In the week since he died, after all the millions of words about his life, there is the question of, beyond the self-love of media people celebrating themselves, why do so many people everywhere care so much about Tim Russert’s death?

Peggy Noonan has the start of an answer: “The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better…That’s what we talk about in eulogies, because that’s what’s important. We don’t say, ‘The thing about Joe was he was rich.’ We say, if we can, ‘The thing about Joe was he took care of people.’”

In the week’s outpouring of sentiment, there was a striking emphasis on Russert’s random acts of kindness-concern for people and their families far beyond the token gestures of a political life. After all the talk about his work, we are left with the residue of a sweet man who lived out E. M. Forster’s injunction, “Only connect!”

What we long for in our hyperactive, overcrowded and wised-up lives is some joining of what Forster called “the prose and the passion”–some sense of a feeling heart behind all the cunning and the calculation of it all.

Tim Russert of Buffalo and Washington knew just what E M. Forster of Cambridge and “Howard’s End” meant.

Cross-posted from my blog.

For those who believe Europe is wholeheartedly behind Barack Obama, this article written by Josef Joffe in Germany’s Die Zeit may prove a chastening read.

Joffe writes that the “disturbing” thing about America is not the person who leads the U.S. government, but the nature of America itself.

Joffe writes in part:

“Despite the possible coming of Obama, the superpower remains. Pacified Europe is fundamentally suspicious of power; those who use it (and every U.S. president since 1945 has done so in abundance), are indeed devilish. And Obama is no savior.”

Then, warning about the Democrats, Joffe writes:

“Obama has two further strikes against him. His party plays with the fire of protectionism against products as well as people; that is why Asia and Latin America are so skeptical about the Democrats. Then there is Obama’s idealism, which provides Europeans with ample reason for concern. And include with that a lofty human rights policy, conceived not by George W. but by Democrat Jimmy Carter. …”
Read the rest of this entry »

When and if Barack Obama takes the oath of office as President of the United States, who most will he owe that high privilege to?

According to Alexandre Adler, one of France’s leading historians, journalists - and according to many - a neocon, that person would be George W. Bush. Read the rest of this entry »

In terms of observing the global media, North Korea takes the prize for coming the closest to permitting the reader to engage in time travel.

Apparently, that notorious despot Kim Jong-il is finding it necessary to again inoculate his people against the impinging imperialist world outside.

As his nation once again starves, what is Kim now telling his people to persuade them not to veer toward the hellfire of capitalism? This op-ed article from the Kim clan’s family newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, tells North Koreans not to be fooled by the “aggressive ‘liberty and democracy’ of the imperialists.”

The article warns, “A failure to maintain vigilance against the ‘liberty’ and ‘democracy’ promoted by the imperialists may result in grave and irrevocable consequences.”

The newspaper then cautions its presumably patriotic audience to be careful about ‘freedom of thought’: “Now keep in mind, the imperialists regard ‘freedom of thought’ as an important method of destabilizing and causing degeneration in socialist countries … This is how they spread bourgeois ideas and culture.

And why are we - the Western imperialists - doing all this - and what should be done?

“This they do in an effort to realize their ambition for global domination the easy way. This is why revolutionary peoples must intensify ideological education. The ideological and cultural poisoning of the imperialists must be prevented, and the socialist cause defended.”

Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the real “dream ticket?” According to Yannick Mireur who writes for the French magazine Les Echos - it’s McCain-Obama.

In describing what makes this this year’s U.S. presidential race so fascinating, Mireur writes:

“The McCain-Obama face-off is already turning the November presidential election into an exceptional moment in American history. A Republican rebel in his seventies confronting a mixed-raced newcomer to national politics almost looks like an accidental hiccup. It is a sign that the political apparatus no longer knows how to respond to the nation’s challenges. Both candidates embody the quest for what historian Arthur Schlesinger once called ‘the vital center.’

Then Mireur describes what’s at stake, and the dichotomy of the two opponents:

“America is at a turning point. Read the rest of this entry »

From my Magyar family, there is a story from my father’s brother,* a man who had the tribal title of ‘keeper of trees.’ The family story goes like this:

“Once in times older than the fog and younger than the sun, there were old guardian trees. These venerable trees had lived so long they’d seen everything that passed by on the road before them… and often more than once.

