New Year

Like everyone, I wish you a healthy and prosperous 2006.

What that means will not be the same for everyone.

I am 65 and am discovering that the decade of the 60s is when whatever dormant malignant process has been crouching in your system, perhaps since your parents' egg and sperm cell met, is likely to show up and give you a run for your money. If you make it through your 60s with no major upheavels, you have a pretty good shot at an decent old age.

Now, despite longevity in our culture having reached into the late 70s, dying in one's 60s is nothing to complain about. That's something of a shock, not only because our culture treats death as an unexpected insult, but because one never seems to get quite used to being old. Most of my friends my ag refuse to call themselves old. Why, I don't understand. I think old is good, a sign of success. And it even offers the possibility - possibility, not certainty - of wisdom.

What I hope for myself in 2006 is deepend wisdom and greater tolerance. Tolerance for others, but - and this likely translates into tolerance of others - especially tolerance of myself.

What would it take for me to stop responding to my wife as I have for decades when she issues me an order? It would take my understanding that she is simply stating what she wants from me, and I have the freedom to respond as I wish. But because I have not yet - aeons beyond my childhood - resolved my feelings about being bossed around by my father, I still bristle and worse when she gives me orders. I know she does that because that's what she learned from her mother - to direct, not request - and when I see her do it with her office manager I understand.

We'll see. I have made this resolution many times.

As for wisdom, that has to do with loving reality and eschewing illusion.

When the candidates for major office emerge in the next several months, will I remember that they are people like me, filled with ambiguity and ambition that colors their behavior? Or will I rant at their bullshit and hold out for some perfect being?

That, too, depends on whether I can forgive myself for chasing illusion and coveting approval.

So first we'll see whether some malignant process shows itself. The time is, of necessity, closer. If not, perhaps I will have a chance to grow in wisdom.

Stay tuned.

Listening In

What are we to make of the seemingly major dust up around President Bush’s seemingly bald-faced admission (bragging?) that he damn well had the authority and the balls to use it when he authorized wire tapping surveillance without getting court authorization?

I think those are right who say he and the Republican Party are not likely to be punished by the electorate for being too zealous – even acting illegally – when guarding the lives of Americans against terrorists.

And that is what, to me, makes this business cynical. We will likely never know whether there may have been a moment so urgent that the president acted without authorization. For reasons I give below, I doubt it. But the jaw-set statement he gave about the matter at his press conference smacks to me of yet another opportunity to show his and his party’s toughness, so tough they’ll go outside the law, like the cowboys of old who kept outlaws at bay on the frontier by taking the law into their own hands.

It seems pretty clear that the legal requirements for tapping phones is not only pretty easy to come by, but can be done swiftly. Even retroactively. If something comes up on the spot, surveillance can be started and needs only be authorized within three subsequent days.

Some say the new ways of doing this listening-in may no longer be appropriate to getting legal permission for tapping individual phones. There may be intelligence that is so vague it would require putting computers to work randomly checking millions of phones. Distasteful as this sort of fishing expedition is, the court set up for hearing these matters would certainly bend over backwards to be understanding of the need for unusual wire tapping.

My bet is that the president and his minions were arrogant enough to believe they needn’t bother with the niceties of the law, nor should they because they were conducting this war, not the courts. And, perhaps saddest of all, even though John Dean is likely correct in saying Bush is our first president to incriminate himself in an offense against his oath to defend the Constitution, Bush – and Karl Rove – are likely correct that we American people will ignore our most precious freedom when we are sufficiently frightened.

So much for give me liberty or give me death.

We get the government we ask for.

Iraq Elections

Let me put al my caveats up front…

I have opposed George Bush since he first appeared as a candidate for president. Since 9/11 I have thought virtually his every move has put us further from the proper aims of this nation. Though I thought the invasion of Afghanistan perhaps necessary given what we knew of terrorist training camps and the Taliban, I thought our invasion of Iraq, without the support of most of the world, was a terrible mistake. Even so I was unprepared for the dimensions of the disaster that unfolded in Iraq following the toppling of the Saddam regime.

Since long before the recent turning of popular opinion against our continuing occupation, and for the return of our troops, I have thought we would, as we did finally in Viet Nam, have no choice but to pack up and leave.

Now, if the initial reports of a huge turnout in relatively peaceful elections turns out to mark a significant turnaround in the fortunes of Iraq and thus of the entire middle east, I will rejoice with the hardest line conservatives.

I abhor violence as a way to reach political settlement; I think it inevitably leads to more violence down the road.

But if today’s election is the beginning of the end of the insurgency and the beginning of some political compromise in Iraq, I will applaud the president for achieving a huge victory.

No doubt I will still search for Democratic candidate in two years with a radically different view of the world from that of George Bush and his cronies. Finding enemies of whom we are terrified strikes me as a terrible way to try to unify the country.

And turning the resources of the nation over to the super rich corporations seems to me a recipe for injustice, not to mention our outlaw status in the rest of the world.

But I have some hope for this administration’s Iraq policy I have never had before. I pray it may be justified.

Forgiveness

Now here's a fascinating new twist: President Bush has admitted that the Iraq invasion was based on faulty intelligence and taken the blame himself for acting on it.

