A watch party for the U.S. presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump takes place at American Eat Co. in Tucson, Arizona on September 10, 2024.
Can We Disarm Our Binary Politics and Look for Shared Solutions?
How do we transcend our collective awareness beyond the artificial borders we’ve created?
If you want to play the game of politics, here’s step one: Reduce everything to a linear political viewpoint: “right” or “left.” No matter how deep and large and complex that viewpoint is, politicize it, turn it into something that’s either right or wrong. It’s all about winning or losing.
Did U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris lean too far left? Oh gosh. Neither Liz Cheney nor Taylor Swift could save her.
I’m still immersed in my own recovery process—recovery from the election, of course. And yes, I’m feeling pain because “my side” lost, but my emotions are complicated by the fact that I didn’t really have a side in the election. It wasn’t simply that I was frustrated with the campaigns and claims of both major parties (the only ones that mattered, right?). I’ve apparently reached a point in my life where the entire political game feels problematic; it minimizes our world in a way I can no longer tolerate.
I feel the need to embrace and transcend this paradox: the reduction of our deepest values to a “cause,” which then frees us from actually having to honor those values and reduces the process to winning vs. losing.
How do we transcend our collective awareness beyond the artificial borders we’ve created? I ask this question not from some higher state of awareness, but from the middle of it all. How do we reach a collective state that isn’t competitive? How do we actually live our values rather than simply attempt to impose them—and in the process of doing so, oh so often, completely disregard and violate those values?
Suddenly I’m thinking about the good old Crusades, summarized thus by History.com: “The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims started primarily to secure control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups. In all, eight major Crusade expeditions—varying in size, strength, and degree of success—occurred between 1096 and 1291. The costly, violent, and often ruthless conflicts enhanced the status of European Christians, making them major players in the fight for land in the Middle East.”
Now it’s all just history, which is the story we tell about ourselves from one war to the next. But, come on: “violent and often ruthless” battles to reclaim, good God, holy sites? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Actually, that biblical quote sums up the cost of war pretty precisely. But the paradox sits there like an open wound. Love thy neighbor, love thy enemy—but first you’re going to have to kill him. And his children. Charge!
I’m not saying all this simply to point a moral finger at the political leaders of the world. Rather, I feel the need to embrace and transcend this paradox: the reduction of our deepest values to a “cause,” which then frees us from actually having to honor those values and reduces the process to winning vs. losing. Apparently, we can’t have a cause without an enemy, or at least an inconvenience (Palestinians, for example), which... uh, needs to be eliminated.
It always seems to come down to this: some glaring irritation that stands in the way of the good we want to do. And yes, there are many pushbacks against this mindset—many people who, in defiance of the cynics, believe in, practice and, indeed, create loving and courageous approaches to conflict resolution. But such approaches cannot be reduced to simple stories of good vs. evil, and thus lack large social resonance.
So here I am, dealing with my own frustrations in the present moment—the ongoing genocide in Palestine that the U.S. funds, the possibility of President-elect Donald Trump’s increased militarization of our southern border, the ever-intensifying climate crisis, the ongoing possibility of nuclear war... and oh my God, it gets ever more insane. For that reason, I bring back a story I wrote about a decade ago, which remains close to my heart. It’s a small story: a single incident in the midst of the brutal civil war going on in South Sudan.
It involves the international peacekeeping NGO, Nonviolent Peaceforce, which had several of its members in the country to help facilitate communication between the various sides in the conflict. They were unarmed, of course, which gave them credibility and trust among the warring sides. As I wrote at the time:
Being unarmed doesn’t mean being disempowered. This is worth paying attention to. In South Sudan, unarmed, international peacekeepers have credibility. They stand above the local conflict, facilitating communication between the various sides but not taking sides themselves.
