Scientists have provided the first clear evidence that memories can survive metamorphosis in Lepidopterans.  Lepidoptera is the order that includes moths and butterflies, and in this particular study, the researches used moths, but "butterfly buddha" alliterates nicely, and besides, they're family.  Given that moths are active mainly at night, while butterflies are active mainly during the day, we might call moths the butterflies of the unconscious.  Now we can listen for Jungian undertones as we consider the straight science.
    The study involved teaching caterpillars to avoid a certain odor they wouldn't normally avoid.  Researchers then checked to see if they would avoid the smell after metamorphosing into moths.  As long as the training occurred after the caterpillars reached a certain age, the memories persisted into their reincarnation as moths.
    This study inspires me to take a few moments for some butterfly reverence.  Butterflies might be a barometer for human impact on the environment.  There seem to be fewer and fewer butterflies thanks to widespread pesticide use and irresponsible land development.  Because they have a complex life pattern, they reveal the interconnectedness of things, and they warn us about how delicately some of Gaia's great tapestries are woven.
    The subtlety and sophistication of Gaia's hand shows itself everywhere you look, but casting a glance at the relationship between butterflies and the rest of the world can make your jaw drop.  For instance, the rare Bathurst Copper butterfly lives out its caterpillar days fully supported by ants.  During the day, the caterpillars sleep in the ant colony.  At night they are escorted by the ants--yes, escorted--to feed on Blackthorn plants.  The ants watch over the caterpillar with such dedication that if something shakes the plant, the ants go right into action, with some of them escorting the caterpillar to safety while others go to attack whatever is shaking the plant!  You can read more about this relationship if you like.
    Butterflies exemplify Kantian aesthetics.  When we say they are beautiful, we don't mean "to me anyway."  We mean they just ARE.  When we marvel at them, we don't mean, "well, I think they're fascinating."  We mean they just ARE.  Perhaps if we keep our love of them alive, and encourage every man, woman, and child to let that beauty and mystery WORK on us as a species, maybe butterflies will help us become sustainable in our way of being.  Here are a few butterfly tidbits.  Please share some of your favorites as well!

________________________________

Wake up! wake up!
be my friend
sleeping butterfly.

Basho
__________________

You are the butterfly
and I the dreaming heart
of Chuang-tzu.

Basho
__________________

The fallen blossom
has returned to the branch;
no, it was a butterfly.

Arakida Moritake
___________________

While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

Neruda
___________________

In hand-heights, the dazzle of butterflies,
butterflies setting sail in their unbounded light.

Neruda
___________________

The monkeys wove a thread
interminably erotic
along the banks of dawn,
demolishing walls of pollen
and flushing the violet light
of the butterflies from Buga.

Neruda
_____________________

the spear stuck in the pure stone
the wounded fish flapped in the light
harsh flag of an uncaring sea
butterfly of bloodstain and salt.

Neruda
______________________

a butterfly hovers in front of her face
how long will she sleep

Ikkyu
_____________________

In one breath
the haiku exhales
a butterfly

R. D. McManes
____________________

A broken dream--
where do they go
the butterflies?

Death poem of Ichimu
____________________

The dreamy feelings
when held between our fingers--
a butterfly

Buson
___________________

On a temple bell
alights and naps
a butterfly

Buson
__________________

Such is the world
the life of a butterfly
busy too

Issa
__________________

To buy its dream
no butterflies appear--
a winter peony

Buson
__________________

Making a pillow
of my arm--
a butterfly is asleep

Issa
_____________________

Now the butterflies, yellow
in September, fly in pairs
over the grass in the west garden.
The scene breaks my heart.

Li Bai

_____________________

And Wisdom is  a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.

Yeats

This is the first in a series of posts celebrating the power of feminine energy at work in our world.  I am trying to turn around the meaning of "cherchez la femme."  People often use it in a sense that acknowledges the power of the feminine, but in a negative way, as if looking for the Woman behind the scene means looking for the source of the "problem."  Instead we can look for miraculous feminine energy that works through us every day, men and women alike, and which, in the form of some remarkable women who allow themselves to serve as grand vehicles for it, contributes to possible solutions for the messes we have created, as well as facilitating the evolution of humanity.  These are not "extraordinary" women in the ordinary sense.  Rather, they exemplify the truly extraordinary nature of every woman you meet.  Therefore, not everyone here will be a Nobel Prize winner or an Olympic gold medalist (though such gals are not excluded).  The idea is to look with sensitive eyes and see how all of us can cultivate more respect and more space in our lives for what these women embody.

This weeks fab femme is Laurie Marker.  She has probably done more to save cheetahs than any other single human alive.  You can learn about Laurie Marker, her Work, and the story of the cheetah by checking out this great article from Smithsonian Magazine.

Dead Zones?

Dead zones off Oregon and Washington likely tied to global warming, study says

Wow.  It only took me forever to post this update, and as it stands, it predates my original March 2nd posting.  But I bet a lot of people missed this when it came out.  If you saw the Altered Oceans piece, you may have noticed the word "tipping point."  What we have heard so far from most of the people concerned with the sustainability crisis with respect to climate is that we want to avoid major tipping points.  When we cross those thresholds, we will see some depressing fallout.  Large scale death and ecological collapse will ensue.  A species here, an ecosystem there, with plenty of human casualties as well.  This article contains some disturbing words from one researcher:  "We couldn't believe our eyes . . . It was so overwhelming and depressing . . . . We seem to have crossed a tipping point."  "CROSSED a tipping point"?  Not good.  "Overwhelming and depressing"?  Indeed it would be.  Let's hope we still have a chance to avoid reaching other tipping points.  Visit Greenpeace (or some other group) to uncover ways you can help.  

Some people are missing the film at the end of the Bodhisattva posting below (Feb 24th).  The little experiment proposed in the posting is fun, and several people have tried it and enjoyed it, but the dance clip is not to be missed if you've never seen it.  As I mentioned in the original posting, this is a troupe of 21 dancers from China who bring the thousand-armed bodhisattva to life by means of non-doing.  They are members of the Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe, and all of them are deaf and mute.  They take their timing cues from a bodhisattva who stands off stage.  The second link is a still image of them.  Notice that each hand has an eye in the middle of it.  When you first start watching the video, you may think you are seeing one woman standing in front of some kind of video screen.  Not so.  It's all live, all carefully coordinated.  Enjoy!

