C’est le vie in Washington: The name of pomme frites has been changed in the U.S. capitol to “freedom fries.” Viva la difference. Homeland Security now monitors video rentals for suspicious characters viewing films by Truffaut, Godard, Agnes Varda, Renoir and Jacques Tati. An amendment to the Patriot Act will now make it a federal crime to read Moliere, Flaubert, Baudelaire and above all, Alexis de Tocqueville.


TODAY IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY

A gallon of the cheapest gas: $2.25

A month of "reality" shows, reruns, war hype, studio wrestling
and Rudi Bachtiar but without HBO and BBC America: $41.45

A month of catastrophic health insurance with a
several thousand dollar deductible : $200

War, tax relief for the wealthy, and no response
to the climate crisis : priceless



TODAY IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY I saw my first homeless person with a cell phone.

But when you think about it, who needs a cell phone more? Actually, who else really needs a cell phone at all?



I get a kick out of Zen. I enjoy meditating though I don't do much, and I have really enjoyed books on Zen and Buddhism by (among others) Charlotte Joko Beck, Mark Epstein and Shunryu Suzuki, who founded the San Francisco Zen Center and is credited for being largely responsible for bringing Buddhist practice to America (though there has been some kind of Buddhist presence in America for a long time. Emerson was fascinated by it, for example, as was William James especially.) (Wasn't that a song on Blonde on Blonde? William James Especially?)

I've never visited the Zen center in San Francisco and wondered if I should. Somewhere I recall reading about a scandal there, and the other day I came across a book about it: "Shoes Outside the Door" by Michael Downing. It begins with that characteristic Zen wit (he quotes an elderly Zen priest advising him at breakfast, "You can't change your karma, but you can sweeten your cereal.") before it turns decidedly grim, and even that enlightened drollery takes on tragic meanings.

I'm only part way through the book, but I've already gotten to the place where the American Abbott who succeeded Suzuki has everyone lined up to bow to him as he drives away in his BMW. His excesses and autocratic abuses went on for years, pretty much in full view of everyone, until a few events (not all that different from those that came before) brought him down suddenly and completely. Apparently the Zen Center just about collapsed in anguish and confusion, and felt the effects for many years (the crisis occurred in 1983).

There's a lot already that's reminiscent of other situations in which a charismatic leader who is apparently succeeding, especially in bringing in money, gets away with a lot because people around him look the other way, or just don't see what they see. But there's also the particular abuse of the leader sanctified by religious belief.

The first thought that came to me is that I have a reason after all to be grateful for the abusive nuns and hypocritical priests in my own twelve years of Catholic schools and 14 or so of practice. I, too, looked the other way even when I noticed that the parish priest who hectored the congregation for money every Sunday was driving a new Chrysler when my father could barely afford a second hand Ford.

I had a number of painful personal experiences in which either my rebellious spirit or my idealism or most often a combination of the two got me into the kind of trouble that involves being accused of not having faith, or being a stubborn and willful sinner. They could have been right about that, I thought, they're the experts. But then I started putting things together, such as my expectation that if, for instance, the Church couldn't quite live up to its teachings, it could at least not deny its mistakes. (I vividly recall questioning the morality of giving safe passage to an accused heretic to defend himself in Rome, hearing him out and then burning him at the stake. Sister Cornelia explained that safe passage didn't mean safe passage back.)

Ever since I've erred on the side of being too skeptical of authority, and the older I get the more impatient I am with officiousness. So I feel for those Zen students who got sucked in, but if I ever seriously abdicated my own moral responsibility to others, I've repressed the memory. (My problem is an often misapplied Hero complex, but that's another story.) I've never had authority for long enough to seriously abuse it, and I probably have morally shortchanged myself on occasion, but thanks to those nuns and priests of my childhood, not for very long. So in the spirit of Zen I won't not say thanks.

The voice of wisdom in this book, as he is on many matters, is Gary Snyder. Of how to view the fallibility of “roshis” or the Buddhist teacher-authorities, he says, “So you get the best you can from the guy, and you don’t imitate his bad sides. That’s basically the way monks and laypeople approach the teacher in Japan.”