Thus, these trees, so situated, had become shrewd observers of human nature. They knew the language of creatures too. They knew the odd, wondrous, and treacherous ways of men as well.

Humans found being near such trees often calmed their minds, quieted the spinning-jinn within. Often enough, answers to long held questions seemed to flow from the magnitude of the old trees, right into the human heart.

Therefore, those who’d come to the groves in mourning, or having lost their ways, or simply being perplexed, often enough went away feeling deeply comforted, better directed, or with more clarity of mind.

Long ago, before legends ever existed, guardian trees were not just trees, but healing spirits who gave of their leaves and bark and roots so that human beings could be made well again… and for that reason too, the people loved them. And, the leafy giants loved the people right back.

But as the guardian trees grew older yet, their limbs and reaches also grew longer– and much heavier– causing the trees to cry out sometimes. The weight of their limbs put unbearable pressures upon their delicate junctures. The village people were alarmed to hear the trees crying…

They feared the trees’ arms might break and bring down the entire tree, and so, they carefully whittled crutches made of ground-wood, and gently pressed these under the trees’ great arms, helping the giant trees to remain strong despite whatever storms might rear up.

And, the trees grew even older… and older yet. More challenges came from bitter winds and wild weather, til the oldest trees carried far more scars than bark… some scars from deep woundings, some from horrible severances, and many scars from loving so hard the tree’s skin had come apart time and again, each time allowing more tree, more love, to be carried within.

No matter how old a tree became, no matter how fatefully struck or crowned… the great trees were still consulted for their wisdom, their ability to see far. And those who knew the old trees best, remained ever near them, protecting the guardian trees now, those giants who had spent long and long, reaching out their heavy limbs to shelter and protect others.”

So may it be for the Senator and those who love him so.

____________
* “The Faithful Gardener, A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die,” C.P. Estés, HarperSanfrancisco

With the Olympic Games just a few months away, what will Beijing do with all of those pesky Western journalists running around the country flouting the regime’s restrictions on a free press?

If this article from China’s Global Geographic Times is anything to go by, the 2008 Olympic Games are likely to result in the mass jailing and expulsion of a majority of Western-trained journalists there.

Decrying the tactics of Western journalists, Qiao Xinsheng writes:

“Western journalists turn press conferences into battlefields - an ideological contest. Some Chinese-conducted meetings have been seen by a minority of Western journalists as places to stage political performances. They take every opportunity to pose questions that express their own political views and never miss a chance to spread their own prejudices, even going so far as to call the Chinese people’s love for their country ‘nationalism,’ and charging that the spontaneous patriotic displays of Chinese young people are controlled behind the scenes by the Chinese government. In some cases, Western media outlets have used news topics as “traps” that are virtually impossible for our officials to guard against.”

Qiao then discusses the issue of why Western journalists behave this way:

“The reason that they dare spread such nonsense about Chinese issues is that they don’t have to pay a price for it. … Therefore, the best way of putting a stop to the impunity of Western journalists in regard to Chinese issues is to force them to bear legal and social responsibility for their actions. ”

So what should be done to ‘force’ misbehaving Western journalists to bear responsibility? Qiao writes:

“Within the international community today, vilifying China is in vogue and fabricating lies about China has become the common practice of certain Western media outlets. We must change our strategy and adopt a more proactive attitude and put into effect legal measures to defend China’s national and societal interests and protect the fundamental rights of the people. … if a few Western journalists knowingly violate the law, incite the breakup of China, encourage the actions of terrorist elements, maliciously invent news stories or spread gossip to confuse the public, they should receive the most sever punishment allowed by law.”
Read the rest of this entry »

‘Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in her whole aspect, and spite of all mortal men could do - the said solid white buttress of her forehead smite the ship’s starboard bow.’
(apologies to Moby Dick)

It seems that a global consensus against Senator Hillary Clinton is forming, after her razor-thin victory in Indiana and significant defeat in North Carolina.

This editorial from Lebanon’s Daily Star not only lambastes Hillary for pandering - pointedly in regard to her threat to ‘obliterate’ Iran - but it uses her bad example as a way of pointing out a glaring deficiency in Democratic government as it is presently conducted.