Dance of the Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva

Still Image of the Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva

"And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." ~Nietzsche

    This post only appears to deal with tango.  My interest in Tango lies in the way it so beautifully expresses the principles of the Alexander Technique.  Thus, like most things I say or write about Tango, the real subject here goes far beyond tango.  What we will consider goes to the heart of all artistic activities, ultimately illuminating the creative heart of everyday living.
    We begin with a tango teacher admonishing the leaders in his class by saying, "It's not your body . . . always give your partner time to make the movements you want."  There is something very nice there.  Connection demands that we give each other time to respond.  We worry so much over the ends of things, and this creates a tension that bends us toward the past and the future--sometimes simultaneously.  But we can only dance NOW.  If we look deeply into the dance, we can begin to see how our reactiveness manifests, how habits control us, how the discursive mind whirs, how we try, especially perhaps as beginners, to make this wild phoenix a tame little chic.  But when we really look deeply, we may tremble.  We arrive at a place where Nietzsche's quote transcends its existence as an overly sweetened fortune cookie.  Instead, when we break it open we find, not a fragment of kitsch, but bundle of invitations from playful gods and goddesses: invitations to dance, invitations to laugh and to cry, invitations to let go of what we think we are and allow ourselves be moved by rhythms divine.
    What I am getting at: the suggestion of this teacher takes us only to the EDGE of the abyss.  To dance right into it, into that brilliant light that from the edge appears as terrifying darkness, we have to go further: Why is he only pointing out that HER body is not my body?  Shouldn't I ask if MY body is really my body?  How does dancing HAPPEN?  NOW we can fall:

"Our bodies do not belong to us."  ~Kodo Sawaki Roshi

Let that sink in.  What does it mean?  We need to really LOOK here.  Is this Zen baloney, or is this guy speaking from concrete experience?  Here's the full quote:

    Our bodies do not belong to us.  They are the true activity of the life of the great universe.  That is to say, our bodies are the great universal life.  The proof that this body is the life of the universe is in zazen.  In zazen, you place your hands like this and cross your legs and do nothing at all with regard to yourself.  By doing zazen in this manner, your body will become the reality of the great universe.

IF this is true, if we should take this as something important, something that can actually guide our development as dancers, at ANY level, then we can rewrite that like so:

    Our bodies do not belong to us; the dance does not belong to us.  The dance is the true activity of the life of the great Cosmos.  Life is Dance.  Our body is the Cosmic body dancing.  The proof of this can be found in Tango.  You take a woman (or a man) in your arms and do nothing at all.  You connect fully and allow yourself to be moved.  Your body and your dance then become the reality of the great Cosmos.    

Sawaki Roshi put the matter this way as well:  "Zazen is not the life of an individual; it is the universe that is breathing."  Likewise: dancing is not the life of an individual or of two individuals; it is the universe that is breathing and dancing.  Indeed, he INSISTS on this point, again and again.  Below are several quotes from Sawaki Roshi.  Just make the translations yourself.  For instance, where it says "zazen," replace it with "Tango," and where it speaks of Buddha, keep it as Buddha, or change it to "Kali," or "Dance," or "great dancer," or "genuine person," or "true self," or "faithful Christian":

"Zazen is the purity of one's own nature through the body . . . . In zazen . . . [you] take a pause from everything.  Don't think in terms of good or bad, or judge right from wrong.  Stop the movement of consciousness.  Refrain from the calculation of ideas.  Don't seek to be a Buddha . . ."

"The universe and I are of the same root.  The myriad things and I are one body.  That is zazen."

"If you sit with faith in zazen, you will be a Buddha."

"We stop the one who can't cease from seeking things outside, and practice with our bodies with a posture that seeks absolutely nothing.  This is zazen."

"Though it is thought that zazen and faith are different and said that zazen is not [related] to faith, doing zazen in this way, becoming intimate with the self, creating a very clear self, is what I call faith."

    We can see here the value of Tango in spiritual practice, in our growth as human beings, in the nourishment of our relationships, and more.  This is why I advocate Tango (and the Alexander Technique) as Practice, as Way.  Of course, I make no distinction between Dance and Life, and this is why lessons in the Alexander Technique are to me just lessons in dancing, in how to dance your life.  This is also why I teach tango-infused Alexander Work.  My concern is not with technique, but with this deeper issue.  These quotes also hint at the importance of zazen or some other form of contemplative practice as a foundation for DEEP "progress" in Tango or Alexander Work.  Of course, one can also consult the scientific literature to understand this point.  
    It is important to realize that we are not pursuing "Zen ideas" here.  This is about your LIFE.  It has to do with tapping into the sources of creativity, living an inspired life, understanding the nature of free will, seeing into our reactiveness and our many habits of thought and action.  What is the relationship between fate and freedom?  Who is DOING my life if I'm not?  Martin Buber points at the moon:

    Fate and freedom are promised to each other.  Fate is encountered only by him that actualizes freedom.  That I discovered the deed that intends me, that, this movement of my freedom, reveals the mystery to me.  But this, too, that I cannot accomplish it the way I intended it, this resistance also reveals the mystery to me . . . he that puts aside possessions and cloak and steps bare before the countenance--this free human being encounters fate as the counter-image of his freedom.  It is not his limit but his completion; freedom and fate embrace each other to form meaning; and given meaning, fate--with its eyes, hitherto severe, suddenly full of light--looks like grace itself.

