Descend into the Maelstrom

It is not often that one gets the chance to go on a real pilgrimage, a journey that has a lasting effect on your soul and fulfills its deep yearning for a spiritual experience.

At 10 years of age I made the trek to Badrinath and Kedarnath at the freezing heights of the Himalayas with my mother, cousin, and a few other relatives.  The last leg of the journey involved a long, treacherous ride by mule on a narrow path hugging the cliffs, with a sheer drop of many thousands of
feet just inches from the mules’ legs, a plunge that has led many pilgrims straight to their God.  For centuries, waves of devout Hindus have made this trip, freezing their asses off and sleeping in dirty barns to partake of the sacred nectar at the holiest of holy ancient temples.  My poor cousin, who had never left the heat of South India before, puked his guts out at the temple, frostbitten and flu-ridden.  It was unforgettable for myself, my mom, and certainly my cuzz.  I’m sure it is just so for anyone who has made it up there, like circling
the Kasbah at Mecca for Muslims just once in their life.

Last month, I went on a very different sort of pilgrimage, but one that to
me was just as much soul-shaking, emotional, and spiritual..

Occasionally during the 1990’s, a little old white-haired lady named Mary Morello would take the microphone on a stage in front of thousands of sweaty
adolescents, denounce government censorship of the airwaves, and end by

saying, “Please welcome the best f***ing band in the universe!”  That’swhen the crowd would  go completely berserk in anticipation. And
then it would happen- the ultimate expression of God personified in
four human beings coming together to make music- the band Rage Against
the Machine would come onstage and blow the minds of anyone within
earshot for an hour or two.   And they would justify the statement of
Mrs. Morello, the proud mother of Rage guitarist Tom Morello.

Rage
has been my favorite band since a day in 1996 when I heard a Rage song
for the first time on the radio, sitting in my room and doing high
school homework. Just like that, in one instant of world-rocking, they
were my favorite band, unseating the mighty Beatles and Nirvana who had
been my early-90’s crushes.  That’s how powerful an effect the
just-released song “Bulls on Parade” had on me.  Here was a band that
would absolutely rock you, with a Mexican frontman who rapped his mouth
off while his dreadlocks flew in every direction to his head-banging; a
half-black guitarist without a peer; and a white rhythm section that
never missed a beat.  It was unintentionally a United Colors of
Benetton band.  My love affair has lasted till this day- way into 2007-
even though the band has been BROKEN UP since 2000.

Rage, as my
adolescent heroes inspired me to study international affairs, to enter
government in order to achieve positive change, to question everything
that authority figures and the media have told me.  Although as I’ve
gotten older my politics have swung away from the radical, Marxist base
that Rage springs from, I largely agreed with their exposures of
injustices against minorities, Indian tribes in Mexico, and the lack of
ethics in the halls of power in corporate and political America.  In
particular, I disagree strongly with their contention, along with Ralph
Nader and the far-left wing fringe in 2000, that Al Gore and George W.
Bush were really the same person.  But Rage Against the Machine has got
to be the coolest name for a band anyone has dreamt of.

The
breakup at the millenium of four extremely intense musicians who
doubled as political activists was bad enough for me.  It was Rage who
opened my young eyes to many of the social injustices in the world.
The poetic passion they ooze is considered by many musical critics to
be unparalleled.  Nowhere was this more apparent than at their live
shows- if I had a penny for every time someone told me a Rage show was
“the best concert I have ever seen” I’d be rich.  Of course, I was
never able to see them live before they broke up.  For one reason or
the other, I missed them throughout high school and college when they
came by- due to out of town trips, shows selling out, tour
cancellations, and flaky friends with cars.  I thought I would never
have the opportunity to see them.

Then there were the
heart-wrenching near-misses.  In 1999, the band came through DC and
were at Tower Records for an autograph-signing session.  I was in
college at the time, and rushed out from class to stand in line for the
signing.  Oh man- I was going to get to meet them and say hello!  I
felt like a schoolgirl at a Justin Timberlake concert.  Of course,
after four hours of waiting in a line that snaked around two city
blocks, after getting right to the entrance of Tower Records about to
be ushered in, the band was rushed out the backdoor to go play a show.
Ouch.

Even worse, the next day I randomly saw guitarsit Tom
Morello on the M Street sidewalk right near the Georgetown campus.  To
me, Tom Morello is a guitar god: easily the best player alive.  And
there he was, half a block away from me.  My Pakistani roommate, who
had no concept of who Rage was except watching me jump around when I
talked about them, pushed me to go shake his hand.  I couldn’t.  I
froze.  I let him go, unharassed.  How do you handle the sudden
appearance of one of your gods?  I had cold feet, and to this day I
kick myself over it.

To make matters worse, after the breakup
lead singer/rapper Zach de la Rocha went off to record a few pathetic
solo songs, while the rest of the band joined with singer Chris Cornell
from Soundgarden to form supergroup Audioslave, which was downright
depressing.  Audioslave, for those of you who don’t have ears, is not
one tenth as good as either Rage or Soundgarden, and they have been
going for several years now.