In the words of the Daily Star of Lebanon - which has been relatively friendly in its stance toward the United States and the West:

“Whatever she does in the future, nothing will erase her demonstration of the worst aspects of American politics - particularly her recent statement that she would ‘obliterate’ Iran if it ever threatened Israel with nuclear weapons … The context of her threatening statement is telling, in that it exposes the weak link in America’s democratic system - or any democratic system: the inclination of candidates running for public office to pander to the basest prejudices, sentiments and fears of the voting public.”

Then in regard to the anti-Iranian sentiment in America, the editorial says:

“The United States and Iran may disagree about many things; but for one to use threats of obliteration as a policy toward the other strikes us as a rather crude and offensive strategy, especially for a world power.”

One interesting question to ponder is whether Hezbullah’s takeover on Friday of much of Beirut, will also put an end the the independence of the pro-West Daily Star.

EDITORIAL

May 8, 2008

Lebanon - The Daily Star - Original Article (English)

In the coming days or weeks, Hillary Clinton’s fate as a presidential hopeful will be decided. But whatever she does in the future, nothing will erase her demonstration of the worst aspects of American politics - particularly her recent statement that she would “obliterate” Iran if it ever threatened Israel with nuclear weapons. The substance of the New York senator’s words are hard to evaluate due to the hypothetical nature of the damage she threatens to impose. Were she ever to become president and order such an attack, many other Americans would have to agree with the decision in order for it to be implemented, particularly the top military brass.

The context of her threatening statement is telling, in that it exposes the weak link in America’s democratic system - or any democratic system: the inclination of candidates running for public office to pander to the basest prejudices, sentiments and fears of the voting public. Clinton has been a particularly dynamic panderer this year, jumping on every opportunity to make her appear to be a woman of the people, whether drinking shots of whisky or calling for gas-tax holidays. In this case, she chose to play on widespread American opposition to Iran, which is in turn a function of several factors. In American politics these days, Iran is the bad guy par excellence, whether for its role in Iraq, its strategic ambitions in the Middle East, its nuclear policy, its rhetorical threats against Israel, or to its a general assertion of Islamist identity and politics. Americans also remain angry at Iranians for overthrowing the Shah in 1979 and then taking and holding Americans hostages for many months.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing foreign press coverage of the U.S. election.

As the Bush era draws to a close, Europeans are anxious to know what about American policy will change when he’s gone - particularly if a Democratic victory occurs as planned.

According to this lead article from French business magazine Challenges, while a Democrat in the White House will mean a leftward tilt - it won’t be anything like the European left - and it certainly won’t mean the end to American Exceptionalism.

The article says in part:

“In view of the ongoing presidential campaign, the American exception seems as strong as ever. Where else but in America would a primary race go on for more than a year? Where else would candidates obtain tens of millions of dollars a month from their supporters? Where else would party foot soldiers have the chance to select the candidate for the highest post? … All three candidates take lyrical flight in discussing the American dream. Above all, none will hesitate to resort to force.”

And in describing what a Democratic regime might look like, the article cautions:

“Clearly, a Democratic victory in November would undoubtedly open the door to a more left-wing America. But it would be a kind of American left, certainly not modeled on Europe. Both candidates have rejected a “single payer” system for health insurance, like the Canadian and European models. The change ahead will not mean the end of the American exception, but the end of American triumphalism.”

LEADING ARTICLE

Translated By Kate Davis

May 8, 2008

France - Challenges - Original Article (French)

All countries are exceptional. But the United States gladly considers itself exceptionally exceptional, different from all other developed countries in its social organization and its fundamental values. The State is less extensive and the distribution of wealth more unequal. The United States is also more strongly committed to what Margaret Thatcher called the “Victorian values:” individualism, voluntarism, patriotism.

Thus the Bush government, which supports conservative values domestically and demonstrates an unlimited self confidence externally, is the most “exceptional” known in recent years. But at the end of Bush’s mandate, isn’t the United States entering a new cycle, characterized by the rejection of conservatism and a convergence with Europe’s standards?

In reality, three quarters of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and for example, vigorously support a system of universal health care. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both have promised to address that. They also want to improve their image in the world. The next government will certainly initiate significant reforms, such as closing Guantanamo or adopting a more rigorous environmental policy in order to address some of the country’s more aberrant characteristics.

Yet in view of the ongoing presidential campaign, the American exception seems as strong as ever. Where else but in America would a primary race go on for more than a year? Where else would candidates obtain tens of millions of dollars a month from their supporters? Where else would party foot soldiers have the chance to select the candidate for the highest post? John McCain won the nomination of his party despite strong internal opposition. Barack Obama is the leader of an uprising against the Democratic old guard.

