Letter to Obama - Guantanamo & Ghassan Elashi

Dear President Obama,

When I was 17, I conceived of a service project which involved letting all the animals out of the zoo. I had been selected by a civic organization as one of 12 youth to represent Seattle in overseas trips to sister cities Kobe, Japan and Rotterdam, Holland. Part of our our commitment was to perform a service to the community. While my plan never materialized to release exotic animals back into the "wild" of North Seattle, the sentiment was the best my idealistic teenage mind could come up with. 

The sentiment remains strong when I contemplate the uneven leverage of "justice" meted by the U.S. Government in the decade+ since 9/11. Guantanamo Bay, an issue you once saw clearly on but have failed to follow through on, is but one example. The conditions and terms of confinement at the U.S. Penitentiary at  Marion, IL is another. As depicted by Noor Elashi in McSweeny's #43, the facility houses some individuals guilty of no crime other than funding civic organizations also financed by USAID and other government agencies. This should bother you for two reasons. The first is that the conviction proved no connection to terrorism, but rather punished people essentially for being Muslim, demonstrating our continued commitment to a troubled history of extermination, oppression, enslavement, and systematic disempowerment of populations who seem to threaten a particular concept of life to which we summarily feel entitled. The second reason this case should bother you is that, by sentencing Ghassan Elashi to 65 years for an act also partaken of by the U.S. Government, we have by extension convicted ourselves. 

If we focus on the thought of wild animals on the loose, freeing them from captivity will never sound like a good idea. The fear this image inspires triggers a defensive reaction in all of us that reinforces the status quo. What we fail to see, in the status quo, is that the act of imprisonment of innocents makes us as vicious as those animals. When we stare through glass and bars at living beings whose liberty has been robbed through no fault of their own, and yet justify their imprisonment, we extinguish the humanity in ourselves. I am not saying that zoo animals and prison inmates are in any way similar; my point is that, by capturing, dominating, and imprisoning that which we fear, in both cases, it is we who become the monsters. 

True freedom requires a degree of vulnerability in relation to others. Our American refusal to tolerate our vulnerability in the face of unfamiliar "others" is the central failure of our experiment in democracy. You are a president who has the ability to see this. Please cease kowtowing to the forces of fear holding our government hostage, in the name of bipartisanship, and lead the way you were built to. Call out our hypocrisy and toxic elements while you have the wherewithal to do so. Start us on a new course for America.

Andy Varyu

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The making of a grinch

The faded video with muted sound runs, and a 6-year-old in batman pajamas and an orange fisher price tool belt practices twirling two toy guns simultaneously on fingers of both his hands. A younger brother runs to help his distracted mother affix earrings that the brothers gave her. A father, usually invisible behind the camera, appears briefly to show off a picture of Hawaii to the mother. She struggles to act pleased. Two tickets are his peace offering, his reconciliation for the latest affair.

Fifteen-hundred miles away, five years and some affairs later, shouting from the lower level during late-night present-wrapping makes it impossible for the brothers to sleep, and threatens the fantasy that reindeer may arrive during their slumber. At age 11, the older brother roving downstairs has learned to manipulate his presentation. With an innocent "could you keep it down please," he rubs his bleary eyes. He must keep alive the illusion that Santa's helpers might not have been exposed. Inside him, however, the sentiment rages: "you're poisoning the holiday." 

Since my parents had been defiling the Christmas charade for some time, I was free to do so myself. I snoop around for the Christmas stash, then convince my brother at the bottom of the stairs that I have reached Santa on our new cordless phone. I can maintain the connection so long as he doesn't come upstairs. "Want to know what he's bringing?" I escape to the closet to expose secret after secret, then make him swear to silence. We maintain confidence expertly that Christmas morning, with many knowing glances exchanged, until the presents are done. "Wait, I think there's one more there behind the curtain," mom introduces the finale. My brother goes to look. "Andy! It's an orange sled with blue handles, just like you said!" Mom's eyes burn into me. While I steam with guilt at being exposed, I have had my first taste of the power to ruin Christmas.

I take to long, annual Christmas Eve strolls, solitarily serenading the moon to Elvis' Blue Christmas.

