.

And I agree, people do have a choice, but the food still sucks (I know, but that’s my opinion. Even as a kid, the Big Mac special sauce flavour lingered in my belches for hours—gross!). Does anyone like the smell of those fast-food restaurants? (Okay, I know some people do, and I guess I did, sort of, too, when my nose was seven-years-old and I didn’t know about the endlessly tortured animals). But I really find it distasteful now.

And that food is designed, literally—I’m serious—to be addicting, acting on our brains not unlike heroin does (see former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration Dr. David Kessler’s The End of Overeating to see how the food industry works). There’s an interview with him in the Wall Street Journal:

WSJ: Early on in the book, you suggest that that major food companies know what motivates shoppers.

Dr. Kessler: They know what drives demand, and they were able to design foods to be hot stimuli. The food industry says they only give consumers what they want. But what they want excessively activates the rewards circuits of the brain. They aren’t selling just any commodity. They’ve designed highly stimulating products, and consumers come back for more. Nothing sells as much as something that stimulates the rewards-circuitry of the brain. It’s all about selling product.

Anyway, back to Potts on Che Guevara—how did I get so distracted. From Bolivia to McDonald’s to Cuba:

Granted, it’s not hard to find Che Guevara aficionados in Cuba—just keep an eye out for anyone who has the option to leave the country at their leisure.

That’s funny.

During my month in Havana, I met half a dozen Europeans with Che tattoos on various body parts, no less than two Uruguayan medical students who unironically wore black berets, and a woman from Oregon who sported a homemade “Guerrillero Heroico” tank top and insisted that the blame for contemporary Cuban misery could be traced to the small-minded prejudices of red-state America.

Whenever I mentioned the more troubling aspects of Che’s biography to these folks, none of them seemed all that fazed.

Sure, Che might have promoted his ideals through force and violence, they said, but unwavering conviction and action are the only forces that can change a complacent world.

Sure, Che shrugged off torture and executions on his watch, but he was at heart an inspiring humanitarian who ultimately hoped to improve the lives of millions.

Sure, Che tried to impose a one-size-fits-all political vision on faraway cultures—but at least that vision was just, and might well have worked had it been given a chance to take hold.

This kind of rationalization sounded vaguely familiar at the time, and it wasn’t until I returned to the United States that I realized neo-conservative apologists were using the exact same language and reasoning to defend the foreign policy decisions of George W. Bush.

Anyway, what is really interesting to remember is on how many vital levels indigenous rights and Marxism are utterly incompatible, anyway. So I think Che does fit in better with McDonald’s’ imposing style than with any indigenous rights movement in Latin America or anywhere else. Why? Ideological clash.

Check this out from Michael P. Nofz in his essay Treading Upon Separate Paths: Native American Ideology and Marxist Analysis (pg 231-232):

The shared beliefs of Native American tribes must be seen as something more than products of economic organization. Ideology instead stems from the ongoing experiences which certain Indians draw from their connection with the natural environment.

In short, Native American ideologies are more land-based, while those of industrial Europe and allied societies are production-based. Among numerous Indians, nature is not just raw material to be transformed; it also imparts a continuous set of relations through which ideological insight is revealed. The forces of nature are themselves potent guides over human thought, and not the other way around, as Euro-Induatrialism asserts.

The problem of Marxist analysis is that it minimizes the influence of nature over human thought.

This is to be expected, since the Marxist emphasis on material production confines explanations of ideology to human economic transactions. At the same time, it reduces the relations between human beings and their natural environment to pragmatic materialism.

Given such a distinct difference in processes of ideology formation, the reluctance of American Indians to embrace Marxist thinking can be better understood.

They are not likely to see real prospects for human liberation in any doctrine which underscores the inevitability of progress through production and consumption, while ignoring important human relationships to land.

