Engaged Spirituality

Hola Everybody,
You have to stop blaming Trump. If you want an answer to your problems, a solution to your fears, look in the mirror. Trump isn’t possible without you. Remember that.

Engaged Spirituality

How do I bear witness to the unbearable? Why are people so deliberately cruel? How do I not bring more rage into the world?

I tackle these questions as a way of life. For years now, I have bore witness to enduring cruelty. Over the years, I have learned to be present -- listening. I have sat with a woman, for example, while she told of a gang rape -- something she had never shared with anyone else, except for her mother whose response was to blame her for being a “slut.” I have heard grown men and women tell stories of childhood abuse of such horror that some nights, I was so troubled by these stories, I couldn’t sleep -- forced to reconsider human nature. It got to the point where I didn’t want to hear any more stories. I couldn’t stand to hear one more horror. But when it got to that point, I would tell myself that if they had experienced it, then the least I could do was listen.

I have been to many conferences and speeches and have even delivered a few myself. Sometimes I feel I can’t listen to another summit or conference. We don’t need more sessions; we already know what we need to do: we have the solutions. Why can’t we use what we know already works? Where is the courage to stop doing what is destroying so many?

I committed to the path I walk to day partly as a way to stop from going insane in an insane world. I needed to be free from these cries of despair. I quickly realized I could never be free while the fate of the children of this country and of the world -- the legions of child soldiers, the children leading lives indentured to industry, the millions orphaned by AIDS, nine-year-olds as head-of-households struggling to keep their siblings together -- continues. We are not only silent, but also craven and brutal.

This is a world that does not care about its children… 

People not so engaged often ask me how I am able to sustain myself in the face of such horror. Sometimes my answer is that it’s increasingly difficult to keep my own rage from eating away at me. Sometimes I silently wonder how long I can continue to do this work. I especially become discouraged when so many people show such absolute indifference and ignorance in the face of the horrors of the world. There is a Buddhist saying that goes: For those whose hearts are closed, the world’s suffering is like sticking a hair in their finger: it is hardly noticed. But for those whose hearts are open, it’s like a hair stuck in their eyeball: it is acutely painful.

Only the very naïve or those steeped in a profound denial, believe that spirituality and politics don’t come together. One only has to look around in this country to see that we’ve become that runaway train in Emile Zola’s story -- we’ve become a “runaway society” in which our leaders have abdicated their responsibilities while we worry about finding “the one,” or getting that new gadget, career, car, or whatever, while trapped in an out of control train. And you know what? We can’t blame our children for the current state of affairs, though our collective narcissism compels us to use our children as scapegoats.

Profoundly spiritual people have midwifed some of the greatest changes in history. In Latin America often the only voice speaking out against US-controlled violence were priests and nuns who practiced “liberation theology” and sacrificed their lives and sanity in the process. I have a good friend, who’s steeped in liberation theology and he was part of a criminal justice reform campaign he created that drew on the resources of regular men and women spanning several states.

I don’t need to mention, Gandhi, MLK, and the many unknown, untold others -- all members of the “aristocracy of the considerate” -- who gave their lives so that we could enjoy ours. These are a different kind of soldier. They are spiritual warriors and their lives aren’t remembered by merely raising a flag because they transcended the imaginary borders of nation and religion.

I know deep inside I have no choice: I have to be a part of a change process because that is what life consists of: energies, processes. You’re either a force for positive or negative change, but you have to choose. You can’t be neutral on a moving (or runaway) train, as the historian, Howard Zinn, once observed. Some of us do what we can: donate to a cause we believe in, or walk, run, ride for one thing or another and I won’t belittle that. You do what you can.

However, walking/ riding/ running for breast cancer for example, doesn’t absolve us from accountability. There is a difference between blame, responsibility, and accountability, you know. We like to say, “Well, I gave at the office…” and then go on our blissfully ignorant way as though we were separate from the runaway train. However, it’s not that simple, shit still happens -- all the time. Right now, this very moment, some kid in some God-forsaken land just stepped on a landmine that was paid for by our tax dollars.

Blame is burnout and let's get it right: pointing out that something is wrong and the causes of that wrong are not blame. Blame is rooted in ego, outrage, anger. Many of my ex-lovers liked to blame me, but here we are all these years removed from not being together and they’re probably still blaming somebody.

And you might say that you’re not responsible for the way the world is today and you’re probably right. I like to make the distinction between responsibility and accountability in this way: if you were diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, you were probably not responsible for getting that disease. However, having been informed of that disease and then being educated in how to arrest that disease, aren’t you then accountable for your disease?

