Descend into the Maelstrom

That’s right. My last and final thoughts on the U.S. election, until it’s finally over. I’m officially retiring from writing about the 2008 election- as I’ve spent too many thousands of hours reading and writing about it, and written dozens of articles on this blog and several other forums when any sane human being would have chosen to do something, anything else. I’ve been attacked from the left, attacked from the right, and everything in between for what I’ve said in conversations, emails, and in writing. Along the way I’ve gotten some positive feedback too, and I really appreciate that.

Let’s look ahead to what will happen in the near future, from election day to the near aftermath. This will prove to be a period fraught with extreme peril. Here are some things we all need to keep in mind moving forward:

Don’t Gloat, Democrats. I of all people would love to gloat and say “I told you so!” being one of the few who was far ahead of most highly-paid pundits, who confidently predicted an Obama victory for more than two years, including when Obama was polling 20 points under the powerful Clinton machine, and when the general election was straining under xenophobic attacks, which I’m especially sensitive to. I also predicted large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress come November 4th. Since the stolen election of 2000 I have bitterly endured 8 years of watching Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh cheer on as the Bush administration was ruining our country’s future while calling me and my ilk traitors against America. There are two ways for Dems to go after this victory: (1) attack and make fun of Republicans and conservatives, rubbing their noses in the sewers of their self-induced loss, and investigate every little thing they did in the last 8 years to satisfy the human desire for a vendetta. (2) Reach out across the aisle, shake the hands of your political opponents for a fair fight, and ask them to join you in rolling all our sleeves up together. The latter is the ONLY way to proceed, for several critical reasons. First, it is important in a two-party system to have a strong opposition. A failed Republican party isn’t good for America, whose continued success depends on checks and balances in Washington.  Secondly, our economy and foreign policy are in such a state of tatters that we will need all our talent, from both wings, to fly again in a civil manner.  Let’s finally end the god-forsaken culture war that has enveloped our nation like a Saddam poison cloud since the 1960’s. Liberals will have the upper hand and will be in a position to do so. Colin Powell is one of the few, whether Democrat or Republican, who understands this is the need of the hour, and he was so gracious as to reach across from his losing position. Fortunately for us, so does Obama. This isn’t about the right or the left winning; it’s about America winning. And for that to happen, the Republican party needs to stand for true principles once again, and come back to challenge us in 2010 with a new vision, not just a mysterious nostalgia for Sarah Palin’s “Real America” which no longer exists in a world of Good and Evil which never, ever existed. Governing is hard, and with it comes awesome responsibility; we should look forward to patriots from both sides working together again as one. We do not need to stoop to the nasty levels that the Republicans did in the early 2000’s while in charge of the White House and Congress.

Undecided Voters. Seriously, who are you and what’s wrong with you? There is an 8% float of people who don’t seem to know who to vote for 10 days before the election. Are you kidding me? We couldn’t possibly have a starker contrast between the two candidates and their philosophies. Never in our lifetimes has there been a larger gap between two presidential candidates who made it out of the primaries alive. This election represents the future vs. the past, belligerent global hegemony vs. international cooperation, objective rationality vs. hot-blooded “gut” decisions, and yes, the first serious black candidate vs. the old-boy white Washington network. It is a clash between the last gasp of the idealistic conservative Reagan revolution, and the birth of a new center-left system of governance that we haven’t seen before. Any undecided voter who exists out there simply boggles the mind. Make up your mind already!

Voter Fraud. Nobody has epitomized the cynicism and fear about the validity of our electoral system as clearly as my cousin, who sent me an email that is quite chilling. In it he wrote, “…in my gut I wonder how it could not be that he (Obama) wins. But yet on every conscious level, I feel deep doubt about whether he will win– mainly because of the election shenanigans that we’ve already started hearing about.” Many are indeed scared that the cheating Republicans will steal the election from the jaws of victory yet again in November. Meanwhile, Republicans will be talking for the next four years about how Obama’s evil minions and a group called ACORN stole the election away from the “real Americans.” My hope is that a landslide victory will put these doubts to bed once and for all, negating all the mistrust and cynicism that has shaped our politics for too long.

That’s it. It’s adieu on the politics till the other side of November 4th. For at least a little while, I’ll go back to blogging silly humor stories about culture or bizarre ruminations on living in New York, which somehow always seem to become more interesting than politics anyway.