Marxism is thus seen as sharing ideological similarities with capitalism. Both support forms of socio-economic organization which, while seeking different relations of production, nevertheless pose similar threats to land-based ideology. Marxism and capitalism alike threaten to strip away the spiritual significance of land, further detaching human consciousness from its affective relationship with nature.

In the broad manner of thinking common to various Indian tribes, the real difference between Marxist and capitalist prescriptions lies only in their proposed systems for distributing the benefits of industrial, material progress.

Just a few little historical tidbits, food for thought. I, like this blog, am relatively scattered these days, as we all are, eventually—wild, man. Make of this stunning journey what you can. It’s late. Life is good. Sending love,

Pete

I’ve just been reading an interesting book by David Kessler, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, called The End Of Overeating. I think that’s a little optimistic, given all of the forces, evolutionary and scientific, marketing and psychological, working against more sane relationships with food, from within and without—let alone the food waste, which by any standard must be considered immoral on some level.

But what Kessler talks about is food and addiction and how the brain works. I knew a little about the dopamine release with anticipation of eating and drug-taking and so on, and the opiate release with eating, but its mechanisms are really driven home and explained. There is a lot of information that’s worth hearing for many aspects of a person’s life.

Like with the information, science and opinions given by Dr. Gabor Mate about addiction, it becomes clearer and clearer that we beautiful humans, assuming most basic needs are met, are simply (and complexly) on a spectrum of conditioned responses around the exciting or dulling of some emotion—in short, addicted. Heck, even the Bhagavad Gita which is thousands of years old, wrote about the curse (and glory!) of the senses.

Here’s an excerpt of an interview with Kessler in the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ: Early on in the book, you suggest that that major food companies know what motivates shoppers.

Dr. Kessler: They know what drives demand, and they were able to design foods to be hot stimuli. The food industry says they only give consumers what they want. But what they want excessively activates the rewards circuits of the brain. They aren’t selling just any commodity. They’ve designed highly stimulating products, and consumers come back for more. Nothing sells as much as something that stimulates the rewards-circuitry of the brain. It’s all about selling product.

The full interview is here.

In the meantime, smile as much as you can. It makes the body believe you’re happy, even if you’re not. Things get released in the brain until finally you’re laughing out loud, even if you’re really miserable. It’s pretty cool. Are you doing it? Come on. Or, from a deeper yogic point of view, if you refuse to smile no matter what, this question would be asked: “Who is the “I” who doesn’t want to smile?” I’m smiling right now. I’m out of control. I couldn’t be happier!

Sending lots of love, joy, and breathing to relax in the process,

Pete

As the Truth and Reconciliation Canada hearing for residential schools in Canada draws closer, isn’t it perverse that we can sell a Pontiac and a Jeep Cherokee to buy a Winnebago (not a great Winnebago) while wearing a Redskins’ shirt after seeing a Braves’ game while listening to the Blackhawks on the radio? And barely notice—if notice at all. And are the Cleveland Indians really Indians?

Can you imagine driving a Ford Jew or Chrysler Wop? It’s ridiculous. A Dodge Dago? And if anybody thinks, “Yeah, but those names are pejorative…” Redskins, my friends. Out of the nation’s capital, no less.

Graham Greene (Academy award nominated in Dances with Wolves and so much more, including a great recent performance in Transamerica) is a wonderfully appealing Canadian actor. Check out this spoof. It made me laugh out loud about three times. His delivery is pitch perfect.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what one believes, what I believe, and why we believe what we believe, and what our minds do to back up what we believe (or even question what we believe, which is much more rare). Ironically, in my opinion, there are a lot of reasons to believe a lot of different things—supporting many different worldviews, which are, by definition, limited—that can be backed up with all kinds of relatively effective facts, in both the most specific and broadest sense of the term. Welcome to life, and living in the human brain, under myriad different pressures and conditions.