Accountability… what are you accountable for? What will you stand up be counted for?

I have ceased to do things with the hope of having an effect. I have to because hoping for results is a sure-fire way to burnout. Expecting outcomes or results is hell. The fact is that my work may not make a difference.

I remember being part of a huge protest rally in DC and walking next to an elderly woman and I asked how she could still do all this without being discouraged. Her answer is one I’ll never forget. She reminded me that we all have ancestors who fought against slavery though they knew they would probably never be free themselves.

That was a powerful reminder for me... 

The reality is that the work that I engage might turn out to be worthless and achieve no result at all. It might turn out that my energies will produce the opposite effect. Outcomes don’t matter. People do. The more I engage the work of my life, the more I realize that what matters are not so much the results, but the value, rightness, and truth of the work itself.

I had to give up trying to save the world. I had to give up hope and fear because once you hope, you bring fear into the process. Besides, hope is a piss poor strategy. Beyond hope and fear -- freed from the twin illusions of success or failure -- I am learning to act skillfully. I still get angry, enraged, and frustrated, but now I go back to that space beyond expectations and fear, and act rightly -- or as justly as I am able…

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Most Backers of Arizona Law Support Humane Immigration Reform

¡Hola! Everybody…
Not being able to write is a fuckin’ bummer! I usually don’t re-post material from other blogs, but the following is something I felt needed to be shared.

* * *

"The Immigrant" 1903

Shocker: Most Backers of Arizona Law Support Humane Immigration Reform

by Frank Sharry

[Note: From the outset, I have noted that early polls regarding Arizona’s Racist Immigration law (SB1070) were basically useless. For one, many Americans don’t really stay on top of the news like the rest of us political junkies. Therefore, not that many people actually knew much about SB1070, let alone its constitutional ramifications. The vast majority of Americans get what little news they devour from the mainstream media. Therefore, a poll two days or even two weeks after the passage of SB1070 might not be measuring a response to the actual law. It might be measuring a concern over immigration, generally speaking. The people behind SB1070 are documented extremist hate groups who have fought tooth and nail against immigration reform. SB1070 isn't reform, it’s codified racism. The following article attempts to peek behind the curtain and yields some interesting insights]

With national polls showing majority support for Arizona’s harsh immigration law, you probably think these voters are hard liners determined to rid the country of immigrants and deny a path to legal status for all of the undocumented immigrants in the U.S., right?

Wrong.

Here’s a shocker: four out of five voters who support Arizona’s new “papers-please” law also support comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented. On the flip side, a paltry one in five support rounding up and deporting everyone here illegally.

In a bipartisan survey sponsored by America’s Voice Education Fund and conducted by Lake Research Partners and Public Opinion Strategies of 800 registered voters nationwide, with an oversample of 300 Latino registered voters, we sought to understand the motivations and sentiments underlying the top line support for Arizona’s tough immigration law. Here is what we found:

• Three out of five voters nationwide do indeed support the Arizona law. Not surprisingly, a majority of Latino voters oppose the law.
• At the same time, four out of five of the voters who support the Arizona law also support comprehensive immigration reform with a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants. Only one out of five support deportation as the preferred policy option when asked what to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.
• In addition, strong majorities believe that illegal immigration is a national problem, prefer comprehensive reform to Arizona-style laws in their state, and want the problem of illegal immigration acted on now.

Here are the numbers. Like other polls, our latest shows that 60% of voters support the Arizona law nationwide, while 23% oppose it. No news there. But consider this finding: Fully 78% of all voters supported comprehensive immigration reform. Moreover, a whopping 84% of those who supported the Arizona law also supported comprehensive immigration reform.

This bears repeating:

More than 4 out of 5 voters who support the Arizona law support comprehensive reform with a path to citizenship. And 67% of them strongly support comprehensive immigration reform.

How can voters enthusiastically support an Arizona law aimed at expelling undocumented immigrants and even more enthusiastically support comprehensive immigration reform that brings undocumented immigrants onto a path to citizenship? What underpins these seemingly irreconcilable points of view?

At the core, voters’ support was rooted in frustration with lack of action at the federal level. When we asked voters why they supported Arizona’s law, the number one answer -- by a whopping 52% -- was that voters believed the federal government had failed to solve the problem. Only 28% said it was because they thought the law would reduce illegal immigration, and only 12% supported it because they thought it would reduce crime.

