Democratic Depression

What a week in politics. First there was the upset victory of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race, ending the Democrat's ability to avoid a filibuster, meaning the Republicans can now stop any health care reform dead in its tracks. And it seems like they are determined to do this, regardless of the consequences for the country, because it makes the Democrats look bad.

Then, just after Obama announced he was getting tough on the banking industry, and wanted to limit how big they could get to avoid future economic disasters and bailouts, there was the outrageous decision of the US Supreme Court to withdraw any limit to corporate funding of election campaigns. That's right. Unlimited. Meaning, unless the Democrats find some way to stop this, through corporate law, our democracy is pretty much dead. Meaning, in the 2010 elections, you can expect the Republicans to sweep up a lot of House and Senate seats and gain a majority. Meaning we can forget about health care reform, economic recovery, or a second term for Obama. Meaning our new de facto government, will, quite literally, become a cartel of the likes of Exxon, ConAgra, and Blackwater.

The Democrats can't seem to manage to accomplish anything even when they have a clear majority. How is it that Bush and Cheney did whatever they liked even when they didn't have a majority in the House and Senate? The whole idea of bi-partisanship doesn't work. The Republicans don't want to cooperate. There is no health care plan that everyone can agree on. The Republicans just want to cause the Democrats to fail at anything they try to achieve, and they want power back as soon as possible so they can continue their agenda of dismantling what's left of democracy and solidify a shadow corporate regime.

Yes it's depressing. I feel even more full of despair than I did during the Bush years. That's because Obama got my hopes up. I tried to resist, as I explained in a post around that time. Like so many Democrats, disillusioned by a disastrous two terms of Republican rule, and waking up to the deregulatory betrayals of the Clinton era, I didn't jump on the bandwagon of hope without reluctance. But he was so charming! Barack Obama managed to revive the idealistic strain in Democrats around the country. We had to stop being cynical and band together, and believe! I did. Now, a year later, it feels like all may be lost.

This is a critical moment in the fate of the United States. If the Democrats don't stop trying to please everybody, and stop trying to compromise with a completely uncompromising GOP, they will lose the mandate that they were given by the American people just one short year ago. They need to stop worrying about alienating conservative voters because of ideological differences and just do something. Results will get votes. Prove to them that left-leaning policies will work. Now's your chance! If the country swings back into the control of the Republicans, the damage may be irrevocable. How much worse can the economy get? How long can we last with our failing infrastructure? How much more can corporate power increase its stranglehold on the rights of Americans to pursue life, liberty, and happiness?

This is scary stuff. It's terrifying and it's depressing. But depression is not going to help us. Democrats need to be as angry, as full of unmovable conviction, and as uncompromising as Republicans are in our vision of where this country needs to go. This is a war we cannot afford to lose. For the love of democracy, Obama, now is the time to martial the party and lead us into battle. That is why we elected you.

acting with no expectations

Living in Turkey is proving to be an extended lesson in Taoist wisdom. Tao, which to me is a slightly warmer version of Zen, advises above all acceptance, flexibility, and a union with the way things are, rather than trying to force them into what we would like them to be.

This is not my natural way of being but I’ve been practicing for a few years. Before I became a Taoist, however, I am and have always been a person of lists. I like to start a job and complete it, and cross it off. It makes me feel industrious and efficient. But Turkey makes a mockery of my routine. The process of crossing an item off the list has become akin to waiting for an unbearably slow internet connection to stream media content. You watch the bar. You press play. You press pause. You watch the bar. You read "buffering" over and over. You press play and get some incoherent garble. You press pause. You wait.

See, getting something done here doesn't begin with the direct statement of intent of whatever you would like to achieve. It starts with formulas of greeting and welcome, and generally moves on to a glass of tea. The overall atmosphere is not “Let’s get things done” but “Let’s talk about this for a long while, come to no fixed conclusion, and maybe we can talk again some other time.”

I have been trying to book flights for a weekend trip to Istanbul all week. I go to the company's web site and it won't accept my credit card. I know my card is ok, I've used it before with the same company for an online purchase, but for some reason, it just won't work. I mentioned this to a colleague, who advised me that sometimes it doesn’t work, and I should just keep trying. So I did, but to no avail.

I decided to call the airline, which says it's open 24/7, on the English section of its website. I called and was welcomed by a recording, and prompted "For English, press 9." I pressed 9, got a 15 second dose of muzak, was told (in Turkish) to wait, and then looped back to the beginning. I was welcomed, told "for English, press 9," treated to another snippet of a different dead-tune, told to wait, and back to the start again. I tried a variety of responses, ie. pushing different buttons, not pushing any buttons, to escape this mini-samsara, but to no avail.

The next day at work I asked my colleague to call for me. She got through to a real person, explained the situation, and made a reservation for me. The next step, I was told, was to go to a local agent for the airline in order to pay for and collect my ticket. Using your credit or debit card outside of a large company’s internet payment facility requires the physical manifestation of you and the card. Alternatively, under duress, (which I have applied in previous similar situations) they might ask you to fax a copy of your card (which is always illegible), or email a scanned copy of your credit card (great idea!).

So, it happens that last evening I went to see a performance by a Georgian theatre group. The play, which was a quite abstract treatment of “conflict,” and which didn’t seem to impress the audience much, probably due to some very ambiguous scenes of women with headscarves covering their entire heads and faces, ended at about 9.30pm. I mentioned to my friend that I needed to go to a travel agent sometime. Oh, she said, there’s one nearby, let’s go! At 9.30 on a Friday night? you ask. But, yes, the office was open for business. There are no set office hours around here. Shops open and close when they feel like it. If you’re wondering if a certain shop is open, go and check. At last, I thought, the cultural differences are working in my favour!

But it was not to be. After a lot of discussion and explanation, the agent managed to book a reservation for me. I presented my card, but the airline still for some reason would not accept payment. I offered to pay in cash. The agent tried to use the company credit card to book the ticket online, but his card didn’t work either. We all had a good chat about how there must be a problem, we can’t understand it, what bad luck, God knows why this is happening. And I was invited to come back to the office tomorrow to try again. I went home and called my bank, who confirmed that there’s no problem with my card or account, and no record of me trying to use my card.

Incidentally, while I was on hold with my bank, I was waiting for over five minutes, reading an article on the internet, and somehow ended up in a deadzone. After a lot of really great recorded advice about extra services I’m definitely going to try, there was now only silence. Had I been disconnected? I wondered. I tentatively pressed a button. “Recording stopped!” I was told. “To log into your voicemail, press 82.” I don’t know where I was, but I didn’t feel I belonged there. I felt that, like the characters in Being John Malkovich, I had somehow entered some secret zone in the back alleys of corporate infrastructure. So I hung up.

Anyway, I guess I’ll go back to the travel agent later, maybe have a glass of tea, and if the flight to Istanbul comes to me, I will accept it. If not, I will release it. My heart is open as the sky.