But here’s a thought-provoking quote from psychology professor Jonathan Haidt, paraphrasing or adding onto William James’ line of thought that “moral thinking is for social doing”:

“…we did not evolve language and reasoning because they helped us to find truth; we evolved these skills because they were useful to their bearers, and among their greatest benefits were reputation management and manipulation.

See the blog a few back, here, about Left and Right arguments.

Just look at your stream of consciousness when you are thinking about a politician you dislike, or when you have just had a minor disagreement with your spouse. It’s like you’re preparing for a court appearance. Your reasoning abilities are pressed into service generating arguments to defend your side and attack the other. We are certainly able to reason dispassionately when we have no gut feeling about a case, and no stake in its outcome, but with moral disagreements that’s rarely the case. As David Hume said long ago, reason is the servant of the passions.”

Good luck!

Pete xo

“Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.”
—Mark Twain

I’ve got nothing to add to that today. Okay, one more thing:

“On with the dance; let joy be unconfined is my motto, whether there’s any dance to dance or any joy to unconfine.”
—Mark Twain

Facing Ali has its American television Premiere on Spike TV on Monday, February 15 (9:00-11:00pm ET/PT). It will be shown in full, and I’m not sure, but I think without commercial breaks. Spike has been wonderfully supportive from the get go, put billboards in Time Square, and continue to aggressively promote the film.

If you haven’t seen it, or you have friends who you think might want to see it, please pass this along. Facing Ali is also out now on DVD, too, I think pretty much all over.

Hope you enjoy Muhammad and his old foes. They were sure great to interview.

Lots of love to you,
Pete xo

“If you want truth to stand clear before you, never be “for” or “against.” The struggle between “for” and “against” is the mind’s worst disease.”
—Sent-ts’an (?-606)

Or even earlier:

“And why go on about the sliver that’s in your brother’s eye but not consider the beam in your own eye?”
—Matthew 7:3

And granted, in the real world, or with real politik, clearly you have to stand for something, even if it’s your financial backers.

Nonetheless, I was asked to do an interview a while back, with the question: ‘What five things would you change, if you could, to make the world a better place?’ It’s a great question, and requires a lot of thought to offer something with a little teeth and love.

First of all, whatever I think might be right, I can’t guarantee for certain it is right. But I was reminded of one possibility recently while reading a newspaper editorial on line, and then trolling through the hundreds of reader comments that followed. On cue, lines were divided between Left and Right ideologies. Comments from both sides were—and are—predictably and invariably pugilistic: self-righteous, cruel, degrading or verbally abusive. They are almost never humble, let alone reconciling.

So if I could—although I actually want people to be who they are—I would miraculously know how to inspire fellow citizens on the so-called Left and Right to see beyond the differences on the tip of the iceberg of our lives—differences we are so aggressively sure matter more than anything else. And from there, maybe we would begin to also see the colossal underwater aspect of that iceberg, the massive part that is our essential and undeniable commonality—and then maybe give that some importance, too.

In their strongest knee-jerk reactions, the Right (whatever that really is) claim the Left (whatever that really is) are communists, Stalinists, atheists, and haters of freedom and the West etc. The Left claim the Right are Fascist, Nazis, religious morons and lovers of a police state, and haters of both the poor and/or people of colour etc. With a relishing hatred, they criticize the others’ capacity for hate. The absurdities within all the above seem to me self-evident.

And putting violent extremists momentarily aside (because I don’t personally know any), I can tell you unequivocally that I have learned to be a better person from the great integrity, care and compassion I have witnessed and received from friends and scholars who are conservative, liberal, libertarian, anarchist, socialist, atheist and theist, and mixtures of the above—and some who are apolitical by instinct, and just sweet people. Doesn’t everybody have that experience? I’ll take a kind Republican over a mean-spirited Left Wing social activist any day, and vice versa.

FREE TO BE DIVISIVE

I’m generalizing, but in Canada and the States, and in much of the West, I think the mass of average citizens are torn between two strange truths: one, we have this remarkable amount of free speech, relative to most of the world. It is a wondrous, fluid reality about which we should all be vigilant, for it took vigilance and solidarity for centuries to achieve this degree of free speech in the first place.

