ONE WORLD

                  Please don’t confuse this suggestion for a squishy piece of liberal rhetoric. I’m writing as an ordained Zen Buddhist priest with an observation that might be difficult to accept, but has proven itself useful repeatedly, even in  violent political realms.

                  The Trump administration strategy is to cleave America into us and them. Everyone who will do what he says is “us”  and will not be subjected to threats and violence everyone else is “them”—fair game for his malice. He and his people have designed this division enlist those least protected by the government and least serviced by the economy as their foot-soldiers to win political power for Trump’s real constituency—the billionaire and millionaire class.

                  While it appears that there are two distinct sides,  to this trouble, (we’re prone to us-and-them thinking too) that’s only true from a limited point of view, that of our own individual existence. From the largest point of view, the Universe is indivisible. There is no single human life without all of it—oxygen, sunlight, plants, pollinating insects, microbes in the soil and the myriad beings growing and harvesting our food, making our clothing and tools, etc. etc. Why do I point this out?

                  The ICE conscripts afflicting us are as afflicted as we are. Their suffering is being used to control them and justify their behavior by blaming others. ICE represents the class of people who’ve lost their industrial base, their farms, their children and relatives in the last 50 years of warfare pursued for the interests of our oligarchy. They’re the victims of a changing world who were never educated for the new one and see their once-secure status being taken by others who don’t resemble them.

 They are the victims of 24 hour a day propaganda on Fox News, and the subtler work products of myriad think-tanks: Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Manhattan Institute, Claremont Institute—organizations like ticks on a dog—all dedicated to getting the working class, urban and rural, to enlist as l foot soldiers for the political benefit of the Kochs, Coors, Gates, Zuckerbergs, Tech bros., the DeVoss family, the Mellons et al.

These well-funded think tanks have, for the last 55 years, led the way in creating legal permission to lie on public airwaves, in transferring those airwaves to corporate ownership, in appointing a President (Reagan) whose charm and charisma sold then on believing that government was our enemy. They elected Newt Gingrich who told them Democrats were evil; ditto for Pat Buchanan (Reagan’s Press Secretary)) who brought in the Christian Nationalists and Militias. While it’s completely understandable to be outraged by their attempts to provoke us into violence by removing all restraints from the people they’ve inflamed against everyone who has not kissed Trump’s ring, the deeper strategy is to allow The President to declare martial law and cancel elections. This is the reason why we must remain disciplined.

It is completely. counterproductive, (and completely understandable) to forget our own humanity and scream invectives at ICE officers. It’s counterproductive because it only reinforces what Trump/Miller/Bannon have taught them. It armors them get about the business of crushing the “”, the LBGTQ who want to change the sex of their children, the Mexicans and Blacks ‘polluting’ their country,  as the President, Bannon, Miller inform them from their perches on the privatized media and Government offices. Our rage endorses what they’ve been told about us.

                  Protest is much more productive and difficult to ignore when calm speech suggests, “This must be a terrible job for you.” “It must be awful to be so hated by a crowd.” Do you know why they’re angry?”  What does your family think about what you do? “Who is it that you think benefits from what they do.” You should have your answers prepared in case they ask.

Addressing them as fellow humans will require great discipline and may feel flaccid and weak, but repeatedly in my 84 years I’ve seen the thinnest threads of relationship change behavior and soften. Rigid political attitudes. I learned this in 8 years working for Jerry Brown’s first two terms and helping to make the State Arts Council one of his major successes, enlisting Conservative Republicans, with honest, patient addresses to our common humanity, which paid off in raising the one million dollar budget we began with to $18 million by the time I left.

No one changes when they’re being screamed at; when they’re being addressed as people, without judgment, and even with compassion for the situation they’re in, people change.

                  The Dalai Lama was once asked, “Do you hate the Chinese?”

                  He responded, “ (and by that he meant his country, killed his priests, raped his nuns, burned his temples, and poured so many Chinese into Tibet that Tibetans are now a minority in their own country. He continued by saying,

                  “But I will not let them take my state of mind.”

                  Just sayin’