All three preach a patriotism specific to the United States. John McCain boasts of his service in Vietnam. Barack Obama claims that there is no red or blue, but only one America united by common values. The three candidates take lyrical flight in discussing the American dream. Above all, none will hesitate to resort to force. John McCain sings, “Bomb, bomb [bomb, bomb bomb] Iran.”

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. elections.

What makes capitalism work and more importantly, who is capable of fixing it when it flies off the rails? Writer and pollster Klaus Kocks writes for Germany’s Frankfurter Rundschau that it isn’t people on the left and it certainly isn’t members of the Green Party - its capitalists themselves.

In highlighting the ongoing legal prosecutions at Siemens - the German mega-giant now mired in what some have called the greatest bribery scandal of all time, Klocks writes:

“What German courts were unable to achieve and even the Pope would have failed to accomplish, has now been done by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. … The capitalists themselves insist that the train of greed remain on the tracks - its tracks.”

Kocks then goes on to describe how the Pietists created the first capital markets - which leads him to what created the business powerhouse known as the United States of America: Read the rest of this entry »

As the craze for Obama spreads across the French countryside, the concern of Democrats Abroad is growing, as fear that Hillary could be doing irreparable harm to the Party’s likely standard-bearer in November starts to take hold.

Expressing frustration in this news account from France’s Le Monde newspaper, one member of Democrats abroad says:

“She’s playing the Bush card and the politics of fear. It’s because of her that we have the shameful racial bias that has been introduced into the country! It makes me crazy!”

Reflecting the kind of global attention Senator Obama’s candidacy has generated, Samuel Solvit, President of the French Committee to Support Barack Obama says in part:

“This election concerns the entire planet … it’s important to us … we are attentive to the emergence of this candidate bearing hope and who is open to the world.” Read the rest of this entry »

This is from a few days ago, but, given that the Obama “bittergate” controversy continues to rage on within the confines of the chattering classes (even as the news media have begun to move on — or maybe not, given last night’s debate), I wanted to link to a helpful post by Nico Pitney at HuffPo. What Nico points out is that Bill Clinton said similar things while running for the White House in ‘92. For example:

The reason [George H.W. Bush’s tactic] works so well now is that you have all these economically insecure white people who are scared to death.

*****

You know, [Bush] wants to divide us over race. I’m from the South. I understand this. This quota deal they’re gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they’ve been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade. When their economic policies fail, when the country’s coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them.

Now, this isn’t exactly what Obama said. The essence of “bittergate” is that Obama was more explicit: People are economically insecure and scared to death and so turn to god and guns, racism and xenophobia. The point, however, is the same, and it’s one that has been made not just by Clinton and Obama but by leading scholars and commentators on U.S. politics, including Thomas “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Frank. Indeed, it’s a point that is well-understood by Karl Rove and his ilk: play to the culture of fear.

The conventional wisdom, of course, is that Obama said something crazy: How dare he insult the good people of the Heartland? (I addressed that here. In brief: He was speaking the truth, if over-generalizing and not making his point artfully enough.) Even smart reporter-commentators like Slate’s John Dickerson found “so many problems with Barack Obama’s comments about small-town America, it’s hard to know where to begin.”
Read the rest of this entry »

‘NO SMOKING’

Will it be possible to persuade Western governments and public opinion that China is the victim of Tibetan ‘running dogs’? In this op-ed from Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po, published before the voyage of the Olympic torch began, Hong Kong television commentator Dr. Qiu Zhenhai explains how the Beijing government can turn the public relations battle in its favor. Far more reasonable - even to the point of admitting error on the part of the Chinese government - the key, according to the author, is to understand the flaws and contradictions in Western thinking and to mount a massive new public relations campaign.
Read the rest of this entry »

While the debate in the United States seems to center around whether with Barack Obama, there is any there there, it seems that in some places he is regarded as the Democratic answer to the much vaunted Republican idea machine. Alfredo Toro Hardy of Venezuela’s El Universal writes, ‘Confronted with the flood of proposals from their Republican counterparts, the fonts of Democratic thought seem to have dried up. … As if by magic, these past limitations seem to be disappearing due to the impact of the Obama phenomenon. He has been responsible with offering Democrats and his campaign a ‘vision’ which, combined with his oratory and charisma, offers a solid counterweight to the strong conservative tendency that characterizes the national mood.’

