“Only a year ago,” writes David R. Loy, “Barack Obama looked almost like the political equivalent of Maitreya, the Buddha-to-come. The election of a progressive African-American President seemed little short of miraculous.”
On December 1 Barack Obama announced that he was expanding the war in Afghanistan by sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, bringing up U.S. troop levels to more than 100,000. He softened this with an overly-optimistic exit strategy (“troops will begin leaving within 18 months”) that his aides – including his Secretary of War, Robert Gates — quickly played down. Suddenly we’re deeper into yet another military quagmire, occupying and “pacifying” yet another country whose people do not want us – who have already successfully defended themselves against the British empire and the Soviet empire. But they didn’t have Predator drones and Hellfire missiles.
With this decision Obama, who collects his Nobel Peace Prize later this month, has become a war president. …What went wrong?
I watched Obama’s speech at West Point. As usual, it was well-written, although I find Obama’s oratory less impressive than many others do. His rationale for expanding the Afghan war had some plausibility – if you haven’t been following the news from there. But I got the feeling that Obama was boxed into this decision. To withdraw from Afghanistan would allow him to be called “the president who cut and ran,” and no one likes the label “loser.” Can you imagine what the Republican spin-machine would do with that? But what we most need today is a president with courage, who acknowledges what a disaster the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been and who doesn’t place top priority on the political games he must play to get re-elected in 2012. It looks like Obama won’t be such a president.
Watching Gates on TV as he listened to Obama’s speech, I was reminded that Obama did not choose a new Secretary of War: he re-appointed Bush’s Robert Gates, a hawkish former head of the CIA deeply implicated in the Iran-Contra affair. Wasn’t that a sign of something?
Only a year ago, during the last days of Bush’s administration, Barack Obama looked almost like the political equivalent of Maitreya, the Buddha-to-come. The election of a progressive African-American President seemed little short of miraculous … were we about to enter the Pure Land?
Obama ran a brilliant campaign, long on rhetorical generalities, short on specific details. The key word was “hope,” and hope was something many were thirsty for, after what they saw as the ignorant, incompetent and corrupt administration of George W. Bush. But the slogan was left vague, with little content – the better for each of us to project onto it whatever we felt was needed. In any case, we knew – or believed – that Obama’s heart was in the right place.
Doubts began as he announced his appointments: some very good ones, but the most important ones quite disappointing. Obama’s chief of staff, his first major appointment, was Rahm Emanuel, “the Karl Rove of the Democratic party,” who supported the occupation of Iraq and worked to help elect other hawkish, pro-war democrats. He must be a hard worker: in between political appointments he earned $16.2 million over two and a half years as a banker.
In response to the world’s greatest financial crisis since the 1930s, Obama could have turned to distinguished economists (and Nobel laureates) such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, who have written insightful critiques of our exploitative and destructive economic system. Instead, Obama appointed Lawrence Summers (head of the National Economic Council), Timothy Geithner (Secretary of the Treasury), and re-appointed Ben Bernanke (chairman of the Federal Reserve) – all three of them proponents of the financial system that collapsed last year and deeply implicated in its banking scandals. Having placed these foxes in charge of the chicken coop, it was no surprise that Obama continued Bush’s bail-out of rich bankers at enormous taxpayer expense. (I remember reading a few months ago the comment of a disillusioned congressional aide on the influence in Washington of the big banks and investment firms: “The bankers own this place.”)
Today unemployment remains extraordinarily high and the big gap between rich and poor is still getting bigger, but we are told that the economy must be recovering, because the stock market is going up again. Given the incredible level of public disgust with the financial system, there was a wonderful opportunity to push for fundamental change … but that opportunity has now passed, and the bankers have started to award themselves the same obscene bonuses they were rewarding themselves before the whole system began to collapse.