Furthermore, by a margin of 53% to 18% voters prefer a comprehensive national solution to a version of Arizona’s law in their own state. This is consistent with the finding that voters believe immigration is a national problem appropriately dealt with at a federal level (56%) rather than handled by individual states (22%).

The passage of the Arizona law has not lessened these voters’ appetite for immediate federal action. Three quarters of voters (76%) want action taken now, as opposed to waiting for action, and two thirds (67%) strongly desire action now.

Voters were asked to choose between three policy options: deporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally; having them stay only as temporary workers; or requiring them to undergo registration with the government, background checks, payment of taxes, learning English, and going to the back of the citizenship line. The results show 22% chose deportation, 8% chose the temporary worker solution, and the third option, the path to legal status, was by far the most popular at 64%.(emphasis added)

Finally, we found that comprehensive reform unites rather than divides Americans, with 77% of Latinos in favor, roughly the same proportion as the electorate as a whole. In fact, comprehensive immigration reform is more popular overall than the Arizona law with every political and demographic group of voters, except for southern Republicans who are equally supportive of both.

Is our poll an outlier? Not at all. Our findings, especially with regard to support for a path to legal status for those in the U.S. illegally, are consistent with what other in-depth polls found. For example, an AP-GfK-Univision poll conducted in early May found that 59% of all voters, and 86% of Hispanic voters, favor “a legal way for illegal immigrants already in the United States to become U.S. citizens.” A CBS/New York Times poll from late April/early May found that 64% of voters favor agree that “illegal immigrants who are currently working in the U.S… should be allowed to stay in their jobs and to eventually apply for U.S. citizenship, or they should be allowed to stay in their jobs only as guest workers.” A late May NBC poll found that 65% of voters nationwide support “allowing undocumented immigrants who are already in the country to pay a fine, learn English, and go back to the line for the opportunity to become American citizens.”

Actually, these results are consistent with polling conducted over the years. In the words of Markos Moulitsas, support for comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship has been “gaudy” for some time. What may surprise many, however, is that voters can simultaneously support the Arizona law and support comprehensive immigration reform even more intensely.

So, to recap, voters – frustrated with federal government inaction -- much prefer “doing something” to “doing nothing.” They increasingly want the problem of illegal immigration addressed now. They understand Arizona but want comprehensive immigration reform. Few want to simply round up and deport all immigrants in the U.S illegally.

Politically, this means that the conventional wisdom about how to interpret majority support for the Arizona law is, as usual, wrong. It means the clucking over at Fox News and chest-thumping by Arizona’s Republican leaders is misplaced. It means that voters want their leaders to recognize the frustration with illegal immigration, to step up at the national level and to replace a broken and chaotic system with a legal and orderly one now.

Instead of ducking it, Democrats should lean hard into the immigration issue, knowing that the problem-solving and pragmatism embedded in their support for comprehensive reform connects them with the broad majority of Americans who are hungry for solutions on this complex issue. It means Republicans who pander to an angry anti-immigrant base will not only continue alienating Latino voters, but will have a very difficult time expanding their support beyond that base.

But won’t a battle over immigration reform mobilize the right, renew the “amnesty” attack, and turn these initial polls around? No. Recent polling by Hart Research Associates shows that comprehensive immigration reform holds up under the toughest attacks on some of the toughest terrain. And consistent with the findings regarding Arizona support trumped by support for comprehensive immigration reform, following a simulated legislative battle over immigration Democrats who support it actually improve their overall standing with voters.

If only the meaning of the nationwide reaction to Arizona’s tough new law broke through to more in the political class. At least Chris Mathews of MSNBC’s Hardball seems to get it. Watch the video in which he concludes that voters want solutions now and yet much prefer comprehensive reform with a path to legal status. He concludes:

“... So why is it so hard to do what the American people -- most of us -- so plainly want done?”

An excellent question. If anything, support for the Arizona law proves that the American people are growing increasingly impatient with Washington’s ineptitude on immigration.

Cross posted at America's Voice and Huffington Post

A note on the cartoon (not used in the original post):

“The Immigrant” (1903) “Is he an acquisition or a detriment?” So asks this timeless Judge cartoon, in which the man just off the boat is a mute witness to the debate swirling around him: “He is a menace;” “He brings me cheap labor;” “He cheapens my labor;” “He brings disease;” “He is brawn and muscle for my country;” “He makes votes for me;” and finally, “He is a puzzle to me.” No one seems more puzzled by the cacophony than the immigrant himself.