By Alfredo Toro Hardy

Translated By Barbara Howe

March 13, 2008

Venezuela - El Universal - Original Article (Spanish)

Democrats have begun confronting some serious limitations. Their lack of policy proposals and ideas has often played into the hands of Republicans - and at times when the Republicans have been particularly prolific in this regard. It’s from the right-wing side of the political spectrum that the majority of the ideas which have fed the public life of that country have emerged Read the rest of this entry »

This morning in Honduras, people woke up, opened their morning newspaper, and read this comparison between Communist Cuba and Democratic Puerto Rico. According to Luis Pazos writing for the newspaper La Prensa, ‘Beyond dogma, demagoguery, rhetoric, sympathies and antipathies and based on an objective and dispassionate analysis, the difference in living standards and the level of political freedoms achieved by Cubans and Puerto Ricans in the past 58 years, offers us all a great lesson.’

By Luis Pazos

Translated by Miguel Guttierez

February 27, 2008

Honduras - La Prensa - Original Article (Spanish)

Beyond rhetoric and dogmatic positions, if we analyze the economic and political situations in Cuba and Puerto Rico, we can uncover profound lessons for the future of our peoples.

Read the rest of this entry »

Are America and the West unfair to China for browbeating it for its democratic failings? In this ironic op-ed from the chief editor if China’s state-run People’s Daily and published in Huanqui [the Global Geographic Times], Gang Ding argues that the catastrophe in Iraq stems from America’s fallacious assumptions about democracy in general. He writes in part, ‘By observing U.S. national security strategy one observes how far democracy has fallen in the world, so that now it serves merely as a tool for the safeguarding of America’s own national interests.’

By Gang Ding, People’s Daily Senior Editor

Translated By Mark Klingman

February 11, 2008

The Global Geographic Times - People’s Republic of China - Original Article (Chinese)

If we take a good hard look at why America’s Iraq policy has failed, it will help us develop a more open attitude toward building our own path toward democracy.

The failure of U.S. policy in Iraq is a failure to force that country to implement American-style democracy, but this isn’t a failure of democracy itself. We shouldn’t see the failure of the Bush Administration as democracy’s failure. On the contrary, democracy is developing and expanding in different ways around the world. In fact, the diversification of global democracy is in itself “democratic.”

Democracy is the most basic pursuit of all humanity, but different cultures at different stages of development and social environments will have different forms of democracy. Therefore, democracy in the world today is not universal.

The Americans have made at least two basic errors in Iraq: The first was to take American democracy as the global standard; the second was to assume that American democracy could be adopted by all countries regardless of their level of development. To put it succinctly, to regard American democracy as universally applicable is to regard America’s model of development universal as well. It is not. Further, by observing U.S. national security strategy one observes how far democracy has fallen in the world, so that now it serves merely as a tool for the safeguarding of America’s own national interests.

Democracy is a good thing for everyone in the world. Americans are no exception and neither are the Iraqis. Iraq’s people, like people all over the world, have the right to enjoy democracy - which includes the right to define and develop their own democratic institutions. It should be obvious that the choice of what kind of democracy to choose can only be decided by the Iraqis. The people of every nation have the desire to pursue democracy and must have the freedom to choose the right democratic model consistent with its own conditions.

Democracies differ around the world. The world is a colorful pageantry - so how could the world’s democracies be any less so? Democracies are different because each nation’s culture, history, values, and stage of social development is different. We can say that the “soil” of the society determines what kind of democratic “tree” grows. Democracy needs nurturing, sure, but most important of all is the soil it grows in.
Democracy cannot be wholly transplanted. But whether democracy takes root and goes on to flower and bear fruit depends on whether the majority of people believe that it’s suitable for the country’s political, economic, and cultural soil. But whether one looks at history or at current events, the lesson is that forcibly transplanted democracy carried the seeds of its own destruction, and will result in very dangerous consequences.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing coverage of how the world sees U.S.

Is American optimism just foolish naivety, or does it actually have the power to change realities on the ground? According to Andreas Theyssen of the Financial Times Deutschland, the answer is pretty clear that whatever mistakes American optimism results in, the record shows that it’s nothing to sneeze at.