Obama vowed to address our dysfunctional health care system, and the basic problem is quite simple: the wealthy and powerful people who dominate this country do not want a comprehensive health care system, they want a profitable health care industry. The solution is also quite simple: a single-payer system along the lines of the UK, Canada, France and almost every other developed nation, which would be relatively easy to implement by extending Medicare. But the health insurance industry has many hundreds of well-paid lobbyists in Washington to promote its interests, and it now appears that, rather than solve the problem, the new system that Congress is about to set up will be even more lucrative for the insurers, since everyone will be required to have health insurance. “The [healthcare] industry and interest groups have spent $380 million in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress” (The Guardian, October 1, 2009).
I could go on to mention Bush’s unconstitutional attack on civil liberties, which the Obama administration has continued, and Obama’s disappointing approach to climate change negotiations, but enough is enough. Regardless of what Obama may or may not believe personally, in practice he is far from the progressive we need today. We live in a time of great crisis — social, economic, ecological — and a good part of the problem is a badly broken political system. Today there is no longer any significant difference between the wealthy people who control the economy and the powerful people who dominate the political system. As a result, we continue to be victimized by an economic system that requires never-ending growth, trashes the earth, and makes the very rich even richer, while more and more of the rest of us struggle to get by. As Dan Hamburg concluded from his years in the U.S. Congress: “The real government of our country is economic, dominated by large corporations that charter the state to do their bidding. Fostering a secure environment in which corporations and their investors can flourish is the paramount objective of both [political] parties.” Every few years our votes are needed to legitimize the political system, and those votes are bought with incredibly sophisticated (and expensive) public relations and advertising campaigns. Except for that occasional ritual, it is delusive to think that we have government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Elsewhere I’ve argued that today the Buddhist “three poisons” of greed, ill will and delusion have become institutionalized: our economic system (corporate consumer capitalism) institutionalizes greed, our militarism is institutionalized ill will, and our “infotainment” media institutionalize delusion.* The three support and reinforce each other, which makes it very difficult to challenge any of them, especially since the people who control this interlocking system also happen to be the ones who benefit the most from it.
In the last few years, however, public dissatisfaction has been growing rapidly: the war in Iraq is now widely viewed as a disaster based on lies, and the economic crisis has exposed the corruption built into the financial system. There is some hope of a radical reformation, and many of us believed that an Obama administration might move in that direction. Regretfully, it is time to wake up and acknowledge that Obama is not doing that, and is not likely to do anything like that.
Why not? It is not yet clear to me how much we were deluded about Obama – that is, how much we were the dupes of yet another clever campaign – and (even more disturbing) how much his own intentions are being thwarted by a dysfunctional political system that would thwart any reformer. In either case, however, the extent of the crises that confront us require something much more than any new laws that this Congress may or may not pass. We don’t need a liberal leader who may be slightly left-of-center; we need a populist, progressive challenger who is not afraid to take a chance and try something radical: to attempt breaking out of the present deadlock of two corrupt political parties and their corporate henchmen. I am not enough of a politician to offer details on how to do this, but there is enormous discontent in this country waiting for someone with the courage to articulate it and to offer leadership that points in such a new direction. It’s already happening, of course – look at the faux “Tea Party” movement inspired by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News – and we can expect more such deluded responses to develop if more enlightened alternatives are not forthcoming.
There’s no guarantee that a truly progressive movement would be successful – U.S. history is littered with failed populist parties — but, for those of us concerned about the enormous dukkha created by our corrupt political/economic system, there is really no alternative. The lesson to be learned from the Obama campaign is that it’s a big mistake to expect the political/economic system to reform itself. People must demand the changes that are needed, a demand that assumes greater awareness of what is actually happening, and greater awareness is where Buddhism comes in. Buddhism is about dispelling delusions and seeing things as they really are, which means that Buddhism may have an important role to play in the great transformations that are needed if humanity and the biosphere are to survive and thrive in the future – a future that looks pretty grim right now.
The 2008 campaign that gave us President Obama exhilarated and exhausted many people, including many Buddhists, yet it’s time to admit to ourselves that Obama is not doing what is needed, and it’s time to revive a more politically engaged Buddhism. I’m not referring to a special Buddhist movement: any role that Buddhists might play will be minor, as part of a much larger global movement for peace and justice that has many faces and involves many different perspectives. But Buddhist emphasis on the liberation of awareness suggests that Buddhism might have a distinctive role to play in identifying what the basic problems are: greed, ill will, and the delusion of a self whose well-being is separate from the well-being of others. As well as addressing those “unwholesome motivations” in our personal lives, we need to find effective ways to challenge their collective, institutionalized versions.