What happened was that armed men attacked a United Nations base on the perimeter of the city of Bor, where thousands of civilians had sought refuge. Two Nonviolence Peaceforce representatives found themselves in the middle of the chaos and took refuge inside a mud hut, which was occupied as well by four women and nine children. On three separate occasions, I noted, armed men came and ordered the peacekeepers out so they could kill the women and kids. The peacekeepers refused, holding up their Nonviolent Peaceforce IDs and saying they were unarmed. They were there to protect civilians and would not leave. After the third time, the armed men left for good.
Some 60 people were killed in the assault, but 13 precious lives were saved. As one of the peacekeepers said afterward: “I think if we had a gun we would have been shot immediately.”
The peacekeepers had had intense training in nonviolence and were able to keep their cool. They didn’t panic.
And, crucially, Nonviolent Peaceforce had credibility in South Sudan. They stood beyond the conflict. “We also had a humanitarian mandate,” one of the peacekeepers said. Being unarmed “opens the doors to look for solutions. If we were armed peacekeepers, the solution is you shoot back. Because we were unarmed, we could find other ways.”
This story transcends the moment of its occurrence. I wish I could multiply it by a million. All I can do is repeat: Being unarmed opens the door to look for solutions.
We are at a crossroads
This country and this world are at a monumental crossroads. In a few short weeks, US voters will have an opportunity to beat back the forces of fascism and confront the billionaires who are rigging the economy, our media system, and our democracy, making it increasingly impossible for ordinary people to get by. We’re not just talking about the election. We’re talking about what must be done once these fascist elements are vanquished from power. We need a bolder set of solutions than what either major party has so far been willing to offer and a working-class movement ready to fight like hell for it. Trump didn't emerge from nowhere. The conditions that fueled MAGA authoritarianism were created by decades of radical neoliberal economic policies and a corrupt political system dominated by corporate interests. They slashed taxes on the super-rich, promising that the benefits would trickle down. They said giveaways to the corporate titans would make life more affordable for the rest of us. It was all bullshit. And when a bitter, betrayed populace searches for someone to blame, right-wing demagogues have little trouble finding scapegoats. People know when they're being lied to, but you won't hear any of this from the corporate media. Only independent journalism—powered and funded by people who believe in building a better world—can deliver truly trustworthy daily news. Our Fall Campaign is underway, and we need your help. To power our newsroom through the rest of the year, we need to raise $125,000 by midnight on October 31. So if you share our vision, please contribute whatever you can to sustain our work. |
If you want to play the game of politics, here’s step one: Reduce everything to a linear political viewpoint: “right” or “left.” No matter how deep and large and complex that viewpoint is, politicize it, turn it into something that’s either right or wrong. It’s all about winning or losing.
Did U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris lean too far left? Oh gosh. Neither Liz Cheney nor Taylor Swift could save her.
I’m still immersed in my own recovery process—recovery from the election, of course. And yes, I’m feeling pain because “my side” lost, but my emotions are complicated by the fact that I didn’t really have a side in the election. It wasn’t simply that I was frustrated with the campaigns and claims of both major parties (the only ones that mattered, right?). I’ve apparently reached a point in my life where the entire political game feels problematic; it minimizes our world in a way I can no longer tolerate.
I feel the need to embrace and transcend this paradox: the reduction of our deepest values to a “cause,” which then frees us from actually having to honor those values and reduces the process to winning vs. losing.
How do we transcend our collective awareness beyond the artificial borders we’ve created? I ask this question not from some higher state of awareness, but from the middle of it all. How do we reach a collective state that isn’t competitive? How do we actually live our values rather than simply attempt to impose them—and in the process of doing so, oh so often, completely disregard and violate those values?
Suddenly I’m thinking about the good old Crusades, summarized thus by History.com: “The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims started primarily to secure control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups. In all, eight major Crusade expeditions—varying in size, strength, and degree of success—occurred between 1096 and 1291. The costly, violent, and often ruthless conflicts enhanced the status of European Christians, making them major players in the fight for land in the Middle East.”