“God has a special providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America.”

— Condoleezza Rice, quoting former German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck

Translated by James Jacobson, by Andreas Theyssen, January 23, 2007
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)

DAVOS: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice startled at the World Economic Forum in Davos with a special rquest - a plea for more optimism.

What does Americans do if they want to avoid being considered naive? They say that Americans are glad to be thought naive. And if an American says the words “Old Europe,” he strives to deliver a quote from Bismarck just to back up this point.

[In her speech, Rice quoted Bismarck as saying, “God has a special providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America.” WATCH ]
Read the rest of this entry »

[This is a rerun of a post I wrote for my personal blog a few weeks ago.]

Not long ago, I listened to some of Talk of the Nation’s interview with Chris Matthews. Matthews told two interesting and evocative stories from his days as an aide to Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. Both involved O’Neill and Republican President Ronald Reagan, two men with markedly different political philosophies and differing visions for the country.

The first of Matthews’ stories took place in Reagan’s hospital room in March, 1981, shortly after the President had been shot. On entering, O’Neill leaned over Reagan’s bed and kissed him. Then, holding hands, with O’Neill on his knees, they recited Psalm 23 together: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me…”

The second is a personal memory of Matthews from those days. Reagan entered the anteroom of the Speaker’s office, a place occupied by Matthews himself, just before the President was to deliver a State of the Union message. “Mr. President,” Matthews said, “this is the room where we plot against you.” “Oh, no,” Reagan replied impishly, “the Speaker says that we’re friends after 6:00.”

I wonder how some of today’s Red or Blue ideologues would react to such bonhommie between two political rivals, one an unabashedly liberal Democrat, the other considered to be the godfather of today’s conservative Republicans?

How would they feel about the fact that after hard-fought battles, the Republican President and the Democratic Speaker could have a belt together?

And how would it strike them that, even these people indisputably committed to their own parties and philosophies, found ways to compromise and make government work?

How, in short, do the ideologues of the Left and of the Right react to civility, even friendliness, among rival politicians?

When I read the blogs or listen to the comments of today’s fierce ideologues, I think that they look askance at any camaraderie or compromise in politics. They’d rather win an argument, at least in their own eyes, than advance the interests of the country at large. (Or even their own causes, if incrementally and incompletely.) And they have no patience for the simple practical fact that politics, like much of life, is about people working together with people, sometimes people who have deep disagreements.

A recent issue of The Week reports on an interview that Playboy conducted with actor, director, and one-time political activist Robert Redford. He was apparently asked why he’s given up on political involvement. He spoke of being at a Washington, D.C. fete on the night he received a Kennedy Center honor two years ago. Remembers Redford:

Here were sworn enemies, the leaders who beat the ____ out of each other all day in public, but the minute those doors closed for the state dinner, the daggers went away and it was one big happy family. I saw former Republican Sen. Bill Frist weaving through the tables, and he came over to Ted Kennedy and start [sic] massaging his shoulders and laughing like they were the oldest buddies in the world. Everybody was crossing the aisles and chuckling, and I said, “Oh, I get it! It really is just a game.”

Redford is one of my favorite actors. He hasn’t, in my view, always gotten a fair shake for his talents, with critics often overlooking the subtlety of his performances. I also admire him as a director.

And there is reason to doubt the genuineness of what political figures claim they believe when the cameras are turned on. I think of the virulently anti-gay Senator Larry Craig found soliciting a homosexual tryst in an airport restroom. Much of our politics is a game, a kabuki dance of parroted talking points in which the parrots don’t really believe.

But, these political figures aren’t meant to be and shouldn’t be, in Redford’s phrase, “sworn enemies.” Not to be pedantic about it, but members of Congress, for example, take a different oath:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

Members of Congress and other public officials are sworn to do what’s best for the country. It’s disappointing how infrequently they do that, to be sure.

But surely the solution to that problem isn’t for members of competing political parties to wall themselves off from one another, sworn enemies. According to most people who’ve spent decades in Washington, there’s been too much of that partisan walling-off in recent years anyway.

Okay, you think, it’s only Robert Redford’s opinion that pols of different persuasions shouldn’t be friendly to one another. Not everybody feels that way, right? Wrong.