* See, for example, “Wego: The Social Roots of Suffering” in Mindful Politics: A Buddhist Guide to Making the World a Better Place, and “The Three Poisons, Institutionalized” in Money Sex War Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution, both published by Wisdom Publications.
I have a few thoughts. One, the disenchantment with Obama seems to me to stem from a basic failing, i.e., to see reality. Obama was, and is, a politician. I am a Buddhist and an African American. I was glad to see Obama elected, especially given the alternative, but I didn't expect him to be radically different than any other politician. Accordingly, I am able to treat his positions with, I think, more equanimity than others. Two, free markets don't work perfectly, but they seem to work better than most of the alternatives that I've seen. I would like to see health care reform, but the notion that there is a "simple solution" seems like dichotomous, binary thinking. No solution is perfect and every solution has drawbacks. Three, I've read stories of Buddhist masters having their disciples do things that would seem to violate the principles of Buddhism– like stealing– in order to further enlightenment. President Obama's predecessor began the conflict in Afghanistan. As Buddhist, I seriously question whether that military action was wise. However, this president has to try to "end" the conflict and bring stability to a country that we helped to destabilize. More troops is probably the only way to practically do that. I'm happy hear about and/or consider a better way, but a surge now to help restore order may ultimately generate "good karma." Four, as far as Obama's position on civil liberties goes, we don't know what intel Obama has seen. It is entirely possible that his position changed after seeing some of the inside data and deciding that some of the Bush era policies made sense. I have no idea what's gone on in the White House, but this article suggests that Obama continued the Bush era policies, without seemingly considering other perspectives. Five, I actually worked at one of the top lobbying firms in DC. Can lobbyists influence voting– of course. Can they determine a politicians vote: no. If I were to generalize, I would argue that the thing politicians care most about is getting re-elected. A lot of the stuff that occurs in DC is below the radar. That's what allows a politician to take a position that may not ultimately be favorable to his/her constituents. However, all that's required to change that is for the "people" to make their voices heard. So to my mind, the blame doesn't rest on the lobbyists. It rest on a citizenry that isn't engaged enough in the political process to serve as a check on its elected representatives.
I agree with Brandon, especially on the fact that Obama is after all, a politician. Most of the issues with politics in general and in Washington specifically, is that politicians live to be re-elected. I don't believe that the Founding Fathers ever intended for national politics to become a career choice, I think that they intended for someone to serve for a few years and then go back to whatever they did prior. When re-election is your overriding goal, then we all see the kinds of policies that every Administration in my lifetime has promoted. When there are limits set on how long a person can hold political office, we may see changes, but then again, I'm sure someone would figure a way around it.
So to my mind, the blame doesn't rest on the lobbyists. It rest on a citizenry that isn't engaged enough in the political process to serve as a check on its elected representatives.
Very well said, Brandon. I couldn't agree more with this statement.
I agree with most of what David says here, and I thank him for saying it so well and so strongly. Politically-engaged Buddhism will certainly help provide a remedy for the storms of manufactured outrage, aggression, and bigotry emanating from right-wing groups like FreedomWorks (fighting climate science), the Tea Parties (fighting health reform), the National Organization for Marriage (fighting same-sex marriage), and the Fox News (sic) network.
I do wonder who these "deluded" Buddhists were, who thought we were on the verge of entering the Pure Land because the US elected a black guy. Did they really exist, or has David unconsciously internalized one of the GOP's most oft-reiterated talking-points: that Obama supporters were naive, gullible zombies who "drank the Kool-Aid" and proclaimed him "The One"? Most Obama supporters I know had a pretty sober sense of his identity as a politician, but were very clear on the dangers of electing McCain and Palin. I think the GOP has done a very insidious thing by conflating the hopeful energy of youth (i.e., many of Obama's supporters) with the mature hope for a better world (i.e., many engaged Buddhists) and declaring them both foolish and deluded.