And if you’re American: VOTE!

I have long been a very strong believer in the separation of Church and State. The founders of America felt that the meddling of religious authority in the functioning of government, as was prevalent in Europe during the late 1700’s, was not the way to go. In fact, many colonialists arrived on America’s shores to escape that very confluence of factors. This is one of the pillars of America’s greatness, and what makes it an exceptional state.

I am also not wont to share my deepest religious beliefs with a public audience, as it could appear to make me the type of small-minded bigot that I often like to rant against because they are far too powerful in today’s America, and are helping bring about the nation’s fall. It also makes my arguments vulnerable to ridicule by those who disagree with my characterization of Hinduism, disagree with Hinduism itself, or think it’s new-age gibberish. However, I am a Hindu, and there are several reasons why it’s non-threatening for a Hindu to speak his mind about American politics as it relates to his religion and in particular, the 2008 election season. First of all, Hindus have zero political power in America so we are purely bystanders in today’s toxic political discourse. The most prominent Indian-American in politics, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, in fact renounced his Hindu name and religious identity to pursue a radical evangelical Christian path, one that put him squarely in the middle of the culture wars and allowed him to achieve high office as a white knight of the GOP. Secondly, as an Indian-American I’m not white, I’m not black, and I cannot be considered an enemy in America’s “War on Terror” which largely focuses on Middle Eastern Islamic influences. Therefore my background does not bear on the politics of identity being played out on the forefront of this election. Finally, Hinduism is the world’s first organized religion, and at its most basic and pure form, is supposed to be all-encompassing and all-accepting. Hindus, if following the strongest traditions set forth by our ancestors, can believe anything at all and still be a Hindu, and that includes atheism. We can consider all peoples to be Hindus, which I in fact do. I have read this in numerous sources, but I am also aware that this concept is too large for many human minds to understand.

One caveat that I must present is that none of my religious belief systems will be backed up by evidence, because I do not have any, just as no human being I am aware of has presented any convincing evidence of any religious beliefs. This essay is simply an explanation of the forces that I feel are going on in the American political world. I descend from a long line of priests, and perhaps I can no longer escape my calling. Or something like that. LOL. If nothing else, I hope to entertain.

In October 2008, we are at the cusp of a truly transformational shift in the identity of America and of the world which America leads as its sole superpower. America has always been truly blessed among nations, and I am sure this is thanks to the concepts of Karma like I wrote about here and Dharma, or following the “right path” in life, which human conscience will direct us toward. If there is a Godly force out there, by whatever name, it has surely smiled down upon America over the last 230 years, as the state has been transformed from a colonial backwater into the most powerful civil society that has ever existed in the world, and since the end of the Cold War, the only unrivaled state in the long history of humankind. The Romans, the Greeks, the British, the Egyptians, and yes, the Indians have had their days of glory before, but in each case there were real rivals. America has no rivals, no peers, and could easily militarily defeat the rest of the world’s armies combined in either a nuclear or non-nuclear confrontation. In fact, our nuclear arsenal could wipe out all humanity on short order. If you believe in God, as I do, this immense power would not have been bestowed in the hands of so few, without some sort of cosmic permission, or approval.

But the concept that some people don’t understand is that it’s not just G.I. Joe that makes America great, but our leadership in culture, in education, and in innovation. And it’s our diversity, in a society which has continually attracted the world’s best talent here to advance themselves and their communities. America is easily the most tolerant nation in the world, assimilating people from every corner of the globe in diverse neighborhoods where everyone can be a proud American. Since the 1600’s this is what America has been about, and this is part of what makes this a blessed land.

However, this power has certainly been abused quite a bit throughout American history from the marginalization of Native American tribes onward, by members of all major political factions. Until recently the toxic Karma had been more than offset by the positive Dharma being followed by America and its leaders, acting as a force of good and a moral beacon in so many ways, and assisting America’s steady rise up to our current peak since 1991 as sole global power. But now the bad karma of the recent past is especially coming home to roost. I believe a country can have a collective karma, just like an individual can. And our balance sheet is spiraling down the toilet. Capitalism, a tenet of American society, is reeling under unbridled greed, and people around the world are getting legitimately nervous about the long-term effectiveness of a global free-market regime, which was supposed to make everything better for everybody. However the market correction going on is not an indictment of the system itself, so much as the corrupt power structure which existed to enrich the wealthiest of Americans at the expense of the rest of the citizenry.

There are some scary statistics out there, such as the fact that the richest 1% of Americans have more wealth than the poorest 50%. The numbers are even more lopsided if comparing America’s wealth or energy consumption with the rest of the world. Forget unfair, which of course it is. This is simply unsustainable and doesn’t make any sense. There is no reason why some of this wealth should not be redistributed toward making sure everyone has health insurance, food, and shelter. It’s unconscionable, by the standards of any religious belief system. And yet every election cycle, we vote for public servants who continue to do their best to help themselves and the very wealthiest Americans, who earn the kind of closed-door access to the halls of power that ordinary citizens do not. We are sacrificing our morals, and if we continue to do so, the bad karma buildup could become irreversible, and our nation will head towards a frightening period of steady decline.

Worst of all is the violence that America forces onto other nations. We are at war with two nations in retaliation for 3,000 deaths on 9/11/01 carried out by a ragtag group of criminal bandits whom we have not brought to justice. We have instead created 2 million Iraqi refugees, and killed upwards of 100,000 civilians. Many thousands more have lost limbs or gotten tortured either by us or our surrogates in the Middle East. Not a single one had an iota of involvement in 9/11, nor had they done any harm to Americans. The pain of those human beings and their families, which the Western media largely ignores, will cause America a massive amount of suffering, which is beginning to play out. All of us who pay taxes in fact have a direct hand in the killing, torture, and pain we are inflicting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Let’s assume 5% of our federal taxes go to the military-industrial complex to fuel those wars, which in reality are to protect the Middle Eastern oil fields. That means every one of my paychecks is buying a bullet or a bomb that is penetrating someone’s skull right now. This is what I absolutely hate the most about being an American. This isn’t self-defense, it’s cowardice. And we will pay a terrible price as a country, both in terms of the suffering that will be visited upon America, but also by driving the rest of the world to compete with us due to the anger of foreign people about our belligerence.

There is a different sort of violence playing out: violence against Bhoomi, or Mother Earth, a concept that exists in all cultures. How can we continue to be an infection on the earth, ravaging it of its resources, and expect for Earth to keep giving back to us for our needs? It wouldn’t work that way with your friend or family member, and it won’t work that way with the environment. Those idiots at the Republican National Convention shouting “drill, baby, drill” have no idea how wrong they could possibly be. At a time when we should be doing everything possible to reduce our energy consumption and increase renewable energy sources, there still exist Americans who think of themselves as patriotic when they bring the country backward, while countries in Europe and elsewhere take the lead on true energy independence instead of us.

The Bush-Cheney administration was America’s terrible gift to itself. Its election by an ignorant population and corrupt governmental apparatus, highlighted by the theft of an election by Florida’s political machinery and the Supreme Court’s chicanery, represented some of the worst years in American history. I often questioned how if there was a Godly force, it could allow such a despicable cabal of human beings into power. It’s bad enough that Bush and Cheney have killed people without remorse, using poor young kids to pull the trigger for, and die for what they thought was a noble cause. But Bush and Cheney have also helped bring America to its knees, dragging down many who would seem not to deserve the fate that is befalling them. But I now understand that the forces of the universe have a plan, that the political gods deserve our patience. Today, I thank God for Bush despite all the damage he has done, because he has paved the way for what is about to happen.

No, Obama is not the One. The cosmic forces don’t believe in the One. But he is the right guy at the right time, and he certainly has the Zen-like temperament needed to take the helm of the mess we are in. And he could not have been in position to become president without the corruption, incompetence, and ignorance that have shaped America in the last 8 years. The energy that drives the supporters of Obama is divinely inspired, and they are going to carry him to the White House. In reality, this is why I have always been confident of an Obama victory since early 2007: because he is part of the plan of getting America on the right path again.  Funny how much I can sound like Sarah Palin, isn’t it?   I can’t even believe I’m saying this myself.

A rational person can disagree that Obama would be a good president. However, how can one argue against his emphasis on heading off global warming through focusing on alternative energy, making sure every American has healthcare, pulling out of our Iraq misadventure, and sitting down and talking to all of the other nations in the world, savory or unsavory? They are all unambiguously on the path of Dharma. They are all in line with the principles of any great religion: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc. I find it shocking that the cheap marketing strategies of John McCain and Sarah Palin have actually caused a sliver of America’s citizens to rail against such necessary policies. And the danger is that these ignorant people who are so riled up right now, would not join the civil conversation that will be necessary to move forward in an extremely difficult time which Obama will be inheriting.

The guidance I would offer Obama, and all Americans moving forward is simple. Conduct all policy decisions using a moral compass. Use principle on every question, be it domestic or foreign-policy related. The world yearns for America to be not just the powerful but unthinking 19-year old with big guns who can beat anyone else up if they don’t listen, but the wiser veteran leader who understands that sometimes words are better than bombs, and the community of nations will follow a positive and moral example for themselves. We should not engage in wars for our narrow economic interests, nor out of fear of terrorists. Nobody “hates us for our freedom.” They hate us for the immoral acts we are committing around the world right now, as we speak. And there is a higher force out there who does not approve of it, either.

I’ll end with a couple of simple folk tales about frogs, which hold the lessons that adult Americans must learn. The first one was recited by Al Gore, in his film An Inconvenient Truth, and the second is from the Panchatantra, or children’s moral stories from India.

AL GORE: Well, there’s a classic experiment in science, Ted, about a frog that’s dropped in a pot of boiling water and jumps right out. When the same frog is put in a pot of lukewarm water that’s slowly brought to a boil it just sits there until it’s rescued. A frog’s nervous system needs a sudden jolt to get the connection. We’re like that frog! We’re getting the signals of ecological devastation around the world, but we’re still dead in the water.

* * * * * *

There was a frog who lived in a well, but had never left it in his life. He was quite content there. One day another frog who was traveling by hopped in.

“How are you friend?” asked the frog from the well.

“Good my friend. This is a nice well you have,” responded the visitor.

“Thanks. It’s the best one in the world.”

“How do you know that?” laughed the visitor. “I’ve seen many dozens of others that are nice in so many ways: more colorful, more lively, and larger than this little one. And you may need to leave soon, because a big storm is coming and this one is going to flood. Why don’t you join me?”

“No, mine’s the best well in the world. I’ve never left before, because this has everything a frog could possibly need in his life. I don’t believe you. And I’m never leaving. I live in the best well, and you’re a liar.”

Immediately, the visiting frog jumped out and left. He knew that the frog clinging to his well was an ignorant fool with no interest in learning about the rest of the world. There was no point in arguing with him.

Let me preface by saying that John McCain for many years has been someone I had a deep respect for, the Republican candidate for whom I rooted in the 2008 Republican primaries just a few short months ago to defeat his rivals such as Romney, Giuliani, et al. He was an American hero, and one of my political heroes. Admittedly I am pleased that Obama will crush him in November, but I do not relish watching Mr. McCain’s hard fall into ignominy in the fashion he has dug for himself.

McCain endured the type of pain for his country in Vietnam that I cannot imagine or even wish to imagine. For many years he was a voice of reason in Congress and the Senate, speaking out his mind when he thought he was right, taking the high road at political risk, yelling out against his own party when it was wrong, and taking moderate positions on the country’s large problems. I looked forward to his race against Obama, because I took him at his word when he said it would be a civil race, a high-minded debate for our nation at a perilous time when bipartisanship is necessary more than at any time in generations, and I expected an intelligent fight between two inspiring individuals.

However during this general election he has done the opposite: he has proven that when the stakes are the highest, when the power of the presidency came to be within his grasp, he could turn into a truly disgusting human being. That is what John McCain is today.

Although he has left much of the dirty work to his campaign surrogates, most notably Sarah Palin, McCain has decided that his strategy would be one of tearing down Obama and those who support him, rather than engaging in civil discourse about our country’s future. Here are just some of the factors behind the ugly conclusion to an otherwise great American political career.

Sarah Palin. In a nutshell, Sarah Palin represents all that is wrong with Johnny-come-lately, and America. McCain says country first on the one hand, but on the other flubs his most important presidential campaign decision by choosing a completely unqualified running mate. One who has abused her power to pursue unethical ends in Alaska’s Troopergate. A gun-humping and dangerous radical who has no business coming within miles of the White House, let alone inches. An empty glass of a human being whose most notable achievement so far is trying to equate Obama with the terrorists who threaten our country. Not only is she ignorant and a liar, but she is proud of it and expects that these traits would endear her to the American people. She would get ahead at all costs by bringing others down, just as she did in Alaska. This choice was the beginning of the end for McCain. Thank God Americans see through this phony ice queen.

Backtracking on his previous positions. McCain sacrificed his moral standing to court the right wing. Everyone understands pivoting toward the center in a general election; even Obama is doing it. However, McCain has sold his soul and turned his back on some of his life’s work to get votes: his opposition to torture is now a shadow of what it use to be, his ethical conduct is an embarrassment, and his opinions on the insalubrious activities of the Christian Right have suddenly changed.

A Nasty Campaign. Although McCain made a token effort last week to contradict one of his supporters at a town hall who asked him if Americans should fear Obama because he is an Arab, he did so only when there was no other option. Of course Obama isn’t an Arab. But are we surprised that the majority of the audience booed him when he said Obama wasn’t supposed to be a human being to fear if elected? That fear had been instilled largely by the campaign, which has taken great pains to point Obama as a scary and foreign individual who “pals around with terrorists” because he has such “a low opinion of America.” McCain’s ads are pure visual vitriol. This is dirty, dirty pool.

An Incoherent Message. Are you for experience and maturity, the backbone of your early general election campaign, or are you against it? Obviously against it if you are willing to put the reins in Palin’s hands. Are you really against government spending or do you want to buy $300 billion worth of bad mortgages, turning the government into a giant mortgage lending corporation?  Are you for or against regulation- can you tell us honestly? Do you want to be a respectful human being, or act like Obama does not even deserve to stand on the same stage as you, as was made apparent in the last two debates? Do you really think that calling for the suspension of the democratic processes of a fair presidential campaign due to a market crash was a wise decision or a politically expedient one? McCain has not been a part of the solution to our economic woes, largely because he does not have the ability. And worst of all: was your brilliant military service to your country an honorable achievement that should speak for itself, or is it a political crutch you are going to use to try and claw back into the race by clubbing it against voters’ heads every day for the next three weaks?

My friends, I am saddened deeply by the fall of John McCain. Not because he is about to lose the race in a pathetic way, but because he chose to do so.

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on economics, but I do know that the American economy, and by association world economy, are in the midst of a history-bending crash. To boot, we are knee-deep in a contentious and ugly election cycle for the presidency and also Congress. Put the two together, and America is suffering from all that is bad about America: paralysis in Washington, skullduggery on Wall Street, and an American citizenry on Main Street that has no idea what is going on. From bankers to economists to politicians, nobody saw this coming despite what some of them might be claiming now, and nobody has convincingly provided any answers about where this thing is heading.

With an absence of reliable information available from any quarter, we must resort to analyzing the factors at play in the last few whirlwind weeks of finger-pointing and hand-wringing. I have been unable to find a simple breakdown anywhere else. In my opinion, this complex web of individual tugs-o-war are now actively underway and will shape the outcome:

To Bail or Not to Bail. That would be the question. The $700 billion dollar question, to be exact. Many mainstream politicians, including Bush and the duo of potential successors, McCain, and Obama all seem to be for it with perhaps slight modifications. Its authors, including Bush appointees Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke claim that the economy would suffer an unmitigated slide without the bailout, and the infusion of cash would be good for all Americans despite the unprecedented outlay of taxpayer dollars. They argue a doomsday scenario if we don’t make bail. But- and here is the terrifying part- the opposing arguments are legion, and sound just as reasonable, depending on which smart economist you talk to. The slide, which depends largely on an unquantifiable concept known as “confidence,” may be uncontrollable even with a bailout- like a Band-aid on a broken leg. Plus, is it the government’s role to save failing companies in a free-market society- therefore socializing the dumb risks that Wall Street takes? Most business owners who do a lousy job are simply allowed to fail across the country and around the capitalist world. That’s part of the definition of capitalism, something we’ve committed to centuries ago, and ostensibly, one of the core democratic values we are trying to protect and spread by fighting to the death in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, what’s in it for the common folk who are getting foreclosed out of their homes, the real losers of the day? Why does Wall Street get a bailout while they don’t? This leads to the next tug-o-war.

Constituents vs. Corporate Patrons. We all know that corporations fund both major parties and their candidates. On the other hand, politicians are elected by the people, and must heed the angry phone calls and emails from constituents. Congressmen are being torn asunder by an epic battle between the two forces. I’m sure most corporate donors are begging their buddies in Congress to vote for the bailout, while the citizenry smells yet another corrupt attempt to redistribute their money to benefit companies that do not deserve it. This has caused the impasse we are at right now, epitomized by:

Republicans Vs. Republicans. President Bush has been neutered by his own wretched performance for eight years, and with his popularity at a dismal low, this is not a good time for him to have to attempt to ram through unbelievably contentious legislation, even with vigorous gambits by Secretary Paulson and the presidential candidates. The House Republicans did not bite on the bailout vote, despite McCain’s support, because of Bush’s support, and that’s partly why the bill failed this week. With the election just weeks away, some Congressmen undoubtedly calculated that their jobs may hinge on this monumental vote. A smaller group may be against the bill on principle, under the conservative umbrella of free markets, deregulation, lower spending. Which is also worth discussing:

Capitalism Vs. Socialism. The bailout high jinks are part of a wider debate in America: what kind of nation are we? America exists in a bipolar, piecemeal twilight zone somewhere between the small-government capitalist standard-bearer of the world, and a nanny state who meddles in everything. While we promote trade and the free movement of labor and capital, our government is also full of folks who provide insane industry subsidies and tariffs; run housing projects, Medicaid, and Social Security; all the while protecting you by spying on your emails and forcing tobacco firms to warn you that the profit-inducing product inside the box will kill you. At some point, something has to give. Are we going to admit to nanny socialism by passing this bill or aren’t we?

Partisanship Vs. Bipartisanship. One of the highlights of the campaign season/ financial crisis cocktail has been McCain’s bizarre attempt to suspend his campaign and postpone the first presidential debate. Here comes this presidential candidate who admits to not being an economic expert, but believes he must drop the presidential campaign to come together with Obama to solve the crisis and rescue America. Except… he forgot to tell Obama about his Amazing Technicolor Bipartisan Plan. Obama for his part, raring for the debate that would likely help him push ahead of McCain in the polls, asked that he and McCain not inject too much partisan presidential politics into the crisis. But both did just that: McCain’s desperate ploy was strictly political. Obama and McCain then both proceeded to sidestep multiple questions from Lehrer about whether they supported the bill or not in the first debate. The most important question of the election cycle, and both of them refused to give a straight answer. Bipartisanship does not exist; it’s a cruel joke:

Republicans vs. Democrats. As the parties joust for position, it has been clear that the crisis, and the failure of the bailout to pass muster are both the fault of the other party, depending on which politician you ask. Democrats can blame Bush and the Republican Congress for sleeping at the wheel for much of the last eight years, and in fact many of them see the faltering economy as a boon to their chances to get re-elected in November. Democrats could also rightly claim that Republicans hijacked the bill. Meanwhile the Republicans are quick to blame Pelosi, Reid, Obama, or even Bill Clinton for all that taxing and spending. Anyone, anyone but themselves.

VP Gaffe Vs. VP Gaffe. Finally, we are approaching the long-awaited VP debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, and all the campaigning before and after by these two on the economy. You could bill it as the All-America Alaska Ignoramus vs. Joey Foot-en-Mouth. Palin has no idea what a recession or a depression are, and has already predicted that we could be headed for a depression! That’s what pit bulls with lipstick are supposed to do: scare you (more so than a pit bull without lipstick would do), whether it’s about the Russians overtaking Alaska, Iranians terrorizing us and our allies, or another Great Depression. Have fear, and vote for Mommy. Meanwhile, Biden will give extremely eloquent and passionate remarks about how to solve the crisis, but he’s likely to draw on lessons from the wrong decade, using presidents from the wrong eras of history. At the very least, this should be highly entertaining, in a reality TV sort of way.

If any of this makes you feel better about this unquantifiable crisis we seem to be going through, I have failed.