A few (notably Andrew Sullivan who has always been for the war and against the way it has been waged) have applauded this new turn and said all the president has to do to gain support for the war is to come clean with us because most Americans want to win the war.

Maybe.

President Bush continues to believe the war was the right thing to do even though the stated reasons for it were wrong. We all know logic is not his long suit and I could imagine circumstances under which we might grant him that the war was a good idea. I have yet to see any perusasive argument, but there might be one. If you thought, for instance, that we needed to make a strong military move in the middle east in order to persuade the Islamic world that we are not isolationist and will not try to resolve our conflict by retreating to our shores.

But all I read, and what I conclude, is that our invasion has not only stirred up more hatred for our nation in that part of the world, but has strengthened their belief that we cannot rule even a weak country like Iraq so long as they oppose us. The British learned this some time ago.

But perhaps some will find the president's mere candor enough to cut him slack and gin up support for his policies.

I remember a Rabbi once telling me he didn't understand the Christian notion of repentance being sufficient for forgiveness. Seems like all you have to do, he said, is say your sorry and no matter how henious your offense, the slate is wiped clean. In Judaism you must set the matter right, provide justice, before forgiveness can be offered. Which, he explained, is the reason for the absolute prohibition against murder. It cannot be set right.

It is not enough for the president to say he's sorry he got it wrong. Somehow the deaths of at least 30,000 Iraqis and over 2,000 Americans must be amended for. Not to mention the incalculable ravages of war on ours and the world's economy and geo-political affairs.

Stark choice: convince us the war was necessary, or withdraw in shame.

Red Cross

I understand these things are never as they seem from reading about them in the newspaper...but good Lord, we, the United States of America, are denying the Red Cross its historic access to prisoners we are holding in secret?!

Was there ever a time when it was more uncomfortable to be an American in the world?

Perhaps in the Philippines during the Spanish - American War.

That was before I was born. I wonder if we denied Red Cross access (if there was such a thing then) to Filipinos we held then?

Whether we have ever done such things in the past, and I am afraid we likely have, I don't know a time when we so blatantly, outloud and in front of the entire world, held them up without shame or embarrassment.

To have become the world's sole super power, so we can seem to behave with impunity, is our everlasting shame.

When others regain their equilibrium, able, as China will one day soon, to challenege us, we will rue the day we turned our backs on international law and decency.

Condi & Hilary

Today Condaleeza Rice waded in alongside our erstwhile Secretary of Defense, demeaning our Euopean allies who have said any of the EC nations who have cooperated in moving terrorist suspects to nations where they are tortured have violated international law.

Cleverly ducking the question of whether we do in fact have secret prisons where we torture, she attacked. We are taking up your slack, she chided Europe. You should be glad we are doing this aggressive interrogation because we have prevented many potential deadly attacks, including many in Europe. She is increasingly carrying this administration's most militant views as she travels the world.

At the same time Hilary Clinton is being made fun of for her wavering positions on our Iraq adventure. She has been a strong supporter of the invasion and occupation up until now. Now that support for Bush's handling of the war has slipped below the sustainable level, she is changing her tune.

I remember when the issue of ordaining women was first broached in the Episcopal Church. I was for it because I believed the church, and all institutions of our culture, were in need of a different sort of leadership, one that was more communal and less combative. When the first woman was elected a bishop I was surprised to see that she managed her office in virtually an identical manner as her male colleagues.

Power is power, whether in male or female hands. No doubt there are significant differences between the genders, some likely built into the chromosone code.

But power is power. Both Secretary Rice and Senator Clinton would like to run for president. If they square off against each other in 2008, their gender will be of historical interest, but the stakes will cause them to be just as ruthless as any man who ever ran.

Duke

Duke Cunningham, the San Diego congressman and former top gun fighter pilotg who has been shot down for rife corruption, is an American tragedy.

I never have been a supporter of the swaggering Viet Nam ace (was there a credible Vietnam airforce to do combast against?) who embraced all the exaggerated virtues of the Republican right wing. And even though I loved Doonesbury's making him into a figure of fun, I suspected the Duke began by believing in his own virtue and the righteousness of his cause. I have never met him but some who have tell me they have rarely met a man who seemed more sincere.

And there was his downfall.

Because he believed himself to be a man of unquestioned virtue, while vilifying the cynical liberals who opposed him, he never considered that he might be vulnerable to the weaknesses that power always threatens. So when people with powerful interests flattered him and offered him lavish gifts, he likely thought they were on the level. And, like all of us, he enjoyed the perks of his high office. That a congressman's stipend might not provide for a two million dollar house and a Rolls Royce may have seemed to him an obstacle to be overcome with the help of his rich friends.

I bet it was not until the prosecutor piled the evidence on Duke's desk, explaining the likely conseqences, that he understood that he had betrayed his own boy scout ethics.

When I was a young pastor of a significant church, I believed myself to be of purer motive than anyone else in the church. When the first power struggle came, I believed I would prevail merely because I was pure. I got creamed by those who understood power. It took some years and some painful therapy for me to understand that I am just like everyone else and my capacity for corruption as real as anyone's.

Until we will look straight on at our dark side, at the reality that being human involves being open to being corrupted, we are likely to be brought low without warning.

Every person has their price. Duke didn't know what his was.