Parents give up fighting one year over who gets the kids on the holidays, and leave it up to us to decide. Now, if everybody isn't happy with the division of the holiday time, it will be our fault. Each year, we try a different permutation, and absorb their disappointed sighs when we propose our plans. Whatever we come up with is never good enough. 

Church becomes a good ground to define my brand of holiday mischief. At 11:55 one Christmas Eve, I track my watch from the acolyte seats and methodically show the time to my nearby red-robed friends. At the appointed moment, while many kneel at the rail and receive communion bathed in holy light, I pierce the sedate organ music with, "Merry Christmas, Everybody!" Translation: "if you're so damn holy, why were you dozing when Christmas came?" My friends snicker at the tainted ambiance. The priest raises a condemning eyebrow.

If Jesus can do it, so can I. I project enchantment and dole out Christmas sentiment like I learned it in the movies, adopting a state of wonderment meant to shame others with their lack of "Christmas Spirit." There is always a reckoning. One year I take out my anger in a freezing garage by pulling every piece of tape off of crumpled wrapping paper so it can be recycled. The rest of the family tries to enjoy a cozy Christmas morning inside, but I am there to remind them that the Earth and I are both outside, hanging on a cross because of them. Jesus said, "follow me."

By 18, I have found a girlfriend to school me in the next level of selfishness. She enlightens me there is no reason to keep a Christmas gift I would not have bought for myself.  I make an art out of unwrapping items, holding them up with the slightest look of interest, trying it on in the mirror, and saying "It's really nice, but… you kept the receipt, right?" My stepdad fights back by failing to get me a gift one year. My 10-year-old brother makes the strangely adult remark, "we would have given you cash, but you would have just exchanged it for foreign currency."

One Christmas, I come home from college to find the ceremonial candy dish empty of spice drops and thoroughly thrash my mother for her inconsiderate lack of hospitality. Neither spice drops nor a shamed mother are ever absent again. 

Christmases at my mother's become shorter, more going-through-the-motions. It is easy to be critical of how subpar they are. Christmases at my father's become more lavish and compensatory; it is easy to criticize their materialism. The bottom line is that my opinion counts most, and I am impossible to please.

I drive ten hours one year to join a girlfriend's family on Christmas Eve. Their Christmas joy and togetherness both thrill and threaten me. I have arrived early enough to participate in their tradition of making one gift from scratch for another participant, and draw my fiancee's name from a hat. Seizing on a comment she once made about appendages getting cold when jogging, I cajole one of her sisters into purchasing an oversized sports bra and soft, felt padding on a trip to town. I spend hours away from their family time, teaching myself to sew. On Christmas morning, as others unwrap collages, offer hand-knit scarves, or perform songs composed, I unveil to my conservative-Christian hopeful in-laws my creation: an insulated, padded bra for my bride-to-be. I may be uncomfortable, but I have a special way of making sure everyone else feels it too.

Four years later, a sensitive new girlfriend watches hopefully while I unwrap her central gift to me: a hand-painted plaque inscribed with a poem she has written. As I read words to me, about how I have been entrusted to hold her heart, I battle with a familiar pressure to manufacture the properly 'pleased' every gift is supposed to stimulate. I rebel at the threat of a sincere sentiment, and ingrained patterns easily find fault with her handwriting, with the word choice and rhyme scheme, like I am holding up an ill-fitted sweater in the mirror. Facing something new--an authentic Christmas gift--I am frozen from either giving or receiving. I manufacture an obviously fraudulent response, the first of the injuries I will inflict on the relationship. 

Distancing myself from forced family traditions for the past two years, and any semblance of a Christmas "haul" has started to dry me out, like a detox holding tank for "holiholics." I can barely piece together that my awkwardness, entitlement, and unconscious sadism around the holidays have not been random character quirks, but rather a systematic, unrecognized program to ruin the holidays like they were ruined for me. I will get mine, or make sure nobody else gets theirs.

Music, which has always told me more about myself than my conscious mind has been willing to see, has known this all along. From a young age, one of my favorite Christmas songs was "Darcy the Dragon" by Roger Whittaker, about a fire-breathing member of society who could not participate in Christmas without destroying everything he wanted to give to others. He goes to town to buy presents for friends, but starts fire after fire, and is chased away by the villagers. Until,

As Darcy let out with a dragon's cryHe opened his mouth so wideThat the wind and snow went right down his throatAnd put out the fire inside
When Darcy realized the fire was outFirst a whisper, then a shoutAnd a laugh, to knowThat he could speak without starting another fire

What is that "wind and snow," to quench the rage that burns in us who have taken up the torch of burning down the holidays?

Acquiescence

Pride
Is like a redeemed child inching toward the cookie jar;
The moment we start doing good,
We fixate on the reward we know must be coming.

Lord, help me see doing the right thing:
As obedience,
As life with you,
Which is always in the moment, never waiting on some greener pasture.

Give me acceptance
Obedience and reward
Both are now.

Mason-Dixon alive & well

Take a look at these maps. One's high-tech, one's low-tech--but they're pretty much the same picture.

Right?

The problem is, while one tells us where our political lines are drawn today with the impending election, the other shows us where they were drawn 160 years ago - before Lincoln won the Civil War.

The states in Red (in the map on the right) are States that seceded from the Union, where slavery was legal. The yellow areas in the same map were "open to slavery."  The states in Red (in the map on the left) are States that will vote against another 4 years with the first African American president.

I might hesitate to say more. With such evidence, it's best to let people form their own conclusions.

However, a recent University of Washington study corroborates one of the obvious conclusions we might like to avoid. The study proves that, while there are substantially polarized individuals within each party, for whom race does not play a part in their selection of candidates, there is also a sizable subgroup - 10% of the total study participants - for whom race is a more determining factor than the issues. In other words, says the study, were Obama not black, he could very easily be 20% further ahead in the polls.

Don't take this as an accusation against certain states in the Union or conservatives as the "bad, prejudiced ones--that is not the point at all.  This study took place in Seattle. And the substantial majority of participants were liberals.

The point is, there are unresolved issues in our country--in each one of us--going back over 150 years, and they still polarize us along almost the same lines. Fundamental biases and perspective differences have not changed. For anything to change, it would require a sustained effort on each our parts to have the challenging conversations--that bring us to face and expose the prejudice within ourselves--rather than the oversimplified, us-versus-them, tired dialogues that fire us up and sell ad spots on TV.

When Obama said in the debate the other night that Romney wanted to take us back to the foreign policies of the 80s, social policies of the 50s, and economic policies of the 20s, he left out one: the unresolved racial and political biases of the 1860s.

Only it's not Romney who's taking us there, it's we who are stuck there; Romney's just benefiting from it.


Sources:
http://storiesofusa.com/american-civil-war-timeline-battlefields-1854-1865/#confederate-states-of-america-1861 
http://graphics.latimes.com/2012-election-electoral-map/ 
http://www.artsci.washington.edu/newsletter/Oct12/Greenwald.asp?src=eblastLD 

Wild pack of family dogs

Songs often sing through my head for years before I reach the level of insight to understand what my subconscious was trying to tell me through repeating those tunes.

Wild pack of family dogs by modest mouse.

A wild pack of family dogs came runnin' through the yard one day
My father got his gun, shot it up, they ran away ok
A wild pack of family dogs came runnin' through the yard
And as my own dog ran away with them, I didn't say much of anything at all
A wild pack of family dogs came runnin' through the yard
As my little sister played, the dogs took her away
And I guess she was eaten up ok, yeah she was eaten up ok
My mother's cryin' blood dust now
My dad he quit his job today, well I guess he was fired but that's ok
And I'm sittin' outside my mudlake, waiting for the pack to take me away
And right after I die the dogs start floating up towards the glowing sky
Now they'll receive their rewards, now they will receive their rewards

This song is about abuse or addiction in a family, the havoc it wreaks and the responses family members adopt.

Interrupting the idyllic impressions we all like to believe about our youth, "one day" something wild and terrible comes running through the safety of our home.

Responses often include outward violence or denial, another form of violence. "Shot it up, they ran away ok."

Innocence is lost however and the family addiction takes part of us with it. "my own dog ran away with them."  Too young to make sense of it, and likely in an environment hostile to outward acknowledgement of the problem, most of us "didn't say much of anything at all."

The denial does not make the problem stay away. In response to our denial, often the consequences grow, affecting some in the family more severely than others. "she was eaten up ok."

Hysteria and collapse.  As if we couldn't have seen it coming. "cryin' blood dust." "quit his job... was fired."

What can we do in the face of generational terror that has consumed all we might have known of stability? "waitin for the pack to take me away." give in to the forces of violence and compulsion within us.

And fantasize about an afterlife. Complete with final relief and justice for the perpetrators.

"up toward the glowing sky. Now they will receive their rewards."

'Melancholia' and the advantage of the Abused

Lars von Trier says, in an interview regarding his recent release Melancholia, that

"You can skate across the polished surface in this film. The style is polished, but underneath the smooth surface, there's content. And to get to that, you need to look beyond the polish. But the worst thing to happen was when they said at Nordisk Film: There are some beautiful images,” 

This film has beauty, and it is seductive.  Images of the landscape, the castle, the wedding reception, and of Kirsten Dunst can draw us in.  Von Trier admits the finished picture had a "plastic" quality that nearly turned his own stomach against it.  The filmmaker's creation has almost bested him.  And moreso it may his audiences.  Search the online reviews; few can describe what this movie is about other than the obvious, superficial elements.

On that superficial level, I have to say the film disappoints.  There are no plot twists.  There is no escape from the inevitable.  There is only a witness of how various characters respond to an impending crash of planets.

There is, however, a deeper statement, reflected in the transformation of Dunst's character Justine: from helpless, depressed, and crushed by the weight of everyday life - to clear, direct, purposeful and productive - all as the crisis draws nearer.  It is no coincidence that the character in whom this transformation takes place is a survivor of sexual abuse.

I expect most reviews will miss this background of Justine's character, but the evidence is all there, subtly and unmistakably.  The father who is obsessed with women he jokingly names "Betty" - bringing two of them to the wedding - which we later learn is his pet-name for his daughter.  The mother who openly scorns the marriage ceremony, who later bitterly explains, "I wasn't there when that man had a crack at her body, I wasn't there for her first sexual experience, why should I be there for this stupid ritual."  And, finally, Justine's growing panic as her new husband undresses to consummate their union, requesting a moment to herself - during which she impulsively and violently rapes an innocuous wedding guest in the sand trap on the golf course.   Justine has transferred forward the violence done to her, engaging in anonymous sex, often the only kind of sexuality with which the child victim of sexual abuse can identify.

Justine's history as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse - which is so subtly told it will be lost on most audiences, I'm afraid - provides a crucial backdrop for her prevalent present features: her crippling depression and her strange clarity and strength as the end of the world nears.

Part I, "Justine," shows Justine's debilitating mental illness: the wedding is admittedly a performance, a last-ditch effort to revive her spirits.  Yet it is a failure, she cannot live on her own and ends up back at the castle estate on which her sister's family lives.  She spends days in bed and needs help being lifted physically to the dinner table or the bath.  She is a woman who cannot summon the energy to participate in everyday life on the same terms as others.

There is a thread connecting the instances of Justine's energy, and this is part of the genius of von Trier's script:  Justine comes alive only at opportunities to engage with truth.  She actively seeks out her mother to reveal her feelings of confusion and fear, only to be smote by her mother's jealous bitterness.   Justine shows surprising initiative at chasing down her father and arranging him a room to stay the night, because she needs to speak with him about "something important."  The incestuous father, however, sensing the possible encounter with the truth of his past transgressions, finds the excuse to flee from the confrontation.  The husband of her dreams, while making dull attempts at kindness in providing a fantasy life for her, cannot himself deal with the truth of her depression, but escapes into the  bottle of Hennessy and by burying his face in her breasts, hungry for sex.  When Justine leaves her husband in his state of excitement, she is an abuse victim not just fleeing from stigmatized sex, but also intolerant of her partner's inability to face her truth.

As this pattern repeats in part II, it becomes evident that Justine's depression is not an individualized disease (as our medical model would have it), but rather that she is sapped of life as her key connections stake out their commitments to flee from the truth.  As the collision with the planet Melancholia becomes more inevitable, the other adults flee - one through suicide, and the other into flailing fantasy and despair.  Meanwhile, the character Justine answers a nighttime muse to bathe nude and touch herself in the light of the approaching planet Melancholia, symbolically drinking in the truth about her melancholy, which all the functioning world would deny her.

Robbed of the stability that would have come from healthy boundaries being respected in her upbringing, Justine, like all abuse survivors, at a young age had her world turned upside down.  While she is incapable of functioning in a functioning world, she conversely possesses the unique ability to draw strength from chaos - for in the chaos, there is truth.  As Justine says, "life is evil;"  the functioning world, like her father, would hide its chaotic violence and put on pretenses (such as the wedding) for their own benefit.  Yet, they crumble or flee when the truth eclipses their pretense.  Justine, however, finally has her nourishment: the unmistakeable approach of the destruction she has always known was there.   While her nephew's parents have abandoned him, she relates to him and steps up to show him the way through chaos: with dignity, they prepare, join together, and close their eyes to meditate while their destruction rips through them.   Von Trier explains:

"We are [alone].  But no one wants to realize it. They keep wanting to push limits and fly wherever,” he laughs. “Forget it! Look inward.”

As eloquently as Pema Chodron might put it, Lars von Trier shows that truth cannot be met by our common, cowardly impulses toward escape.  And in facing the truth, the struggles that trauma survivors  have gone through to grapple with their own worldly handicaps will actually serve them well.  Jesus did say, "the last will be first."

Regardless of whether the world ends suddenly with planets colliding, or whether melancholy gradually eclipses us as our trusted sources of stability in life are compromised, Melancholia asks us to consider how we will face truth.  Will we plan, like Claire, to put on Beethoven's 9th, drink good wine, and try to make it "nice"?  Or, like Justine, will we have the courage to meet truth with truth, call those sorts of plans "shit," and prepare in all seriousness as best we are able?

Anyone commenting on or reading about von Trier's film has felt the truth of the film resonating within them.  Are we content to comment on the superficial, plastic elements of the film, or will we try to probe deeper for the source of this truth within us?  Will we allow ourselves to be seduced, like an abuser, into thinking that beauty is all there is to be had - or will we force ourselves to keep asking questions, until the reality of the destruction becomes something we accept?

If you have been abused, you have in your experience an advantage in answering this for yourself.

Inversion of Destruction

Nov. 9 -

"World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change


Nov 20 -

"Rich nations 'give up' on new climate treaty until 2020"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/20/rich-nations-give-up-climate-treaty

News this month published by the Guardian tells us that we are within 5 years of being "locked in" to an irreversible trajectory toward 450ppm of CO2, by projected demand and pollution of existing power plants, and that our leaders have resigned themselves to inaction, bowing more to the difficulties of human relationships than the consequences of doing nothing.

This means any change that will happen needs to come from below - from choices individuals make in our habits and our purchases.  Time for us to grow up, our leaders are not going to legislate this for us.

The reason they will not, of course, is they fear the political backlash from their constituents if they were to try and enforce rationing, similar to the riots in England against austerity measures.  We have always had the power.

The question is, do we realize we are also the problem?  Each of us is to blame - not our leaders - for the path our Earth will take, because we in effect whine whenever our toys are threatened with being taken away.  Our leaders cannot win when it comes to climate change, because they have whining on the left about their not doing enough and whining on the right about quality of life being compromised.  Perhaps the problem is not with our leaders after all.  

There is hope in the "Occupy" movements in that it shows the people can have a voice, unite, get attention, possibly even effect change.  However, even this movement can be inhabited motivated ultimately by a whine.  Honest participants will be examining: am I here out of a sense of responsibility and a call to what is right - or am I whining because my life isn't what I want it to be?

The most important question any of should be asking is: How much do I care?  Am I committed to effecting something positive and lasting with my time here?  Or am I, like my leaders, content with finding excuses for giving up, and feeling justified with my whining.  Our answers may not make much difference on the outcome, in one regard.  But they can change the quality of what we are able to contribute along the way.