Now it’s all just history, which is the story we tell about ourselves from one war to the next. But, come on: “violent and often ruthless” battles to reclaim, good God, holy sites? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Actually, that biblical quote sums up the cost of war pretty precisely. But the paradox sits there like an open wound. Love thy neighbor, love thy enemy—but first you’re going to have to kill him. And his children. Charge!
I’m not saying all this simply to point a moral finger at the political leaders of the world. Rather, I feel the need to embrace and transcend this paradox: the reduction of our deepest values to a “cause,” which then frees us from actually having to honor those values and reduces the process to winning vs. losing. Apparently, we can’t have a cause without an enemy, or at least an inconvenience (Palestinians, for example), which... uh, needs to be eliminated.
It always seems to come down to this: some glaring irritation that stands in the way of the good we want to do. And yes, there are many pushbacks against this mindset—many people who, in defiance of the cynics, believe in, practice and, indeed, create loving and courageous approaches to conflict resolution. But such approaches cannot be reduced to simple stories of good vs. evil, and thus lack large social resonance.
So here I am, dealing with my own frustrations in the present moment—the ongoing genocide in Palestine that the U.S. funds, the possibility of President-elect Donald Trump’s increased militarization of our southern border, the ever-intensifying climate crisis, the ongoing possibility of nuclear war... and oh my God, it gets ever more insane. For that reason, I bring back a story I wrote about a decade ago, which remains close to my heart. It’s a small story: a single incident in the midst of the brutal civil war going on in South Sudan.
It involves the international peacekeeping NGO, Nonviolent Peaceforce, which had several of its members in the country to help facilitate communication between the various sides in the conflict. They were unarmed, of course, which gave them credibility and trust among the warring sides. As I wrote at the time:
Being unarmed doesn’t mean being disempowered. This is worth paying attention to. In South Sudan, unarmed, international peacekeepers have credibility. They stand above the local conflict, facilitating communication between the various sides but not taking sides themselves.
What happened was that armed men attacked a United Nations base on the perimeter of the city of Bor, where thousands of civilians had sought refuge. Two Nonviolence Peaceforce representatives found themselves in the middle of the chaos and took refuge inside a mud hut, which was occupied as well by four women and nine children. On three separate occasions, I noted, armed men came and ordered the peacekeepers out so they could kill the women and kids. The peacekeepers refused, holding up their Nonviolent Peaceforce IDs and saying they were unarmed. They were there to protect civilians and would not leave. After the third time, the armed men left for good.
Some 60 people were killed in the assault, but 13 precious lives were saved. As one of the peacekeepers said afterward: “I think if we had a gun we would have been shot immediately.”
The peacekeepers had had intense training in nonviolence and were able to keep their cool. They didn’t panic.
And, crucially, Nonviolent Peaceforce had credibility in South Sudan. They stood beyond the conflict. “We also had a humanitarian mandate,” one of the peacekeepers said. Being unarmed “opens the doors to look for solutions. If we were armed peacekeepers, the solution is you shoot back. Because we were unarmed, we could find other ways.”
This story transcends the moment of its occurrence. I wish I could multiply it by a million. All I can do is repeat: Being unarmed opens the door to look for solutions.
If you want to play the game of politics, here’s step one: Reduce everything to a linear political viewpoint: “right” or “left.” No matter how deep and large and complex that viewpoint is, politicize it, turn it into something that’s either right or wrong. It’s all about winning or losing.
Did U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris lean too far left? Oh gosh. Neither Liz Cheney nor Taylor Swift could save her.
I’m still immersed in my own recovery process—recovery from the election, of course. And yes, I’m feeling pain because “my side” lost, but my emotions are complicated by the fact that I didn’t really have a side in the election. It wasn’t simply that I was frustrated with the campaigns and claims of both major parties (the only ones that mattered, right?). I’ve apparently reached a point in my life where the entire political game feels problematic; it minimizes our world in a way I can no longer tolerate.
