I'm Sorry E...

I can't not write this blog today.

The Olympics, which I love... always... and which I think are, and should be, mostly apolitical are ending tonight in Beijing.

Because yesterday I was accidentally (in that internet sorta way) directed toward a new site with very interesting and informed connections, I have been fully confronted with a reality I was very aware of, a reality I was having a problem with, and a reality that disturbs me on many many levels.

19 years ago this summer I stood in the living room of my home in Sonoma, watching a black blank TV tuned to CNN as reporters screamed news about an unbelievable event happening at that very moment. I was stunned. My mouth open, my mind astonished. There was a real revolution happening right before our ears and the juxtaposition of voyeurism and compassion was nearly impossible to stand.

These moments were then followed by one of the most astonishing images to ever cross a media screen. The single image of one man, staring down a line of tanks.


Since that time there have been many changes in China... changes theoretically for the good, and changes theoretically for the better.

One of the main changes is that in the 19 years since Tiananmen Square the Chinese government has come to own a massive percentage of our Dubya created debt. They also are creating an ubelievable market economy that, as usual, ignores, and even exploits, the reality of the lower classes in the rural areas.

There is of course the question of the issues with Tibet and ongoing human rights violations

But the most compelling question with regard to China still comes back to those days 19 years ago when first students, and then the general population stood up to say STOP. There is an amazing documentary on the event and on the inspiration of "Tank Man" which takes 90 minutes to watch, but is completely available on You Tube. Most importantly, this documentary looks at how the west has chosen to accommodate the Chinese government and it's abuses for the simple fact that there is profit... LOTS of profit... to be made there.

At the same time that we as a government, and individuals, sell ourselves out hook, line and sinker to the authoritarian government of China, we are closing in on 50 years of embargo against a little tiny island 90 miles from our shores. Because both sides of our government cowtow to the Gusanos in Miami, in search of the ever present dollar and the ever elusive chad, our government permanently (at least in my life time) exists within a reality between selling out to a set of big time "communists" on one continent and big time greed heads on our own, while pretending that "Amerkkka" stands for freedom.

I'm 54 years old tomorrow, and I don't think I can remember when we have ever REALLY stood for freedom, despite our rhetoric and despite what I want to believe. I am pretty sure, on this evening before my anniversaire, that I don't want to live life in any way that ignores any longer the basics of what really matters. But I've struggled with that reality for my whole life (literally my WHOLE life) and I still don't have a decent answer regarding how to both exist in a life that is lovely to live, AND a life that matters.

Somewhere about 22 years ago (more or less) I was visiting new friends in LA, when one of those new friends made a comment that transformed my life. Sitting around the middle of his living room, drinking wine and pontificating about what mattered in the world, a whole collection of us waxed eloquent about the way things ought to be in the age of Reagan. At that time, I had just come back from the first Witness for Peace trip to Nicaragua, and my business partner and I were developing a gospel album that chose to truly take on the ongoing story of American militarism that included, Iran, Iraq, Guatemala, Nicaragua and more (the fact that one of the songs being worked on at that very moment could have been written yesterday is for another blog at another time). My friend stopped the conversation (and stopped my heart, my brain and forever my ongoing sense of what matters) with the comment, "Plato said that three things matter; Justice, Truth, and Beauty, and I'm ready for a little beauty." We were very big on justice and truth in those days, and I thought his advocacy of beauty was vitally important.

Right now, at nearly twice the age I was when we had that conversation, I am once again looking for truth and justice, but with the added hope that maybe we could include beauty as well. I've never been able to really pull this off, and I am forever, and rather unsuccessfully, searching for it.

But these days... I seem to have a bit more hope, and on this birthday eve I really am hoping that we might get there this time.It is indeed MY AMERICAN PRAYER.