Other than being cautionary on that one point, however, I think David did a great job here.
i'm afear'd that i was one of those "deluded Buddhists." not because we we "elected a black guy" but because Obama's messages *seemed* to be most of what i'd always hoped i'd hear a president say, never before believing it was possible. i now feel he's squandered his mandate, and his choice to go deeper into the Afgyhanistan mire feels like a betrayal to me.
Obama made that choice before he was elected and was quite clear about it. This is from his big foreign policy speech on July 15, 2008:
"As President, I will pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy – one that recognizes that we have interests not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi, in Tokyo and London, in Beijing and Berlin. I will focus this strategy on five goals essential to making America safer: ending the war in Iraq responsibly; finishing the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; achieving true energy security; and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century…
Now is the time for a responsible redeployment of our combat troops that pushes Iraq's leaders toward a political solution, rebuilds our military, and refocuses on Afghanistan and our broader security interests."
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newstrateg…
I think Brandon pretty much nailed it: "Obama was, and is, a politician… I didn't expect him to be radically different than any other politician…" That's probably how most Americans saw him, and it turns out that most Americans were right. The "messianic" (or "Maitreya") status that was assigned to him by some on the fringes, and in the media, was quite puzzling. Sure, he told us everything we want to hear, but isn't that what all politicians do? Sure he came across like a Knight in Shining Armor, but his campaign cost $750 Million — for that money he should have appeared as Christ Incarnate with God and the Holy Ghost on either side!
Thankfully, most Americans have a healthy distrust of all things political, no matter how dazzling they may appear on the surface. We've been doing this democracy thing for over 200 years now, and we've long ago accepted that it's a messy business. We vote for the lesser of evils, and spend the next four years hoping that we didn't screw up. Then we do it again. It's not perfect, but it sure beats the alternative.
Obama was elected, not appointed king. Even though the American electorate is largely ignorant, deluded, and subject to manipulation, they still rule. Obama has to deal with that. We can't expect big changes quickly in US policy toward Afganistan. Best we can expect is that he pulls in the right direction, and I think he is doing that, even if it's not readily apparent. At least he has rejected the former US mission in Afganistan, which was basically to fight there until all the Taliban are dead.
Ah the inevitable blowback of our projections. It is as it is and never what we think it is. Every conclusion is a foregone conclusion.I have a hard time seeing how politically engaged Buddhism is anything other than politics, though.
The best foreign policy is local: If you bring peace to yourself, you'll bring peace to your family. If you bring peace to your family, you'll bring peace to your neighborhood, etc. But we must have the equanimity to accept that the only true peace we can bring is to ourselves, yet be wary of equanimity's near enemy, indifference. The greatest gift we can give is the Dharma. Practice, and show others the Dharma, and help them to bring true peace to themselves. Help the Dharma spread, from one individual to another, and peace will come.
Obama, and W. before him, are saddled with the heavy karma of running a nation, and actually having to make decisions and act. The reality they confront is that there are indeed angry enemies out there who wish to do Americans great harm-and have. The Buddhist way of patience and loving kindness inevitably allows such enemies to trample over us-history shows us this, from the Moghuls in India, to the Chinese in Tibet, to Burma, to Thich Nhat Hanh's Vietnamese monks today. That is fine if you are a practicing Buddhist, but one must be prepared to "lose" if one engages in this noble practice-to lose one's land, culture, freedom, comfort and even one's life (yet, much more will be gained).
But that simply doesn't work, it will never be acceptable, from the practical point of being an American politician charged with defending Americans and whose re-election depends on the vast majority of Americans who think this way. And we also must remember how easy we have it here in this country, on this isolated island where distance from enemies is our biggest ally. How fortunate are we that we can practice here, safe from oppression, safe from being thrown out of our temples, safe from being imprisoned for speaking out, safe from being killed for practicing, while Tibetans, Burmese and Vietnamese practice under the constant threat of imprisonment and death-not to mention the nearly complete lack of Buddhists in the Middle East, because the law, if not the peer pressure, there might not even permit it? For better or worse, part of the reason we are able to do so is the willingness of other Americans to fight for these rights and privileges.