Enter the year 2007.   Rage
announces a  reunion tour!  And one of the venues would be at Rock the
Bells- to be held right on Randalls Island in New York- a Parks
Department property and to boot, just a few hundred feet from my
office.  It was crazy- the pilgrimage was coming to me.  It was fated
to be this way.

My friend, a concert aficionado, saw them the
day before and gave me the strategy.  Front, near stage right was the
place to be.  Another friend told me about how he could hear the band
from across the river while speeding down the FDR drive in his car- and
that was some serious amplification.

Of course, I had to go on
this pilgrimage alone.  Other acquaintances would be distractions.  It
was a solo flight and I wanted to do everything my way.   Rage was to
go on at 10, and I arrived around 6 to watch some of the other acts.
Mos Def, Cypress Hill, Public Enemy, and Wu Tang Klan, all great groups
in their own right, barely helped me kill the time which felt like an
eternity.  The entire time I stood in a corner of the massive field and
collected my thoughts.  I was like an Olympic track star preparing for
the big heat: stretching my arm and leg muscles, mentally preparing
for what I knew would be one of the biggest moments of my life, when
that first note was played and the crowd exploded into a massive
gyration of flesh.  It rained consistently, causing me to worry till
the end that Rage would get cancelled and I would come
close-but-no-cigar yet again.  The field was so muddy that my shoes and
jeans were covered with a thick film of mud all the way to the knees,
along with nearly everyone else there.

During those four hours I
half-seriously wondered if I would cry or even pee myself
uncontrollably.  It had been a while since I had done either.  Luckily
these activities, which I would have excused, did not occur.

When
Rage Against the Machine happened, it was like an orgasm.  The band was
late in getting on.  The anticipation in the tens of thousands of
tattooed and pierced meatheads, metalheads, aging hippies, hip-hop
junkies, rock chicks, and assorted groups of suburban kids was palpable
in the air.  All around me at the front was a crush of people, with
barely any room to move.  And then it happened- Rage comes on with
“People of the Sun.”  And my area turns into a gigantic mosh pit of
sweaty, muddy kids jumping up and down, pushing each other, and
screaming their lungs out.  I entered the fray early on and never left,
never stopped pushing and jumping up and down, screaming along to every
word of every song, feeling right at home with kids literally half my
age and twice my size.

Watching Rage in action is pure pleasure.  Drummer Brad Wilk punishes
the drums mercilessly, while the other three jump around like maniacs
on speed throughout their set without missing a single chord.  Clearly
the members feed off the energy of the crowd, and in turn the crowd is
inspired into a frenzy by what they see.  Other bands can create mosh
pits, but none can spread the motion in the same way.  Large portions
of the crowd know all of they lyrics like I do.  Tom does numerous
guitar effects, like rubbing the strings with his forearms, making
unique sounds that cannot be heard anywhere else.  When the band came
back for an encore, everyone is in heaven. Although the moshing seemed
to be pretty violent, all involved are interested in taking care of
each other rather than causing pain.  Nobody feels the pain anyway.

The aftermath was like crashing after
a massive adrenaline rush, but unbelievably happy I had finally
witnessed Rage in person.  Finally, after 11 years, I had heard my
favorite band live- and all of the wait had been worth it.  I have been
extremely fortunate in my life, from travelling the globe, making great
friends, partying all night in various countries, being part of a
massive and loving family network, and graduating from a fine college;
but there was always a yearning.  Now I can finally say that my life is
full, that “been there, done that” applies to me, and I can now inch
toward that thing called “settling down,” whatever that means.

All
pilgrimages must come to an end, and they lose value each time you go.
I know that if I see Rage Against the Machine again, it will rock my
world but it will not be as climactic.

US presidential candidate Barack Obama is the only person in the race from either party who is completely on-point when it comes to foreign policy. Obama has taken several controversial positions that have carried huge political risk early on in the game. Far from being irresponsible and naïve, as the nervously milquetoast Clinton  has branded him, Obama has an intricate knowledge of international politics and is beginning to flex his policy muscles.

Obama has stated out loud what should be obvious to us all: (1) The US president must have the option to negotiate with unsavory leaders of nations bordering America’s massively hemorrhaging colonial blunder in Iraq, including Bashar Assad of Syria and Mahmoud Ahmadenijad of Iran. Not because it’s fun to set up a Beer Chug with Bashar Night, but because we have no choice. (2) America must be prepared to demonstrate the extent of its will to defeat terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan if the leaders of those states are unable or unwilling to do so, as they have so far proven to be. (3) The Iraq invasion was always a bad idea, even though most Democrats thought otherwise. The occupation there has degenerated into an incompetently run police action in the midst of several bloody civil wars raging between and even within the rival political factions of Iraq, and we must soon remove our military apparatus from there in order to focus on our real terrorist threats. (How ironic that the same neo cons who scoffed at the concept I have always championed, that terrorism must be defeated by uncompromising law enforcement instead of war, are reduced to attempting to sell the world on our ability to police the rotten slums of Baghdad and the opium fields of Afghanistan. Mission: Impossible.)