I feel the need to embrace and transcend this paradox: the reduction of our deepest values to a “cause,” which then frees us from actually having to honor those values and reduces the process to winning vs. losing.
How do we transcend our collective awareness beyond the artificial borders we’ve created? I ask this question not from some higher state of awareness, but from the middle of it all. How do we reach a collective state that isn’t competitive? How do we actually live our values rather than simply attempt to impose them—and in the process of doing so, oh so often, completely disregard and violate those values?
Suddenly I’m thinking about the good old Crusades, summarized thus by History.com: “The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims started primarily to secure control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups. In all, eight major Crusade expeditions—varying in size, strength, and degree of success—occurred between 1096 and 1291. The costly, violent, and often ruthless conflicts enhanced the status of European Christians, making them major players in the fight for land in the Middle East.”
Now it’s all just history, which is the story we tell about ourselves from one war to the next. But, come on: “violent and often ruthless” battles to reclaim, good God, holy sites? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Actually, that biblical quote sums up the cost of war pretty precisely. But the paradox sits there like an open wound. Love thy neighbor, love thy enemy—but first you’re going to have to kill him. And his children. Charge!
I’m not saying all this simply to point a moral finger at the political leaders of the world. Rather, I feel the need to embrace and transcend this paradox: the reduction of our deepest values to a “cause,” which then frees us from actually having to honor those values and reduces the process to winning vs. losing. Apparently, we can’t have a cause without an enemy, or at least an inconvenience (Palestinians, for example), which... uh, needs to be eliminated.
It always seems to come down to this: some glaring irritation that stands in the way of the good we want to do. And yes, there are many pushbacks against this mindset—many people who, in defiance of the cynics, believe in, practice and, indeed, create loving and courageous approaches to conflict resolution. But such approaches cannot be reduced to simple stories of good vs. evil, and thus lack large social resonance.
So here I am, dealing with my own frustrations in the present moment—the ongoing genocide in Palestine that the U.S. funds, the possibility of President-elect Donald Trump’s increased militarization of our southern border, the ever-intensifying climate crisis, the ongoing possibility of nuclear war... and oh my God, it gets ever more insane. For that reason, I bring back a story I wrote about a decade ago, which remains close to my heart. It’s a small story: a single incident in the midst of the brutal civil war going on in South Sudan.
It involves the international peacekeeping NGO, Nonviolent Peaceforce, which had several of its members in the country to help facilitate communication between the various sides in the conflict. They were unarmed, of course, which gave them credibility and trust among the warring sides. As I wrote at the time:
Being unarmed doesn’t mean being disempowered. This is worth paying attention to. In South Sudan, unarmed, international peacekeepers have credibility. They stand above the local conflict, facilitating communication between the various sides but not taking sides themselves.
What happened was that armed men attacked a United Nations base on the perimeter of the city of Bor, where thousands of civilians had sought refuge. Two Nonviolence Peaceforce representatives found themselves in the middle of the chaos and took refuge inside a mud hut, which was occupied as well by four women and nine children. On three separate occasions, I noted, armed men came and ordered the peacekeepers out so they could kill the women and kids. The peacekeepers refused, holding up their Nonviolent Peaceforce IDs and saying they were unarmed. They were there to protect civilians and would not leave. After the third time, the armed men left for good.
Some 60 people were killed in the assault, but 13 precious lives were saved. As one of the peacekeepers said afterward: “I think if we had a gun we would have been shot immediately.”
The peacekeepers had had intense training in nonviolence and were able to keep their cool. They didn’t panic.
And, crucially, Nonviolent Peaceforce had credibility in South Sudan. They stood beyond the conflict. “We also had a humanitarian mandate,” one of the peacekeepers said. Being unarmed “opens the doors to look for solutions. If we were armed peacekeepers, the solution is you shoot back. Because we were unarmed, we could find other ways.”
This story transcends the moment of its occurrence. I wish I could multiply it by a million. All I can do is repeat: Being unarmed opens the door to look for solutions.