I expect some Democratic party funds are going to research the wealth of statements prominent Republicans have made about the sanctity of the balanced Federal budget and the devil of the deficits. But I wonder if there is a reporter out there with enough guts, enough time and access to Lexis-Nexis to ferret out the vituperative statements of Republicans who considered Bill Clinton's lack of military service a scandalous disqualification for the post of Commander in Chief.

I'm reminded of this partly by Chris Hedges' interview on Bill Moyers the other night. Hedges has covered many wars and wonders why each generation cannot seem to learn from the awful experiences of the past. (Even the Gulf War I: he said for example that the Marines there loathed CNN and its sensationalistic coverage of a clean, technological war in which no one at all got bloody, maimed or killed, and the war was conducted with high efficiency, instead of being the fractious, confused, bloody mess we've since learned it was. And this was a war that Hedges supported; yet knowing war's cost is a heavy consideration in deciding to wage war. He believes Gulf War II is irresponsible.)

I wonder, too why every generation has to learn it all over again---that war is not a video game or a commercial, any more than it is a patriotic song or John Wayne movie. I suppose what links these thoughts with those prompted by the Zen Center book is something else I'm grateful for: an imagination. I experienced the war against the war in Vietnam in the United States, and all those painful and tumultuous years. I was a witness to the war itself only through information and imagination. Information, and judging information, are important. But was through imagination-through feeling the experiences of others, through entering into the published descriptions and accounts, as well as through the poetry and the films and novels of that war and of previous wars-that I learned enough of the realities of war to form my convictions, and inform my judgments. It is through imagination as well, through analogous experience, through empathy for the victims of authoritarian abuses and injustice, that I judge the rightness or wrongness of such situations, and above all, judge the rightness or wrongness of my participation in them and support of them.

It makes me feel again that to create works of the imagination that speak to the imaginations of others, that first of all help create the capacity to imagine more fully, and then to give the imagination something worth engaging, is a high calling, and a social necessity, particularly in our times, when we are aware of so much and experience so little of it.

Cartoon of the day: Satan gathers his minions in hell and says, “I know it’s tempting to rest on our laurels but it’s time to think ahead to 2004.”

Welcome to the Chaos.

As evidence of the Iraqi threat, the U.S. Secretary of State lauds a report of purported new findings by British intelligence, which turns out to be a thoroughly disreputable cut-and-paste from old and questionable sources, including the work of students, revealing information that is a more than a decade old. The plagiarism itself was so complete that it reproduced not only the very words of one of the student's papers, but also the grammatical errors and misspellings.

Sorry, but if my opponents from St. Philomena High in rural western Pennsylvania had tried to pass off that kind of evidence in a scholastic forensic league debate held in an empty classroom and witnessed by a track coach and two nuns, my high school debate partner and I would have been embarrassed for them.

Turns out it wasn't British Intelligence but Tony Blair's press office that produced it. British Intelligence was actually saying that there are no ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

No wonder Powell's attempt to tie Al Qaeda to Iraq on the basis of a purported bin Laden tape inspired skepticism. (Let's not embarrass the emperor by pointing out that last year's Satan and Public Enemy #1 is apparently still at large.) His other evidence previous to the tape---which even if genuine doesn't establish a relationship, others say---was a supposed base and chemical weapons plant in Iraq which turned out to be a few falling down shacks with minimal electricity outside Saddam's territory.

But look closer at the case the Bushies are making and it gets even more sinister: Sure, bin Laden despises Saddam as an apostate, but lots of terrorist groups are finding common cause as war nears, because they have a common enemy. We can expect terrorist acts even in the United States, possibly including dirty nuclear devices, chemical or biological weapons, planted by Al Qaeda and possibly supplied by Saddam, because the U.S. is preparing to attack Muslim territory.

In other words, the Bushies are making the case that we need to attack Iraq because it supports terrorist Al Qaeda, and the reason Al Qaeda and Iraq may be combining forces is because the U.S. is going to attack. Where is Joseph Heller when you need him, may he rest in peace.