Obama’s above-mentioned principles demonstrate so clearly, crystal-clearly, the correct course for the world’s only superpower to take on the path to world peace. Use the "soft" power of diplomacy to accomplish our national security goals, back it up by being prepared to attack terrorists directly where they are based, and pull out of the worst foreign misadventure since Vietnam.

In a Democratic primary debate, Hillary resorted to mud slinging in response to Obama’s desire to open communication channels to foreign leaders. Besides calling him "irresponsible and frankly naïve," Hillary even went so far as to say, "I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don’t want to make a situation even worse." This attempt at appearing shrewd was extraordinarily unproductive, especially because she herself has demonstrated the willingness to meet with unsavory foreign leaders after first laying the groundwork through lower-level meetings. Here is the equivalent of the debate exchange:

Debate question: "Will you go to work out tomorrow, without any conditions?"

Obama: "Yes sir. I will go to the gym tomorrow, because that’s a good idea. It would be a bad idea not to do so. The current administration doesn’t like to sweat for some reason."

Hillary: "How irresponsible and frankly naïve. You’re not supposed to go to the gym without putting shoes on first. Oh, and you might get injured. But it’s true, the current administration is wrong about everything."

Well, of course Obama already knows all this. He already knows that you are supposed to put your shoes on before you go to the gym. He already knows that some lackeys of a lower government pay grade from the US State Department and Iran’s Foreign Ministry will need to get together first and talk things over. He never said otherwise. What was he supposed to do, say the following?

Obama: "I will go to the gym tomorrow. But first, I will put on my socks, shoes, shirt, shorts, sweats, and go for a shave. Then I’ll take a shower. Oh, and if I need to, I’ll go to the toilet beforehand."

Saying you won’t go to the gym because you might get injured is like saying we shouldn’t negotiate with other countries because the diplomacy may be used for propoganda.  What does it mean- Hillary is afraid foreign leaders will use a high-level meeting for "propaganda" purposes? I have thought about this question. I honestly don’t understand what the big deal is. First of all, there is no proof of this, largely because we haven’t negotiated with hostile leaders in such a long time. Secondly, and more importantly, we are the world’s only superpower- are we supposed to be afraid that some foreign leader might potentially use a meeting with the US president for some internal political purposes? Oh no. Scary! This non-existent problem is not nearly as pressing as the foreign fighters and money pouring into Iraq from neighboring countries right now to kill our boys. We need Assad and Ahmadenijad to help stem this flow whether we like it or not. PERIOD.

Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan are different animals. They are somewhat friendly towards America, not least because of the billions of dollars in US aid that is keeping the two men in power. However, neither leader is able or willing to fully mobilize their forces against Al-Qaeda and other terrorist elements in their land, mainly for political reasons. That’s what happens when an unknown fraction of your army and police forces, along with large swaths of the general population are made up of Al-Qaeda and Taliban sympathizers. The Bush administration is eager to point out to us that Al-Qaeda is alive and plotting the next attack against us. The intelligence community tells the damning story of terrorists doing this planning in Pakistan and Afghanistan; in this environment, with this evidence, is there any reason not to go in there ourselves and finish these men off? Isn’t that what national defense is supposed to be about? It was brilliant that Obama voiced this sentiment- and spelled out how to really defeat terrorism. America must be willing to send in the military or police to any corner of the world to catch one of the 9/11 perpetrators who killed 3,000 Americans if the host government does not do so- even New York City (although something tells me that NYPD would take down a proven terrorist with fairly rabid zeal way before the Feds could get a word in edgewise).

And then there’s Iraq. James Baker was right- the situation is grave and deteriorating. It is a full-blown civil war now, and American soldiers are unnecessarily dying in the cross-fire of an ungrateful country still suffering from thousands of years of unresolved differences and badly carved up borders, a legacy of the last white power to invade and then leave the land- Great Britain. Barack Obama correctly predicted this exact scenario many months before the invasion in March 2003. And he is right in pushing for America to pull out. Each day of our extended presence there directly correlates to a reduction in national security as we continue to break our own military’s back, and to boot lose the only battle that really matters anyway: for the hearts and minds of the Middle East.

How could one be against pulling our troops and intelligence efforts out of a place that poses no security threat to us, and focusing them on real and actionable problems? How could one be against negotiating with the people in charge of countries with elements who are destabilizing our puppet government in Iraq? How could one be against destroying a proven terrorist threat that nobody else is dealing with? It boggles the mind. I do know that Obama has articulated all of these no-brainers while nobody else, Republican or Democrat has. Electing him as the next US president is just as much a no-brainer.