Two, despite such a relatively high degree of free speech, the truth is, individually, we actually have very little power or even opportunity to change the way things are run (or change another person’s beliefs!). This is not just about oppression by, say, state Power or extremists or Left Wingers or Right Wingers or multinationals or Unions and so on. It’s about one’s essential nature, or instinct, as well as the fact that this is a big, big world built on hundreds of thousands of years of the human journey.

Still, I believe this combination of freedom and powerlessness contributes greatly to the distorted debate between Right and Left, both in print media and on line. The unconscious result is, to me, endlessly fractious, jingoistic, cruel, divisive and, most importantly, virtually void of heartfelt wisdom. Our lack of power has led us to believe that degrading each other is free speech, a constitutional right and so on—and of course on one level I guess it is. But the powerless person is fooled into believing that the right to degrade the other without consequence is freedom. But we do this, I think, at our own peril. For where are the seeds for mob violence, scapegoating and genocide planted, if not in our minds and our words? By definition, are not bitter harvests more likely reaped when economic conditions are strained?

VERSIONS OF THE FACTS

Recent research (see for example Jonathan Haidt) has shown the self-labelled right winger to be instinctively more inclined towards so-called ‘traditional values,’ and the left winger generally more inclined towards so-called ‘openness to experience.’ An inability to communicate prevents us from hearing the aspects of those ‘values’ that actually appeal deeply to, and are supported by, both sides of the so-called spectrum.

Research has also shown that neither side in the Left/Right dilemma is effectively able to accurately describe what the other side actually believes. Supposedly the Left or liberal side is actually better at this than the Right. I’m not sure why. I would guess the Right is better at well-focused organization, not unlike a mother bear when her cubs are threatened. Those two strengths truly working together in a democracy, and against despots and competitors, would likely be unbeatable in so many moral and creative ways. But either way, it is suggested by research that cloistering too tightly with one’s ‘team’ or ‘tribe’ or ‘ideology’ actually decreases freedom of thinking.

The fact is, almost all non-deranged human beings generally want the same things: greater freedom, community, security, togetherness, and a greater future for our children and perhaps a greater understanding of how the world really works.

Harry Browne put it this way:

Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free.

And either way, we are in this journey together—economically, spiritually, materialistically, environmentally. It has always been this way. And it will remain so long after the words Left and Right have ceased to suggest anything close to their present day and ever-changing meaning.

We cling onto an ideology as if it is us. But is it? Personally, I have conservative tendencies in the true sense of the word—an affection for traditional values, I’m fiscally conservative, I’m environmentally conservative. At the same time I hope to be liberal-minded—open to ideas outside my own ‘group,’ progressive in my thinking—important, in my opinion, in an ever-changing world (as is, surely, holding to the core of intelligent, traditional values). I like the idea of ‘the commons’ and community, and looking out for others. I have libertarian tendencies towards personal freedom and a small state. The autonomy of anarchism offers lucidity in who we are and how we are conditioned and so on. This mixture of ideas, it would seem to me, is standard for human complexity (for more ideas see also Thomas Sowell).

LISTENING TO THE DIFFERENCE

And of course tip-of-the-iceberg differences are important. They help fine tune our discernment. But why let them limit us? Degrading one who thinks differently on an issue? Will it matter in a week? A year? Maybe it will. I’m not sure. How about when we are no longer here—seeing that death is common to the entire species?

Choosing to listen, by our own will, without simply losing what we call our core values, with discernment, reaches out to the remarkable potential that commitment to free speech can really offer. Could listening be the flip side of the same brilliant coin—with a greatness that so many in the world have yet to experience? Is it even possible? I ask simply this: if free speech for all people—in law and in spirit—becomes greater, inhibited by neither fear of violence nor libel law, will real listening become more likely?