Meanwhile North Korea is preparing to make nuclear bombs, and warns the U.S. that it isn't the only country that can engage in a pre-emptive strike so don't even think about it. A few days later, Iran announces it is doing some new nuclear fuel processing of its own, but not to worry, they aren't going to make bombs, which is just what North Korea says, wink wink, nudge nudge.

This is while France and Germany are joined by Russia in supporting a plan to put UN people on the ground in Iraq before the U.S. bombs can fall. Stayed tuned for Security Council: The Dueling Vetoes. In their different ways, all of these countries are responding to the Bush foreign policy of arrogance and bullying

They're seeing consequences of American arrogance in more terrorism in Europe and Britain. The closer war gets, the more menacing the threat. The U.S. is put on alert. Nobody seems to know if much has actually been done to protect the country's most vulnerable and potentially destructive terrorism targets. The head of the International Association of Firefighters says nobody has provided equipment or training to most firefighters in most places to cope with bio, chemical or radiation attacks, and they're understaffed in most cities even for more conventional threats. Communications is still a mystery in most places, and while Americans are being urged to buy battery-powered radios, there may be nothing to hear on them but the latest from British intelligence.

Congress holds hearings on plans for postwar Iraq and finds that practically speaking there are none. NGOs and the UN aren't prepared to deal with "humanitarian needs," which is nicespeak for starving, bleeding, thirsty, maimed and terrorized civilians. But the Bushies did say they expect Saddam to blow up his oil wells, creating a blanket of deadly pollution we'll probably all get a taste of.

Conservative estimates have the U.S. occupying Iraq for two years. An army of occupation is likely to face armed opposition, as it tries to restrain the opposing ethnic and religious groups in Iraq from savaging each other. The retired general who led relief efforts in the region after Gulf War I said that even without those responsibilities, tens of thousands of American troops remained for the next 11 years, long after the cameras went home. "The war never ended," he said. "We aren't going to go home from whatever we do in Iraq."

Meanwhile back in Iraq the inspectors say Iraq is cooperating better, but everybody knows the Bushies won't take yes for an answer. They insist that war isn't inevitable, and if it happens it will be regrettable, but nothing anybody does gets any reaction other than derision. Everybody else is deluded; only the Bushies are right.

Thanks to that self-righteousness, Americans will be paying for the war and the occupation of Iraq into the indefinite future. It doesn't look like France and Germany will help much.

Instead Bush stands shoulder to shoulder with his staunch ally, the prime minister of Australia. He shouldn't expect much from that country in the long term either. Everybody in Australia knows that come the next election, this guy is toast. Why? Because he stands shoulder to shoulder with Bush.

Bush submits a budget with huge tax giveaways for the rich and the largest deficit in U.S. history, batteries and the cost of the war not included. All the voices that despaired over government deficits are silent. State governments are already saying it and pretty soon the federal government will say it, too: Gee, there's no more money! We'll have to tighten our belts, so the majority of families in America can look forward to worse education and health care, and an old age of poverty and untreated illness. I guess they're hoping we'll suffer in silence, ashamed of not being billionaires and getting tax cuts, too.

The ax is already starting to fall here in California, thanks to state budget cuts. People will be thrown out of work and others will be overworked, students and their parents will pay more for less education, and as for the poor---let them eat tax cuts.

A draft proposal for Patriot Act II circulates in Washington. Patriot Act I already allows homes to be searched secretly, without a warrant. Patriot Act II apparently proposes secret arrests. You know, the very definition of totalitarian government---the knock on the door in the middle of the night, and somebody disappears. Only they won't knock. Of what form of government is this act a patriot of? Where are Stalin and Pinochet when we need them?

If there's another terrorist attack, we'll probably find out. Just don't keep this column on your hard drive.

Meanwhile, the crashing sound of icebergs falling apart, the chainsaws and bulldozers and the drills cut the life out of the planet, the quiet dying of the last of their kind as species vanish forever.

Welcome to the Madness.