Can I hear an "Amen"?  Or a Shalom, or a Shazam, or an Om Namah Shivaya!  Let that Buber vibe sink in.  Catch some of the resonance: "the deed that INTENDS me," "this MOVEMENT of my freedom," "I cannot accomplish it the way I INTENDED," "freedom and fate EMBRACE . . . to form MEANING," "fate . . . full of LIGHT--looks like GRACE itself."  The whole of Tango's mystery is there.  The Dance intends US, it accomplishes itself THROUGH us, not as we think it SHOULD, as we try to tame it and make it known, but as it must be.  The dancers embrace within the embrace of the Dance, and in the midst of all this embracing, "leader" and "follower" fall away, I-It relationships vanish, two Thou's become fully empowered by their own receptivity, and the MEANING of Life, which cannot be SAID, is now DANCED.  This, THIS, is Grace.  Graceful dancers follow the curves and contours of fate as it lovingly whispers with freedom.  We see Grace and we soak in a truly aesthetic experience because, as Joseph Campbell would put it, the dancers have become metaphysically significant: they have carried "the radiance of the transcendent into the field of time."
    We should keep looking, though.  We THINK we understand.  But do we?  In the beautiful little story, Zen in the Art of Archery, Herrigel gives us the following key:

    . . . . One day I asked the Master: "How can the shot be loosed if ‘I' do not do it?"
        "‘It'" shoots," he replied.
        "I have heard you say that several times before, so let me put it another way: How can I wait self-obliviously for the shot if ‘I' am no longer there?"
        "‘It'" waits at the highest tension."
        "And who or what is this ‘It'?"
        "Once you have understood that, you will have no further need of me.  And if I tried to give you a clue at the expense of your own experience, I would be the worst of teachers and would deserve to be sacked!  So let's stop talking about it and go on practicing."
         . . . . Then one day, after a shot, the Master made a deep bow and broke off the lesson.  "Just then ‘It' shot!" he cried, as I stared at him bewildered.  And when I at last understood what he meant I couldn't suppress a sudden whoop of delight.
        "What I have said," the Master told me severely, "was not praise, only a statement that ought not to touch you.  Nor was my bow meant for you, for you are entirely innocent of this shot.  You remained this time absolutely self-oblivious and without purpose in the highest tension, so that the shot fell from you like a ripe fruit.  Now go on practicing as if nothing had happened."

How many Tango dancers can let go enough to accept this?  There are parts of our ego which need strengthening, and parts which need lessons in intimacy and surrender.  What is weak in us: deep and genuine confidence, and connection to our true human power.  What is strong in us: the tendency to take credit, to try to DO, to make things known, to tame, to proclaim, to become obsessed with the ends of things.
    I would like to go a little further, to return again very specifically to the notion of human creativity.  One lesson emerging here is that our whole life is spontaneous creation if we allow it (the paradox: it is even if we don't).  Dancing with the abyss means dancing with this wild, spontaneous nature of our life.  It is unfixed and unknown.  I am thinking right now about writers and artists with whom I have Worked.  If we consider the narrow conception of creating something, like writing a book or making a piece of art, we can gain insight, not only into Tango, but into the necessity of dancing with the abyss in everyday life.  Few have nailed this as well as Nietzsche did in Ecce Homo.  The passage below comes from the section on Zarathustra.  This makes it particularly appropriate because, as Nietzsche tells us, "Zarathustra is a dancer," and, as Isadora Duncan frequently pointed out, Nietzsche himself is "our dancing philosopher."  Remember, though, we are reading this to understand not only inspired dancing and inspired creative work, but also inspired LIVING:

        Has anyone at the end of the nineteenth century a clear idea of what poets of strong ages have called inspiration?  If not, I will describe it. -- If one had the slightest residue of superstition left in one's system, one could hardly reject altogether the idea that one is merely incarnation, merely mouthpiece, merely a medium of overpowering forces.  The concept of revelation--in the sense that suddenly, with indescribable certainty and subtlety, something becomes visible, audible, something that shakes one to the last depths and throws one down--that merely describes the facts.  One hears, one does not seek; one accepts, one does not ask who gives; like lightning, a thought flashes up, with necessity, without hesitation regarding its form--I never had any choice.

Shazam!!  Sense, among other things, in the midst of such richness, a resonance with Suzuki Roshi:  "When you know everything, you are like a dark sky.  Sometimes a flashing will come through the dark sky."  In the light of the flashing, Dance reveals itself, Poetry reveals itself, something in the world yields over its secrets.  But our dancing philosopher hasn't finished.  There's nowhere left to go, yet we've just warmed our muscles for flowing movement:

        A rapture whose tremendous tension occasionally discharges itself in a flood of tears--now the pace quickens involuntarily, now it becomes slow; one is altogether beside oneself, with the distinct consciousness of subtle shudders and of one's skin creeping down to one's toes; a depth of happiness in which even what is most painful and gloomy does not seem something opposite but rather conditioned, provoked, a necessary color in such a superabundance of light; an instinct for rhythmic relationships that arches over wide spaces of forms--length, the need for rhythm with wide arches, is almost the measure of the force of inspiration, a kind of compensation for its pressure and tension.
        Everything happens involuntarily in the highest degree but as in a gale of a feeling of freedom, of absoluteness, of power, of divinity. -- The involuntariness of image and metaphor is strangest of all; one no longer has any notion of what is an image or a metaphor: everything offers itself as the nearest, most obvious, simplest expression.  It actually seems, to allude to something Zarathustra says, as if the things themselves approached and offered themselves as metaphors ("Here all things come caressingly to your discourse and flatter you; for they want to ride on your back.  On every metaphor you ride to every truth . . . Here the words and wordshrines of all being open up before you; here all being wishes to become word, all becoming wishes to learn from you how to speak").

    
Can you just FEEL the Tango: a rapture, a pace quickening and slowing according to its own need, an ecstasy shuddering over one's body and expressing itself in rhythm, all being approaching to become Dance, to learn from us how to speak through Tango.  Rumi, great poet of the Alexander Technique and of Tango, understood all of this, and he constantly tells us the abyss is where we need to go.  Here he echoes Nietzsche:

    Do you think I know what I'm doing?
    That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?
    As much as a pen knows what it's writing,
    or the ball can guess where it's going next.

Or the foot can guess where it's going next, or the center can guess where it's falling next, or I can tell you where my life should be going next, or how I will next take this woman into my arms, or kiss my beloved, or show my gratitude for some unexpected gift from the Cosmos . . .
    I would like to insist that we keep in mind the very practical nature of looking into and dancing with the abyss.  Martin Buber gives us a stern warning about intellectualizing any of this: "We cannot go to others with what we have received, saying: This is what needs to be known, this is what needs to be done.  We can only go and put the proof in action."  There is no formula, and no amount of intellectual agreement or argument matters here.  The point is to DANCE.  Not only to go out and try some Tango, but to dance your LIFE.  We may think all of this is for writers, dancers, artists.  But our "life span" is a canvas, the body a set magical brushes; our life span is also a dance floor, a story, a butterfly dreaming in the wind.  
    For some advice on the practical dimensions of looking into and dancing with the abyss, we cannot do better than Thich Nhat Hanh.  He encourages us to look into the abyss in many ways:  "When we say it's raining, we mean that raining is taking place.  You don't need someone up above to perform the raining.  It's not that there is rain, and there is the one who causes the rain to fall."  In case that's not clear enough, he dances right up to the very stating point of our conversation:  "You might think that your body is your individual possession, but your body belongs to the world as well . . . . to say, ‘It's my own life!' is a bit naive."
    One thing I adore about Thich Nhat Han, one in a very long list, is that he makes the abyss a lovely thing.  He essentially tells us that looking into the abyss means gazing into the eyes of the Buddha.  From this viewpoint, understanding that Life is acting THROUGH us is not really scary.  Rather it can be a saving grace.  When we face something difficult we can leap into the arms of the abyss instead of running from it.  We can ask the Buddha to handle the situation for us, to dance with the challenges we face rather than TACKLING or DOING them "on our own."  The Zen Master tells us that, "Even in the most difficult situation, you can walk like a Buddha."  To illustrate, he tells of a visit to Korea in which hundreds of people, cameras in hand, rushed toward his group as they were walking: " . . . they were closing in.  There was no path to walk, and everyone was aiming their camera at us.  It was a very difficult situation in which to do walking meditation [i.e., for him, to WALK].  And I said, ‘Dear Buddha, I give up, you walk for me.'  And right away the Buddha came, and he walked, with complete freedom.  And then the crowd just made room for the Buddha to walk; no effort was made . . . .  This works in all situations."  (Incidentally, every religion asks us to dance with the abyss.  For instance, John 3:21 tells us that, "Everyone who lives by the truth will come to the light, because they want others to know that God is really the one doing what they do."  In the Gita we read that "The man who has seen the truth/thinks, ‘I am not the doer'/at all times-when he sees, hears, touches,/when he smells, eats, walks, sleeps, breathes.")
    Let me end by encouraging you to dance with the abyss.  It's everywhere, waiting to embrace you and to Work on you and through you.  If you already dance Tango, really ASK, "Who is the one dancing?  Who is dragging this bucket of bones around the floor?"  If you're new to Tango, don't worry about being a beginner.  When you face the challenges of learning, just ask the Buddha to dance for you (and then ask, "Who is this Buddha dancing for me?").  If you're not a "dancer" in the stereotypical sense, remember that you are still a Dancer, and every moment of your life is a chance to manifest it.  Any of us can ask the Buddha to deal with difficult dances, and any of us can keep looking into that lovely abyss.  When it begins to look back, we start to grow in miraculous ways.

Check out this great bit of journalism put out by the L.A. Times:

Altered Oceans, a five-part series on the crisis of the seas

The oceans of the world may have already hit a tipping point.  We can only begin to imagine what that will mean in the next 10-20 years.  Of course, we may still have time to work productively.  Besides, a sustainable way of being ultimately has nothing to do with "saving" the oceans.  We should live sustainably because we recognize that we should live sustainably, that the way of being implied by sustainable living puts us in harmony with our most precious ideals.  

Many of you may have seen this series.  It came out in 2006, and it contained not only print but also online content, including video and several dozen photos.  It ended up winning a Pulitzer in 2007.

If you never interacted with this piece (read and viewed it and let it work on you) I encourage you to do so.  It should act as a clarion call.  Obama supporters, will he "save" our oceans?  Why is the sustainability crisis not a major campaign issue?  

A few warnings:

The third video in part three contains somewhat graphic imagery of a manatee autopsy.  The photos in that part also include shots from the autopsy.
The videos in general are not that pleasant to watch, but the whole thing could have been far more graphic.  It's an important series.

    The bodhisattva with 1000 arms can be a helpful figure for students of the Alexander Technique.  This bodhisattva is an icon of non-doing, and allowing it to work on us can help us see more clearly into the nature of the four skills.
    There is a classic story about a grasshopper and a centipede.  The grasshopper sees the centipede and is taken aback.  "How is it possible," he asks, "that you can walk with all those legs?!  How on earth do you do it?!"  The centipede stops and says, "I don't know."  The grasshopper insists on knowing.  He says, "Come now!  Don't keep it a secret!  Tell me!  I must know how you do it.  If you really don't know, then think about it!  I want you to tell me how you control all those legs."  The centipede starts thinking about it, and after a few minutes he realizes he can no longer walk.  He is totally confused, and now he can't get his legs to work at all.
    Imagine what a grasshopper would think of the bodhisattva with 1000 arms.  These are not just insect legs, but human arms, each with human hands capable of sophisticated movement.  The image is so baffling that we too should become like the grasshopper and marvel at it.  Or maybe we gloss over it, viewing it as just another religious image.  What kind of religious image is it?  What is a bodhisattva, and who is this bodhisattva with 1000 arms?
    In a nutshell, a bodhisattva is an "enlightenment being," one who has vowed to attain enlightenment for the sake of helping all sentient beings.  They sit in meditation to save all sentient beings, they practice compassion for the sake of all sentient beings, they follow the Way for the sake of all sentient beings, and when they die they vow to keep returning to the world of samsara until all sentient beings are free.  The very essence of a bodhisattva is compassion.
    Some bodhisattvas are very well known.  Avalokiteshvara may be the most famous of them all.  He is known by many names and manifests in many forms.  In Tibet he is known as Chenrezig.  The Dalai Lama is viewed as a manifestation or emanation of Chenrezig.  In China the most famous form of this bodhisattva is Kwan Yin, a female version.  In Japan, Kwan Yin is called Kannon.  Any of these versions of Avalokiteshvara may manifest in the form of a being having one thousand arms, one of 108 forms through which he may manifest.  

Here are links to a couple images of this bodhisattva.  The first link contains an explanation of how the bodhisattva came to have 1000 arms:

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/guanyin.htm

http://www.asianart.com/exhibitions/bowers/01.html


    That's the background.  To get into the substance of why this bodhisattva is an icon for the Alexander Technique, let's return to the question of how we look at such an image in the first place.  I'm going to do a smart thing and turn to Zen Master Takuan.  His comments on this figure get right to the point, and one could hardly find a better source.  The following long quote is taken from Immovable Wisdom, a translation of Takuan's writings done by Nobuko Hirose.  The title is well chosen.  One could say the Alexander Technique seeks to cultivate a wisdom that is immovable but not fixed.  We all have it, we just tend to cover it up.  Takuan touches on this in his discussion of the thousand-armed bodhisattva, in this case appearing in male form (you might ask why this bodhisattva of compassion needs weapons):

        Senju Kannon (the thousand-armed Kannon) is represented with a thousand arms, each arm holding a different weapon, but despite having a thousand arms, if his mind ‘stops' with the one that uses a bow, for example, all the remaining 999 arms will be of no use whatever.  Only if his mind does not ‘stop' with the use of one arm can his other arms work efficiently and the thousand weapons be useful.
        As for Kannon, how can it have a thousand arms on one body?  This figure is intended to show us that when a man realizes immovable wisdom, even with as many as a thousand arms on one body, he is able to use each and every one in one way or another.
         . . . . Ordinary people regard Kannon with reverence for no reason.  They simply believe in Kannon as an extraordinary being because it has a thousand arms and eyes on its body.  Some people with superficial knowledge deny Kannon and say, ‘How can one have as many arms and eyes as a thousand on one body?  It is a lie.'  Not only do they deny Kannon, but they abuse Buddhism.  But one who knows Buddhism more deeply will neither blindly believe nor deny it.  Because one understands the reason for things and pays respect, so one believes in Kannon.
        Buddhist teaching often manifests its principles in a form.  This is also the case with all other Way, especially Shintoism (the old indigenous religion in Japan).  These figures are symbols and a means of teaching.  One who sees and thinks only on the surface is ordinary.  On the other hand, one who abuses Buddhism is worse.  Everything has its reason.  One must see behind phenomena.  This school, that school, there are many schools, but they all boil down to this.

    One thing I find so surprising in Takuan's comments is the way they echo Joseph Campbell.  Campbell believed that our mythologies are poetry mistakenly read as journalism.  If you read the Bible or stories from ancient Greek religion as journalism you may be tempted to say, "It's a lie!"  Or, you may accept this or that image as real, and it may lead you to look at images revered by other cultures and say, "It's a lie!"  Campbell felt the images of all great mythologies (i.e. past and present religions) were metaphoric of human potential.  These images are telling us what we are.  If you believe in Kannon the way Takuan suggests, with intelligence and doubt rather than "blind" faith, you will see for yourself.
    There are ways of getting at this rather directly.  In lessons I tell students that every touch of the teacher only stands in for a hand which is already there, one that remains when the teacher's hand goes away.  Every one of us has a thousand-armed bodhisattva standing behind us, waiting to help us accomplish any task.  You can say, "It's just a joke," or even, "What a stupid story."  But, you may also begin to trust that image, in a way that preserves doubt, so that you start to pay very close attention.  When you do that you will discover the true message in it.  The proof is in action.  Try it, and you will notice a change.  You can also try to see that you yourself are a thousand-armed bodhisattva.
    Take a moment for a quick experiment.  Place your hands in your lap.  Look at your computer keyboard.  You are going to adjust the position of the keyboard.  If you have a laptop, you are going to adjust the position of your whole computer.  This is your intention.  It's not a goal.  You are not stuck on it.  Don't let it stop the mind.  Instead, notice the room.  Become aware of the space above and below and to the sides of you.  Now, imagine in that space that there are one thousand arms coming out of your back, 500 on each side, some of them very high up, so they can reach way over your head.  You are going to touch the keyboard with all of those hands.  So take a moment and let them all get coordinated.  Really try to sense it.  Then, let them come forward, along with the two hands you are used to having.  They all come together.  They are all yours.  If you practice this carefully, the quality of your movement and contact with the keyboard cannot help but change.  
    This is in fact a very deep and challenging practice.  Try it for a week.  You will find it hard to remember that you have all those arms.  You will notice your mind ‘stopping' again and again.  Just as Takuan tells us, we see that all those other 998 arms become useless.  Indeed, even the two that stop the mind become less capable, less powerful, less compassionate, less wise.  You can also try the practice of imagining a thousand-armed bodhisattva standing behind you at all times helping you in every activity.  Again, it is not an easy practice.  The mind wanders and stops.  Then the bodhisattva can no longer help us.  We end up trying to do everything on our own, and we suffer for it.  I recommend that as a student of the Alexander Technique you should believe in this bodhisattva, in the way Takuan indicates, and allow it to teach you things that lie at the heart of the Technique.
    If you have read this far, you will enjoy a very special treat (assuming you haven't seen it already).  There is a group of 21 dancers from China who bring the thousand-armed bodhisattva to life.  They are only able to do this by means of non-doing.  They are members of the Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe, and all of them are deaf and mute.  They take their timing cues from a bodhisattva who stands off stage.  The second link is a still image of them.  Notice that each hand has an eye in the middle of it.  When you first start watching the video, you may think you are seeing one woman standing in front of some kind of video screen.  Not so.  It's all live, all carefully coordinated.  Pass it around.  Maybe we can get them to come to the States.


Dance of the Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva


Still Image of the Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva

"The magic of eating a hair of the dog which bit you to cure hydrophobia is as nothing to the magic involved in the belief that those who have privilege and power will remedy the breakdown they have created."  John Dewey

 

Can we drive further into double binds, all the while smiling, thanking those who perpetuate the contradictory commands?  Yes we can.

    I'll try to keep this short.  I have reasons for wanting to keep it long.  Like, it hurts.  This is painful stuff to watch, and it's too easy to recoil rather than looking directly and deeply into the pain and asking how we can move beyond it.  I do not think we can move beyond it through clever speeches, through a broken electoral process, through cosmetic changes.  I should preface by saying I don't know enough about the world to even vaguely call the following analysis "right."  If you have reasons for thinking I'm way off base, please send them to me, with pretty ribbons.  
    In the previous blog, in which I laid out the idea of the cultural double bind (surely not original . . . I'll do a search later to find out who else has used this lens), I put near the end a reference to a surprising eruption from the depths of our madness.  It came from Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa.  I couldn't believe my senses when I saw this clip.  My jaw became plutonium, my eyes became expanding apertures for the absurd.  
    Recently Hillary Clinton delivered a similar eruption.  Heres the quote:

Speeches don't put food on the table. Speeches don't fill up your tank, or fill up your prescription, or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night. My opponent gives speeches. I offer solutions.