I agree with Karen Miller about engaged Buddhism, at least now. I don't get the politically engaged Buddhist thing at all, but will read the other articles and be open. And Obama and W and all the rest have my compassion, and my understanding that they are doing what they think is best, given the circumstances, and given their duties.
Interesting post, thank you David. And intelligent comments here. I also think Brandon's first comment nailed a lot of things, especially the fact that an engaged citizenry can make a difference.
As to politically engaged Buddhism, my sense is that many people (particularly Buddhists) get all weird and phobic about the notion of 'politics' when really all it means, in its simplest form, is the use of power. Power itself, just like emotions, is neutral. It is how we work with it that makes it positive or negative, that creates beneficial actions or harmful ones. Power is everyone, including in Buddhist centers. So to take part mindfully and skillfully in politics can be a practice, just like anything else.
Perhaps, but I think it is quite clear that there a is particular agenda being pushed forward in the name of politically engaged Buddhism. Even Loy says "he is far from the progressive we need today." How about those Buddhists who aren't so progressive?
When Loy writes "But Buddhist emphasis on the liberation of awareness suggests that Buddhism might have a distinctive role to play in identifying what the basic problems are: greed, ill will, and the delusion of a self whose well-being is separate from the well-being of others." I feel as if it is putting forth a political stance based on Buddhist principles. What happens when others don't agree?
I just don't want to see Buddhism carry forward its rather narrow view that most non-Buddhists carry, a fringe religion born from the peace movement of the 60's. We want to attract more people, even conservatives, not scare them away. The #1 goal of a Buddhist practice should always be the overcoming of Dukkha.
Correction to my last sentence… it should read "Power is everywhere…" (not "everyone").
What about Guantanamo ?
As long as you hold to the illusions of the world, you must expect those illusions to trouble you.
I think this is a stark reminder that as Buddhists, we have to think a little bit bigger. I think if you look at the situation with a lot of freshness, there are no easy answers when it comes to Iraq & Afghanistan. For example, there has been a recent report from a think-tank on terrorism who found that the vast majority of the violence inflicted by Al-Qaeda is directed towards Muslim civilians, not Westerners (they sourced their facts directly from Arabic countries). And so, with reports of civilian burnings, beheadings, acid being thrown in women's faces and girls being buried alive in Afghanistan (with that violence spilling into nuclear Pakistan), can we really in all honesty be ''peace activists'' if we allow such sufferings to occur? When we do intervene, as we have (albeit the reasons for going into Iraq & Afghanistan in the first place are very questionable), what are we most afraid of? Are we concerned about people's lives over there or are we most fearful of retribution on our own soil? I really don't think there are any clear answers for that.
When did the distiquished panel of individuals that award the Nobel Peace Prize start giving the award to those that have the "potential" to promote peace?
I am most upset with the Nobel Peace Prize. Such action really delegitimizes and devalues the award. If the real "enemy" is Al-Queda, who attacked us on 9/11, then why are we occupying a country and fighting the Taliba. Wait a minute. His message on Iraq — was we were fighting the wrong war–but now he is doing the same thing. Obviously Obama is a good actor as well as politician–appearing to have integrity, but willing to put thousands of lives in harm's way just to protect himself from right wing criticism and a media blitz if he were to really pull the plug on both occupations/wars.
I have long been thinking of Washington and our political system as so entrenched in the status quo they actually inhabit a parallel universe divorced completely from the reality of life in this country for the majority. Neither political party nor mass media should be expected to act any differently. Their existence has become habituated, like that of a drug addict, on their drugs of choice: power and money. No, it is delusional to think that Washington will rise to the level of statesmanship that is required to bring about the type of changes that we all are hoping for. The best we can do is to follow the example of Amnesty Interntional, namely; publically keep writing and writing and writing, stay in the public eye educating the masses with truth, and pray, meditate and love beyond measure in hopes that our collective efforts will be heard.