Election whoopdee doo!

Gwen Graham Victory Speech

Well, this has been a pretty demoralizing election. At least, Gwen Graham, a vaguely liberal democrat won in Florida's District 2, my district, so I don't have to read the obnoxious ravings of Tea Party Steve Southerland, or argue with his policies on his Facebook page.

I thought she would lose because the substance of her policy seemed to be attacking Steve Southerland (not hard to do). So, the Second District showed some sense in spite of Graham's pusillanimity.

What I find impossible to understand is why these Democrats cannot find the heart to actually stand for something beneficial to ordinary people. I believe that if they actually espoused the genuinely progressive and radical policies that might help us overcome global warming, the security state, the militarists, the corporatists, the racists, the fascists, the woman-haters, the drug-haters, the children-haters, the democracy-haters, the science-haters, the patriarchs, they might surprise themselves and win an election. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders won this way.

I know that that the conservative elites are so invested in their wealth and opportunity and status, that they cannot think clearly and see any kind of progressive policies as threats. not gifts. For centuries, they have dominated women and feared homosexuality, oppressed black people and poor whites, and exploited the environment, and they are unwilling to give all that up, even though their very lifestyle is a threat to their survival. But, what is puzzling is why anyone shy of upper-middle class status goes along with them.

Howard Zinn reported that the early colonial elites invented racism to keep runaway slaves, Indians, and poor whites isolated from each other due to their fear of a coordinated uprising against them, and I believe this kind of mind-poison is still being slung about. Either that, or that the racism developed over centuries has become 'institutionalized' and endemic in a large part of the population. Just as insidious is the belief some men hold of their right to dominate women, and they do not want to end their privilege. Arms manufacturers (and their employees) thrive off war, business thrives off exploitation, financiers thrive off interest. There are lots of reasons to preserve the status quo, even for the exploited, especially for the average man who oppresses his wife and daughters (why any woman would support Republicans is solid proof of the Stockholm Syndrome, but one writ large).

When I was a naïve young Zen student marching across the United States protesting the Vietnam War, I believed I had discovered 'Zen Politics'. A New York Roshi informed me that my 'discovery' was a delusion, and after almost fifty years, I see what he means. Voltaire's Candide ended up pleasantly tending his garden, perhaps waiting for the crazies to die off.

Even in Voltaire's time, change was coursing, and we are now involved in perhaps the most extensive change of the entire span of mankind's existence. Conservatives by their nature, oppose change, but in this case they are monkeys howling against the hurricane. Good sense is not enough, it seems, so like Shakyamuni's horses, we have to be beat to death before following the Way. Good luck!