I discovered this quote on an alternet blog posted by Mike Lux.  Lux seems to have sailed right over the surface, ignoring the depth of the psychic dissonance revealed here.  Without diving in, he simply criticizes Clinton for, in his view, arguing that "I don't give good speeches, so I will make a good president."  I was as shocked at his rhetoric as he must have been at Clinton's.  If we look closely we can see that Clinton is screaming what Philbin did: "How can you let us get away with this fluff?!  We're a couple of windbags!  We're all rhetoric!  Pick me anyway!"  We should of course refuse to accept rhetoric as an argument for rejecting rhetoric.  
    This does not end the story though.  To really confront this eruption, we need to ask about the nature of this rhetoric and how it plays into what we call "democratic elections."  While writing the original double bind blog, one of the examples of a schizophrenic trigger I encountered also came from alternet.  This post comes from Steven Rosenfeld, and it dropped my jaw as far and as fast as the Philbin clip.  It also made my head spin.  I still need to call an exorcist.
    The post is titled: 'Yes, We Can' -- The Magic Behind Obama's Message.  It's magic alright.  Magic of Disney (Baudrillard fans, feel free to let that sink in).  Here's the lead:

There is a simple -- but profound -- reason why Barack Obama appears headed for the Democratic nomination, and it comes down to three simple words: I, we and you.

Hopefully someone out there feels their intestines wrenching.  But it gets worse, because Rosenfeld asks us the following: "Have you seen Obama lately? Or heard him speak? Or listened carefully?"  He implies that he has indeed listened carefully.  He will now reveal the secret to Obama's magic:

George Lakoff, who has written many books on political communication, psychology and how both parties frame and win elections, said Obama's use of "we" and "you" -- and his gift for making people feel good and that they are being heard -- makes all the difference.

Later in the post he writes the following:

Ironically, while the Republican candidates have been falling over themselves to compare themselves to Ronald Reagan, the one candidate who seems to be making Americans feel good about themselves with an assured, easy manner and clear values -- as Reagan did -- is a Democrat in the race, Obama.
    
    "Remember what Reagan was about," Lakoff said, agreeing with the comparison. "It's why people vote for candidates. Obama gets it."
    
    "In the brain, there are two pathways for emotions," Lakoff said, offering an explanation for Obama's charisma. "There is a negative one for fear and anger. And there is a positive one. What Obama does and Reagan did was activate the positive pathways. George Bush activates the negative ones. Obama is activating the positive ones. He makes people feel physically good just by looking at him. The guy looks upbeat. He looks relaxed. You look at him and you feel upbeat, you feel relaxed. He feels empowered. You feel empowered. That's charisma."

As for charisma, Rosenfeld gives us the following from Lakoff: "It is not a mystique," he said. "It is real. Charisma is real. It is tangible."
    Rosenfeld's analysis supposedly comes from his having listened carefully.  Can we listen with our eyes now?  Can we look into this "magic" and ask what it might imply?  One thing that emerges from the smoke and mirrors: Obama is manipulating us, but it's okay because it's charisma and clever linguistics.  You pop the red pill, and suddenly you see the matrix.  However, Lakoff and Rosenfeld seem to like living in it.  I don't.  And I find it dismaying to read what Lakoff and Rosenfeld have to say.  
    For one thing, it strikes me as odd that Lakoff could have been analyzing any charismatic leader at all.  Mutatis mutandis we could be reading an analysis of Hitler's rhetoric.  Making people feel good is not a leader's job.  Making them feel listened to isn't either.  In our society, it's supposed to be about actually listening to people, and then following their will.  In our country, elections should be about having informed and informing discussions about the issues, and then a presentation of plans that do at least three things simultaneously: fulfill our moral and ethical obligations, accomplish the will of the majority, and further the realization of human potential.  We are so far from this ideal that I find it grossly inappropriate to call the game we play an "election."
    It seems to me that we should prefer an uncharismatic leader who will do the right thing over a charismatic one who makes us feel good about not really doing anything that great.  This feeling good is a horrific problem.  Human beings long to feel good.  But when we are in a muddle, we have to realize that the right thing may in fact feel bad, because our internal compass has gone a bit haywire.  We get so used to the wrong that our sense of what feels right must be retuned.  In the meantime, we are very susceptible to being manipulated.  That last notion stands on its own, without dependence on this notion of an out of whack intelligence.  So let's stick with it.
    I want to take a look at some of the manipulation that's going on in this "yes we can" spellbinding.  One of the most saddening things I have seen is the Obama "yes we can" music video.  Lakoff and Rosenfeld could probably give us a nice analysis of why people will be so effectively manipulated-I mean "moved" by this piece of propaganda.  Likewise, I'm sure they can explain why the propaganda produced by Goebbels worked so well.  I do not mean to say that Obama or these celebrities are Nazis.  I mean to say manipulation is manipulation.  
    Let's look more carefully at the speech that "inspired" this video.  Early on in the speech, Obabma says:

But in record numbers, you came out and spoke up for change. And with your voices and your votes, you made it clear that at this moment - in this election - there is something happening in America.
    
There is something happening when men and women in Des Moines and Davenport; in Lebanon and Concord come out in the snows of January to wait in lines that stretch block after block because they believe in what this country can be.
    
    There is something happening when Americans who are young in age and in spirit - who have never before participated in politics - turn out in numbers we've never seen because they know in their hearts that this time must be different.
    
There is something happening when people vote not just for the party they belong to but the hopes they hold in common - that whether we are rich or poor; black or white; Latino or Asian; whether we hail from Iowa or New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina, we are ready to take this country in a fundamentally new direction. That is what's happening in America right now. Change is what's happening in America.

