Consequences

It seemed to be a mostly partisan crowd, although the webcam didn't stray from the stage so maybe it was actually hard to tell for sure. It was a friendly crowd that had forced the speech to be moved from Bass Concert Hall to the Erwin Special Events Center with room for many thousands.

Former President Clinton spoke comfortably, a pace of speaking that he must relish now that he has, as he said several times, now that he has his life back. He spoke slowly and surely and had the luxury of making well-crafted points, being out of earshot of the sound byte hungry media.

He spoke of peace, of Anwar Sadat in Egypt and Yitzhak Rabin in Israel, of the Egyptian who killed Sadat and the Israeli who killed Rabin. And he spoke of the lost opportunity for the Middle East. He spoke of a world with more friends, of a world with fewer enemies.

And when he made a politically charged point and the friendly crowd began to cheer, he didn't encourage them. He'd keep talking until the applause died down. You guys sit down, he said once, trying to finish his argument.

At the end, they read some questions to him that some lucky students had written. One was about Roe v. Wade, asking if he thought it would be overturned soon. And whereas he had broadened his answers before to talk about related things, on this one he didn't have much to say. Yes it would, he thought.

He looked out from behind the podium, from under the bright lights on the stage. There was silence in the audience.

You shouldn't pretend these elections don't have consequences.

8:33:44 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

She's Back

Back in New York, Dervala is reflecting a bit on her recent travels:

...then slowly it dawned -- over months -- that they felt sympathy, not envy, for my cherished independence.

... I began to notice that these folks had the stomach, back, and calf muscles that Pilates queens dream of. They sat regally on packed-earth floors for hours. My body was atrophied from years of school and office chairs, in which I sat to pay for more chairs. How nice to have strong sitting muscles, in place of strong wanting muscles.

... Giving, in poor Buddhist countries, is not a duty but a joy. It is an investment in karma for which the recipient should be thanked. I was humbled by -- and envious of -- this sense of abundance, and no longer sure which of us was rich.

Independence. Strength. Abundance.

9:11:49 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Perceptions on Iraq

The war frenzy kettle is coming to a boil. Woe to he who has misgivings, that he might bring the wrath of others down upon him and be labelled a weenie or a pacifist or anti-American.

But wherever you lie in the spectrum of opinion, it certainly cannot be denied that the situation in Iraq is illuminating a variety of reasons why some many people seem to hate us so.

Here (in a link from No War Blog) is a snippet from Ha'aretz which points to some of the reasons for the distrust and suspiscion and even hatred of our evolving policy:

In actuality, what we have here are the militant doctrines of an imperial power, economic self-interest and an attempt to ride the waves of the war to achieve petty political objectives.

At the end of the day (oh, now doesn't that make me sound pundit-like!), it is perception that counts. Motivations are not only impossible to know, but they are ultimately irrelevant.

If we craft policies that encourage such perceptions, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

8:21:45 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []