A weekly recap of worthwhile political opinion and social commentary.
Vol 1, No 7 ……… October 31st, 2020
Happy Halloween, everyone!
THE WEEK JUST PASSED ~ Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice in the kind of reckless super-spreader event we’ve come to expect from the Trump administration, the Dalai Lama made a welcome appearance in New York’s Times Square on this George Floyd billboard, and the presidential race entered the final days of the campaign with the unmistakable contrast between Biden’s decency and Trump’s lack of the same on full display day after day (or, as PBS NewsHour commentator Mark Shields describes the difference, Biden campaigns as the “we” president, Trump as the “me” president).
The three articles selected this week inform us of a former president we could be proud of and moved by, a current attorney general we ought to be very cautious about, and a traditional Buddhist teaching that can support us in the uncertain times that lie ahead …
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Selection #1 – New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman reminds us of the time – not that long ago, although it seems like a decade or two – that we could be proud of, and moved by, the intelligence and the compassion of our president …
“Trump has so redefined decency down that we have forgotten what is normal, let alone optimal, in an American president. We have forgotten what it is like to have a truth-teller, a healer, in the White House, someone who starts his day with at least the inclination to unite the country and to project America at its best for the world — not someone who has lived every day in office aspiring to be president only of his base, while offering anyone at home or abroad looking to the United States for inspiration just one message: Show me the money.”
PS – Be sure to click on the link in this article to see the video clip of Meklit and the Kronos Quartet in their memorable performance of “The President Sang Amazing Grace”.
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Selection #2 – New York Review of Books columnist Fintan O’Toole profiles the current Attorney General, William Barr, and shows clearly how he is not at all the person that he purports to be …
“Because of his suave, courteous, even jovial demeanor and intellectual acumen, and his long record as a member of the pre-Trump Republican establishment, it seems superficially plausible to look to Barr as the one who might ultimately seek to restrain Trump and protect the basic institutional and constitutional order. All evidence—including ProPublica’s report on October 7 that the Department of Justice has now weakened its long-standing prohibition against interfering in elections by allowing federal investigators ‘to take public investigative steps before the polls close, even if those actions risk affecting the outcome of the election’—points in the opposite direction. The desire to believe in Barr as a potential savior of democracy goes deep. [Some of us] believed that Barr would use the independence of his office ‘to prevent us turning into a banana republic.’ But no one who has thought about Barr’s ideological formation, and in particular his views on the nature of authority, should be so naive.”
{Note – I was unable to embed the full article here … please click on “Attorney General, William Barr” above for a link to it.}
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Selection #3 – Buddhist teacher and social activist David Loy explains how the teaching “don’t-know mind” is a useful practice, never more so than as we prepare for the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming presidential election …
“We are now living through the most dangerous moment in human history – the climate crisis, threat of nuclear war, rising authoritarianism, the COVID-19 pandemic, economic breakdown, increasing social polarization, and the November election, in which many of those problems are at stake, perhaps including the very future of our democracy. Buddhist teachings have always emphasized impermanence, and this year certainly offers us plenty of examples to demonstrate that truth. The instability of the world that most of us nonetheless took for granted has become more apparent and the future seems more unpredictable than ever. We may not know what happens after we cast our ballot in what could be the most important election in US history, but there is good reason to believe we’re in for a wild ride.”
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THE WEEK AHEAD … Tuesday, November 3rd, Election Day. Only a mere six words in that sentence, but they bear the fate and future of the country, and perhaps even the world. Here’s hoping that (1) we have an outcome by the end of the week; and (2) it’s an outcome that liberals, Buddhists, and all of humanity can take hope in.
If you’d like a head start reading the articles in next week’s edition, and you have a Twitter account, please follow @LiberalBuddhist.
In the meantime, take good care of yourselves and stay well … Tom
The Liberal Buddhist 