My Saturday: Meeting, listening, learning

Black and white image of activists and a Japanese enso


How’s everyone doing today? How was your weekend? Mine was a learning period.

On Saturday, a number of people met for a Democracy Cafe sponsored by Bayou Blue Democrats. Most skewed older, but it was a good mix of people across demographics of the city. A number of discussions came up about the fraught nature of the times we’re living in but two things were readily apparent.

One is that this is a group of people who are taking the right steps in calling their reps (and emailing) and if they themselves are not organizers, they get out and protest and stand with others. 

Another thing I noticed is that just about everyone feels distant from leadership in Washington. Part of this is being in a state run by right wing conservatives who are, if not in lock-step with the White House, not too far from it. Mostly, though, what came out was the lack of confidence in Schumer or Jeffries as the leaders of the Dems in the House and Senate. To be suer, the house of Representatives has tended to be more vocal and resistant, while the Senate Dems have tended to be more cautious in their responses to their Republican opposites. 

And I do mean “opposites”; there is not a member of the GOP that you cannot be sure isn’t fully aligned with the Trump-Musk power bloc. Yes, there are many who chafe and openly dislike the billionaire, but their unwillingness to course-correct damns them.

A couple of really fruitful ideas hit me over the head and I’m ashamed to admit that one of them hadn’t occurred to me: one, is that if you live in a city like Houston which is sprawling and diverse, find out what district and precinct you are in and who represents you at all levels, Okay, that’s the first step, but if you’re like me, you may not pay much attention to county politics. Honestly, I did not know which country precinct I was in -and I voted for the commissioner in it! - but after talking to Lesley Briones’s events director Saturday, I realized your country commissioner is a wealth of resources and may have more influence over what happens locally than one might think. 

Another thought that voice and one that has been gaining traction elsewhere across the country is for reps to go to districts outside theirs and simply tell the truth of what’s going on. I haven’t thought this through, and I need smarter people than I to fill this out, but it seems viable to me for Democratic reps to do roadshows. Set up a tent if you need to, and talk to people in other areas and let them know that if they’re upset, they can lean on their elected leaders. 

The current administration and its lackeys are attempting to push through legislation that is going to hurt - already is hurting - American citizens across the political spectrum. 

I have a feeling that there are many more Republicans and MAGA. Voters who are beginning to more fully realized that they backed the wrong horse. But they need to know that it’s not too late to do something about it.

Later that Saturday, I was on a Zoom webinar with Peter Coyote sensei. Zen priest, actor, author, and activist, Peter’s the real deal. Starting out on a buddhistic note, Coyote sensei noted the title of the webinar about how not to be part of the problem you’re trying to fix is that it’s unavoidable. We are always part of the problem because we are interrelated and entangled with one another, with the entire world of phenomena. We are never separate from the ten thousand things (to borrow from Daoism).

What’s important to realize is that all off nature isn’t here to support our lives, all these causes and conditions are our life.Similarly, The place we get into trouble is when we say we aren’t made of the same stuff as those we dislike. We tend to think of what we’re experiencing as an aberration. But. It’s not.

Paraphrasing Peter, Trump is the tip of the spear that began to be sharpened in 1968. He was unsparing in his appraisal that the flower power generation brought with them their own traumas and neuroses, arrogance, and stupidity. He pointed out that many, if not most of the kids who had the luxury to turn on, tune. In, and drop out were children of white privilege. Maybe not all were trust fund kids, but  I’d argue that in the. Sixties that didn’t matter; the dollar went farther and if you were mostly middle class and white, your safety net was pretty vast. 

While marches were going on - and these did have effects - and while the sixties saw progressive legislation enshrining equal reigns and voting rights, Louis Powell wrote thirty page outline that became known as the Powell Memo as a manifesto for what the Republican Party would need to do in the coming decades. 

As Coyote pointed out, they went underground to work out this strategy and it’s important for everyone, all voters especially, that the Republicans don’t want anything to work out, that they are trafficking (and have been) in “anti-democratic nihilism”.

“Your.anxiety has a purpose.” A confused, anxious group is more easily cowed. This how the so-called “flooding the zone” works. Keep the people on edge. If anything, totalitarian regimes rely on this. 

Coyote’s dad, a violent, ex-military, Republican to the core guy who had little use for his dreamer son, came out to the commune where Peter was living. There were Hell’s Angels and Coyote pêre brought barbiturates and booze to share. Nothing dramatic happened, but he had a heart to heart with his son. 

Peter was taken aback at the old man’s equanimity amidst the countercultural types, but his dad said something we can all keep in mind; “you take care of each other here and share what you have.” He also said that capitalism is dying from its own internal contradictions.  I wanted to sit with that for a bit; his dad was also a died in the wool capitalist. But he told his son to “hang onto the long cause.” I think this was an admonition to keep an eye on underlying roots. Sure, could be good, could be. bad. But if we keep before us the sense of historical precedent and underlying causes, we are in better places o act. 

Finally, his dad said this in the winter of 1969, regarding the Republican Party; “the sons of bitches want it all, they won’t let it go, until. It’s all theirs.” From their, Peter traced the growth and metamorphosis of the late sixties’s. GOP to the dreadnaught of today, culminating in the near-omnipotences of Citizens United and other cudgels. 

Also discussed the rise of the MAGA voter and their distrust of the Democratic Party. He traces its beginnings to the effect of the Carter Embargo of 1980. I don’t think Peter quite remembered it correctly, but the long-term effect was that it began sowing distrust of Democratic leadership.(1)

He also point ed out the NAFTA agreements under Clinton as further wedges (this one is more applicable). 

Coyote sensie also points to the eradication of The Fairness Doctrine by Ronald Reagan as the pivotal step in commodifying the airwaves and opening them up to broadcasting extremist views without oversight or censure. Clinton later changed the laws on media ownership so that there were fewer voices and more of a monoculture. By comparison, there are more voices in other countries and more discussion.

So where does this leave us? Legacy media is increasingly at the service of the government and people are rightfully upset, nervous, and afraid for the future.

Since this was a Buddhocentric discussion, sensei Peter pointed out that the one thing we can control is our mind. “When you’re upset, you’re worried about the loss of the country, the loss of freedom…” this is all rooted in a sense of fixity, of stasis, that everything is. going to remain as-it-iis, as opposed to “floating free in eternity” as all phenomena are. Realizing this is the beginning to settle the mind. Or vice versa; I would say that as the mind settles through mediation practice, the greater the likelihood of coming to this view.

And it is an operative view: “The more panicky others become, the more a calm person is useful or helpful.”

More quotidian approaches are:

Talk to people you don’t know.
Instead of criticizing, be curious..
Listen. This is how relationships begin and how people change. 

On these last points, I’ve met a lot of people who have put this to the test. One woman I met at the Democracy Cafe said she started taking the bus and just asked people how they were feeling. She didn’t push an agenda, but more people opened up about their fears for the future. Many said they weren’t registered to vote and she sees an opportunity there to both meaningfully engage with people and start getting people registered.

When all’s said and done, this was a fruitful weekend.

Note

1. Regarding the Carter Embargo, it was far less actually damaging than perceptually. For greater detail, see: https://farmandfoodfile.com/2018/07/27/the-forgotten-lessons-of-the-carter-embargo/.

Resources

Alan Guebert's website, The Farm and Fool File.

Bayou Blue Democrats: bayoubluedems.com.

Peter Coyote's website.



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