Recently, I noted that uber-blogger Arianna Huffington proudly publicized her interview with current Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Huffington didn’t tout Pelosi’s words, but her own confrontational question of the Speaker, “Are you too well-behaved to get us out of Iraq?”

Of course, the answer to anybody familiar with the Constitution, is that, frustrating as it may be for many in the country, Pelosi’s inability to shut down the war has nothing to do with her being polite. It has everything to do with the fact that neither she or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have majorities able to override vetoes President Bush would smack against any measures the Congress passed for ending the war.

But to ideologues of the Right and the Left, it seems, the niceties of the Constitution are only to be heeded when doing so advances their preferred political decisions.

The Framers knew that the only alternative to adherence to such “niceties” was tyranny and mob rule.1

I like civility in politics. In fact, I think that such politeness is essential to getting things done, not to mention being one of the characteristics that separate human beings from the rest of the creatures of the world. (I believe that courtesy is something to which God calls us, as an expression of love for others.)

I also admire the Constitution.

There are frustrations that go with democratic-republican government. But lose civility or lose the Constitution and we lose America.

Reagan and O’Neill knew that. I wish that today’s firebrand partisans knew it too.

It should be pointed out that Thomas Jefferson, father of nasty partisanship in US politics, wasn’t among the Framers at the Constitutional Convention. In fact, he initially opposed the Constitution, disliking power going to a central government and looking askance at the establishment of an executive, the President. But, ideologue and hypocrite as he always was, when Jefferson became President, he claimed authority never granted to the chief executive by the Constitution and openly told his friends that sometimes, a leader had to break the rules in order to get things done. Jefferson would be supportive of today’s virulent ideologues, be they conservative or liberal. But I think that George Washington is a far better model for us today than Jefferson. Washington adhered to strong principles and he set this country on a positive course from which we benefit today. But, in spite of a fierce temper, he was civil.

[The picture above, showing House Speaker Tip O’Neill and President Ronald Reagan, comes from The New York Times.]

(Sign of the Apolcalypse #52 at The Reaction.)

We all have our fantasies, even our fantasy worlds, worlds that allow us to be true to ourselves, for good or bad, or neither. Put another way, we all have dreams, dreams about ourselves, ideal images of ourselves, self-constructs. Society requires one to be many things, to wear many masks, to play many roles, some fulfilling, some not, or not so much, but even the happiest person, even the most self-aware, finding happiness in genuine self-awareness, in knowing oneself, cannot but fall short of the ideal. (Even Socrates must have had his doubts and disappointments, and, yes, his fantasies.) And this is especially true, I think, in our age of the deification of the self, an age in which the self is celebrated, in which freedom reigns, in which individuals, in our more progressive societies, are able to “find” themselves in so many different ways, an age in which choice is supreme, an age in which choices can be made, and are made, for the greater glorification of the self.

Okay, enough of that.

My point is that freedom and choice do not necessarily make for happiness, and many people today are living lives that seem, in one way or another, meaningless, which is to say, devoid of meaning, even pointless. You get up, you commute, you sit in a cubicle, your boss yells at you, you play office politics, you count the seconds, you drink, you narcotize yourself. You’re stuck in a crappy job, a dead-end career, a broken family. You’re in debt, massive debt, and you worry about retirement, if you sober up enough to think about anything at all.

Yup, it’s pretty bleak out there, and wherever you are right now.

Quite probably, it’s pretty bleak in your soul, too.

So go ahead and fantasize. Go find yourself.

Just don’t hurt anyone.

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Which brings me to this: LARPing.

Do you know what that stands for? I didn’t, and I’d never even heard about it before I read this review of a documentary on LARPing by Grady Hendrix at Slate.

So what does it stand for? Well, here you go:

Darkon is a LARP (live-action role-playing game) where normal people dress up in homemade armor and pretend to be inhabitants of a fantasy realm. They fight battles in parks and on soccer fields over pretend land in a pretend country that has its own pretend religions and pretend economy. It’s meatspace Dungeons & Dragons, with people brandishing swords wrapped in foam and slamming each other around with padded shields. Founded in 1985, Darkon is one of America’s oldest and largest LARPs, and the showdown between two kingdoms within it, Mordom and Laconia, was captured in the documentary Darkon, a movie so mighty it needed two directors (Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer). The film… joins the ranks of movies like Hoop Dreams and Murderball as one of the great documentary dissections of how Americans play.

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