"The power to create context is the recipient's skill...He or she must acquire that skill by learning or by lucky mutation, that is, by a successful raid on the random. The recipient must be, in some sense, ready for the appropriate discovery when it comes." Gregory Bateson
Mind and Nature

FEAR FACTOR

"FEAR, fear, is a man's best friend," John Cale once sang, only partly in jest. In some ways it must be---after all, such a strong emotion must have had survival value in repeated situations. Healthy fear, we call it: the fear of large and noisy, fast-moving objects that keeps pedestrians wary at the sidewalk's edge. But like the famous fight- or- flight response set off a dozen times during a normal day in western civilization, fear can be inappropriate, disproportionate and misdirected.

Fear's frenzy contends with areas of awareness, intention and responsibility that are our best excuses for calling ourselves human. Fear abides in the darkness, especially if we see "consciousness as the light of clarity," as does poet Charles Simic, "and history as the dark night of the soul."

Fear is our most important media product, as seen in Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine." The rush of fear jolts our attention, the promised prize of every sponsored moment on television. Fear sells papers.

Fear as entertainment exorcises the tension, but it ritualizes the fear. We don't admit it, but we know it's there. In every act of violence we see, we are victim and executioner. We feel their fear.

The swoon of fear demonstrably clouds our judgment, but then, judgment isn't the point of fear. The point is to move real fast out of harm's way. The body would rather be wrong about the threat than dead from it. The body will forgive mistaking the benign for the dangerous over and over---and perhaps has adapted the laugh response in compensation---in preference to the one possibly fatal mistake of failing to fear the mortal threat.

But for the body politic, it's another story. Fearing the wrong threat blinds the ability to see the real ones; even if the target is correct, excessive fear-and obsessive fear-- can lead to disastrous decisions.

Fear can distort our perceptions in less fraught moments, more quietly, but with greater consistency. A persistent background fear that shapes incoming information, even blocking some out entirely. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something," observed Upton Sinclair, "when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Fear-mongering is a tried and true tactic of the unscrupulous. These days it is injury accompanied by insult. We threaten your job unless you convince us you're doing it for love. When you're downsized, you're cut down to size: it was your fault. You know they rule by your justifiable fear, but you can't ever let them know you know.

We seem only to recognize how leaders cynically exploit unjustifiable fear years after they are successful in doing so. I will slay the invisible enemy, the emperor cries, and I will tell you when it's been slain. Wearing our fear as a shining suit, this emperor would otherwise have no clothes. Neither would the enemy.

How is it that our enemy is always wrong about us, but we are never wrong about our enemy? Until perhaps these two are no longer enemies, but allies against a common foe. Sometimes fear is all we see.

A society that thrives on fear forgets the future. It burns up the present. The rich oil barons fear a future of taking risks on renewable energy and a different kind of economy, perhaps a different kind of democracy. The middle class fears the loss of the warmth of status even more than the loss of cool stuff. Without hope and without imagination, we fear a future that might be too much like a fearsome image of the past.

" You would think global warming and extinction of species would scare us to death," says author Frances Moore Lappe, "but the truth is that we're even more scared of being different, of breaking with the pack."

What happens to humans when fear becomes a permanent condition? What does it look like then? Is it invisible?

The primal fear is death, or is it? One's definition of death depends on one's definition of life. There is also the fear of losing what you depends on for life, regardless of whether life is possible without it. Or fear of losing yourself, or your conception of yourself. Fear of abandonment. Of insufficiency from within, without, around.

When you face a threat that others don't understand, your fear is amplified; your fear may be of them as much as of the threat itself. "Nobody loves you when you're down and out…Everybody loves you when you're six feet in the ground," John Lennon sang, and everybody loves him, now that he's dead. But during his lifetime: "Everybody's hustling for a buck and a dime. I'll scratch your back, you knife mine."

Fear is not itself an illusion. Fear is felt, tasted. When the object of fear is not an object but a subject, a situation, an idea of safety, normality, peace…then fear may be mistaken, misdirected, misconceived. Or it may be dead on. It may tell you what you don't want to know. Fear, fear is a man's best friend.

But fear awakens fear. Fear may be where the night goes hunting. Fear is the dark forest where the mind stalks itself.

Fear is not an illusion. Fear has to be faced.

And what happens when we lose what we fear to lose, because we fear to lose it?

Or because we are so afraid of the invisible enemy, that we don't pay attention to the ones we could see if we only opened our eyes?

The face of fear may be the face in the mirror.