Change is what's happening, eh?  What a vacuous political rallying cry.  Hitler could have used it.  Napoleon could have used it.  In and of itself it has no meaning, yet the people at this rally chanted, "We want change!  We want change!"  No one chanted, "We want an end to homelessness!  We want an end to polyarchy!"  These would count as substantial changes.  Too substantial I guess.
    We can find an alternative explanation for the "inspired" response of the voting public: bread and circus have never reached such levels of excess-well, at least the circus part hasn't.  Indeed, this ridiculous concept of "change" amounts to nothing more than another act taking the center ring.  Consider the gratuitous and immoral scale of this circus.  According to opensecrets.org, "The presidential field has dwindled significantly, but not before the candidates raised more than half a billion dollars in 2007.  By some predictions, the eventual nominees will need to raise $500 million apiece to compete-a record sum." [They also ask the following question: "As the Democratic Party's superdelegates decide whether to support Clinton or Obama, will they take into account the $900,000 they've received from the candidates?"] One BILLION dollars to run an "election"?!  Plus we have to add in all the money spent by the losers.  We come up with an insane amount of circus, so much circus that we should feel deeply saddened, a sadness made more grave when any candidate fails to begin or end most speeches with something like, "I am so very sorry that we are spending so much money.  I am only allowing myself to participate in this so that, when elected, I can make it illegal.  But that does not make me feel that much better.  I do not think we should run our state on the basis of an ‘ends justify the means' mentality, and I am truly sorry for all the people who will be sleeping in the streets tonight, who will go hungry tonight, who will have their car or home repossessed, who will lose their job while we spend millions on propaganda.  Please forgive us all, and please allow me to accomplish your will by making the following reforms which, based on speaking with you and on reading intelligent polls of your opinions, I believe you strongly support: ______."  If Obama said something to that effect, followed by specific policies he would get passed, I would run to the voting booth at record speed, and I wouldn't mind so much if now and then he indulged in "there is something happening" rhetoric.  It would MEAN something.
    In a circus, on the other hand, a statement often means the opposite of its rhetoric.  A good political circus gets the masses to accept the fulfillment of the elite agenda, something akin to making sure the sacrificial beast bows its head before the slaughter.  We get some water poured over our heads, and part of us thinks we have accepted things.  A truly great political circus goes one step further: it gets the masses to CHEER the fulfillment of the elite agenda.  So the real "Yes We Can" in this part of the speech is, "Can we make you think you WANT this system?  Yes we can.  Can we squander hundreds of millions of dollars, most of it yours, in an effort to appease you by trimming the edges of this wild poisonous vine while leaving the roots in tact?  Yes we can."  Remember, Hitler represented a change, and millions cheered for him.  Once again, this does NOT imply Obama is a Nazi.  That's foolishness.  It just implies that "change" is a ridiculous campaign principle, and "there is something happening" applies to everything, so it applies to nothing in a serious political context.   
    Let's look a little further:

You can be the new majority who can lead this nation out of a long political darkness - Democrats, Independents and Republicans who are tired of the division and distraction that has clouded Washington; who know that we can disagree without being disagreeable; who understand that if we mobilize our voices to challenge the money and influence that's stood in our way and challenge ourselves to reach for something better, there's no problem we can't solve - no destiny we cannot fulfill.

There are a lot of issues bound up in this "inspiring" passage (I hope it is clear that "inspiring" is to be read as "manipulative").  First, this rhetorical turn of making the people responsible for leading the state reminds me of the "Keep America Beautiful" campaign.  What was THAT about?  David C. Korten explains it clearly:

Keep America Beautiful attempts to give its sponsors, the bottling industry, a green image by funding anti-litter campaigns, while those same sponsors actively fight mandatory recycling legislation.  The strategy is to convince the public that litter is the responsibility of consumers-not the packaging industry.

There are similar initiatives coming from all corners of power.  Korten summarizes the development:

Corporations began to create their own "citizen" organizations with names and images that were carefully constructed to mask their corporate and [sic] sponsorship and their true purpose.  The National Wetlands Coalition, which features a logo of a duck flying blissfully over a swamp, was sponsored by oil and gas companies and real estate developers to fight for the easing of restrictions on the conversion of wetlands into drilling sites and shopping malls.  Corporate-sponsored Consumer Alert fights government regulations of product safety.

It would be all too easy to ignore this bread and circus tactic.  Though it might be a nice sentiment to empower every U.S. citizen to become a leader, it doesn't speak to any real "change."  The people have long had to fight for what politicians would not give.  Dr. King and those who worked for that great cause were real leaders.  People chanting, "We want change!" are simply made to THINK they are leaders (which does nothing to diminish their efforts or sincerity-it just makes it more comic-tragic).  I would prefer Obama to say, "You will be the first majority in a long time whose opinions will be represented, and whose will shall be accomplished!  Because of this we will drag ourselves out of a long political darkness.  But that darkness requires light, so for that reason I must talk to you about things no one else is talking about.  You need to become informed so you can tell your leaders what to do.  And then they must do it."  But the real "Yes We Can" version of this is, "Can we make you think you have taken control of this system that operates so far beyond real human need and human potential?  Yes we can.  Can we sound very agreeable, and even inspiring, as we fulfill the elite agenda?  Yes we can.  Can we tell you we can accomplish anything you want, using words like "change" and "destiny," while we offer policies that do very little to actually give you what you want or change the unhealthy structures we have in place?  Yes we can."
    He goes on:

Our new American majority can end the outrage of unaffordable, unavailable health care in our time. We can bring doctors and patients; workers and businesses, Democrats and Republicans together; and we can tell the drug and insurance industry that while they'll get a seat at the table, they don't get to buy every chair. Not this time. Not now.

Let's rewrite that straight away: "In our time?  Yes we can.  During my presidency?  No we won't."  How about that part where he says: "they don't get to buy every chair"?  Let's rewrite that, too: "They don't get to buy EVERY chair.  As in, ‘I did not have "sexual relations" with that woman.  We just had a good time.'  EVERY chair?  Heavens no.  Just the important chairs.  Yes, in the plural.  What?  What do you mean when you ask me, ‘Since when do they have a RIGHT to a chair at all?'  I'm trying to inspire you.  What I'm saying is, Can we convince you that the corporations should have any rights at all when human flourishing and moral obligation are at stake?  Yes we can."  It boggles the mind-and perhaps insults the soul-to hear him speak of "we" and of "majority" when the majority of people in this nation want a single payer health plan and he refuses to come up with one, when the majority want to have a planet at the end of the century and he refuses to make it a central issue of the election.  I am sure we the people, we the majority, we the ones who want the darkness to end, would be told that we aren't being realistic.  That's when things get truly horrifying:

. . . . But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.
    
. . . . It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
    
Yes we can to justice and equality. Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world. Yes we can.