And the question is, Is that even important? And even if it is domestically useful for everyday quality of life, would it have any intelligent effect in the world of real politik and invasion, occupation, pre-emptive strike and so on?

I don’t know.

TRANSCENDING BORDERS INSIDE AND OUT

But let me dream “Yes,” if only for a moment, and ask this: If the Left and Right citizenry in a relatively free country could somehow increase mutual understanding, and combine that enthusiasm with ever-more accessible global communication technology, could those two forces not then be used to build bridges—modern-day ‘underground railroads‘ even—with those countries and their vibrant and young middle classes who despise their despotic leaders? Hey, that relationship is a truism with Iran, whose youth for the most part undeniably want Western freedoms (while maintaining control of their oil). And surely the utterly brutalized peoples living in, say, the hell of Orwellian North Korea, or most in Burma, Zimbabwe, Pakistan or even censored China, long for tangible solidarity and hope with anything tasting of freedom of speech.

Okay, perhaps that is a deluded pipe dream. But at the very least, imagine, domestically what a deeper understanding of our commonality would do to our understanding of the environment. The relationship is obvious, yet suffering. The Copenhagen Conference demonstrated the current disease.

Either way, my friends, no matter how powerless we actually are (and that’s debatable), or how crudely and aggressively we insult each other, the massive expanse of our similarities remain undeniable, hopeful, invigorating, expansive and even exciting—and overshadow and outweigh the differences. Do we forget this truth at our own peril—as a species, as community, and at the shrinking of our own individual potential of learning, growth and deeper freedom?

I wish I knew.

But yes, if I had the ability, the right words, the way—which of course I don’t—I would give more of my best self to inspire a way of seeing our massive commonality while re-examining our differences. Maybe then we could think far bigger and deeper than Left and Right, and realize how amazing and fortunate we are to possibly work with the full spectrum of what free speech could be—which at its most refined would include, like an equal and opposite reaction, not only the freedom, but a deeper desire to listen.

Further to this, within and far beyond definitions of these Left and Right worldviews, it is certain there are more subtle, yet undefinable processes going on. One could choose expansive kindness, gratitude, joy, even undeniable unity, in the immediate moment. One could attempt to think long term—generations, millennia. Where are we headed? In short, the relentless, tight-fisted cacophony of Left and Right wing threats and warnings is actually extremely narrow and shallow—and self-limiting.

So if I had one wish, at least tonight, it would be to see our innate and profound similarities before all else, while really hearing and understanding our differences, real and perceived, and from that stance then make our “free speech” comments. And before we attack the other, I’d hope we recall the fact of our powerlessness, too. My apologies if you don’t like that truth—but it is a big truth. That we are attacking one who is actually in the same boat. Maybe then greater amounts of desperate energy disguised as freedom—our words and beliefs—would manifest as a more intelligent energy, and help the species to engage in more interesting, humble and sustainable ways—ways as of yet we can barely imagine.

Or maybe not. Because don’t get me wrong: on some level, the tension between the deeper natures of so-called Left and Right thinking is perhaps both necessary and/or inevitable, given the current state of the world. But let’s talk it out in kindness.

Lots of love to you, my dear, dear fellow friends. Thanks for your kindness,

Pete xox

As an addendum to my previous blog, consider this line from Duncan Campbell Scott, who was a poet and, from 1913 to 1932, deputy superintendent (head) of the Department of Indian Affairs—well into the time of residential schools. He actually started working at the department in 1879. The similarity of his use of the term Indian Problem to the term Jewish Problem is obvious. Coincidentally, Hitler came to power in Germany a year after Scott stopped working in the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs:

“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that this country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone. That is my whole point. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question…“

We are a difficult species, my friends. Scott died in 1947, a year before Raphael Lemkin’s work on genocide—the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide—was both presented and adopted by the United Nations.

Here’s to progress and love, and wider thinking,

Pete xo