Is this the audacity of hope, or the audacity of rhetoric?  Are we supposed to cheer when Obama lifts up the noble work of Martin Luther King and puts it on the same plane as his "universal" health care plan?  Let's really ponder this.  Let's compare what Dr. King was saying to what Obama says and is likely to actually do.  Here is a segment of Dr. King's speech:

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
    
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
        
. . . . I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
    
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
    
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
    
I have a dream today.
    
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
    
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

THAT is INSPIRING.  I do not feel manipulated.  I feel moved with genuine emotions, I feel open to wisdom and compassion.  I feel like standing up for something--no matter what the odds.  I feel like we can look each other in the eye and say, "Yes we can.  We can make something happen, something true and meaningful."
    If a politician is going to invoke resonance with words like these, we should unleash a discerning eye so we can see clearly as we listen.  Is he taking us further down this bold path of human flourishing?  Is he demanding that we fulfill the dictates of our own most precious beliefs?  What kinds of things should we expect to happen when we cash this check to which Dr. King referred?  Should we expect to:

Put an end to homelessness?  Yes we should.
Put an end to poverty?  Yes we should.
Have the finest single payer health care system in the world?  Yes we should.
Stop the plundering of the planet?  Yes we should.
Establish peace in the Middle East, establish peace, once and for all, in every corner of the globe, make peace, once and for all, a serious focus of our policies?  Yes we should.
Fundamentally reject our consumer anti-culture, reject it because it is completely antithetical to our most honored values and beliefs?  Yes we should.
Create a society in which goods and services are exchanged based on their ability to promote human flourishing, rather than based on our ability, by any means, to get people to pay for them?  Yes we should.
Put an end to basic human cruelty, including cruelty toward animals and the more-than-human world?  Yes we should.
Peel back more layers of racism and inequality?  Yes we should.
Not only pull out of Iraq, but pay some form reparations to the Iraqi people?  Yes we should.  
Nurture the spiritual and cultural evolution of humanity?  Yes we should.

Can we do these things with Obama or Clinton?  No we can't.  Maybe we should put our foot down here.  Maybe we should just not accept it when someone provokes the memory of Dr. King and associates it with empty rhetoric and with policies falling squarely with the bounds of the current anti-culture.  The Kennedy reference is almost as annoying, though perhaps less wounding to the soul.  Consider this from Kennedy's speech:

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.  No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

Wow.  He's no Dr. King, but he really lays it out there.  "We're going to do this, people!"  Amazing.  How can we tolerate anything less?  Why on earth don't we take to the streets when Obama fails to say,

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before my presidency is out, of creating the finest single payer health insurance system in the world, so that not a single person living in this country ever has to worry about their health care.  We should treat this as a basic human right.  Nothing less.  No single health related project in this period will be more impressive nor more important for the long-range well being of our citizens.  None will be more difficult to accomplish since there are many who will try to fight it.  Ultimately, it will save us all a lot of money, though.  And ultimately, it is the right thing to do.

But we let him get away with "universal" health care, without batting an eye.  We let him explain the merits of implementing NAFTA policies in Peru.  We look right at him while he tells us that, "when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people."  Then we cheer that we want change.  Then we accept that we're not ready to take care of everybody, we're not ready to get what we, the majority, have said we want, we shouldn't try.  Finally, in a moment of double bind bliss, we sing in chorus, "Yes we can."  It doesn't get stronger than this: Yes-we-can-No-we-can't.  It's one word, one movement of the psyche chipping away at its own stability, its own discernment, its own wisdom and compassion.
    I find Danny Glover's comments rather interesting in this context.  He participated in a roundtable discussion on Democracy Now and explained some of the reasons he has for not supporting Obama.  I include an extended quote here, but if you want to skim, I'll nutshell the point: if Obama really represents "change," why on earth do so many elites support him?  Though Obama can work his rhetorical magic on us, the corporations and other elites close their ears and look at their pocket books.  They are not fooled, and their support should make us ask more questions.  Here's how Glover framed this problem:

And yes, the issue of race is always there. The fact that in this particular-in this country, when you talk about America, there is no escape from the awareness of color. There's no escape out from the awareness of color. The question is, it also becomes that-which is almost a contradiction in itself when you have a black man running with the condition of black people in this particular country, where half the prison population is black, where the disparity between those who work and those who are unemployed or underemployed always leans heavily toward black, where the situation where-that's happening in the educational system, and it affects black people-it's very interesting, in some sense. And we need to look at this, that here's a black man that's had so much white support, in this sense, when clearly, clearly, if you look at all the indicators, in terms of healthcare, if you look at poverty, if you look at education, if you look at the incarceration rate, death row rate, all those lean toward situations that are unfavorable for black people.
    
Now, it was very interesting, in a situation where we have more public-more black elected officials than we've ever had in the history of that in this country, so there's some real clear, interesting dynamics that we have to look at, in terms of how we frame this. I'm sure King would have talked about, yes, a poor-when King left here-Dr. King left here in fact in '68, he talked about a poor people's march and poor people organizing to deal with the systemic change. Are the changes we're going to fight for systemic change and real progressive changes, or are they kind of cosmetic changes? Those are real questions.

The raison d'etre for elections is to make us feel good, to make us feel we are being heard, to make us feel we have a government of, by, and for the people, and then for those elected to go on to fulfill the agenda of the elites.  Clinton has perfectly legitimate strategies for this: she tries to make us think she has policies that embody our needs and wants.  She has solutions.  She works hard for us.  It's a practical rhetoric, perhaps in response to the general feeling that elections are not about real solutions, and perhaps in anticipation of resistance to her gender.  She was probably a bit blind-sided by the sheer volume of idealistic rhetoric coming out of the Obama camp.  Who wouldn't have been?  But we are blind if we don't see the game, and see it as ONE game.  For instance, you can check out this discussion on Democracy Now in which independent journalist Allan Nairn and American Conservative correspondent Kelley Beaucar Vlahos discuss the fact that both Obama and Clinton chose the same old warmongering advisors who have operated in Washington for DECADES-for BOTH parties.  It is deeply dismaying to hear Obama's speeches while knowing some of his advisors can be linked to grave atrocities.  One of his advisors, General Merrill McPeak, can be linked to East Timor.  That should be enough to make our heads spin.&n