Many in the corporate media claimed that flailing candidates like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar did well in the [fourth Democratic presidential] debate, mostly because such pundits have been pushing the whole fallacy that the way to win isn’t by appealing to the progressive majority; rather it’s by trying to peel off a few people from the minuscule so-called “center” of the party.
There are two things wrong with this. The first was addressed by Sanders when he noted that polling clearly showed that most of the electorate favored progressive issues, so running on them wasn’t only the right thing to do, it was the smart thing to do. But the second problem is deeper, and reveals that the centrist/corporatists have a fundamental misunderstanding of how and why Trump won.
. . . Since Bill Clinton, centrists have been increasingly dependent upon the ultra-rich and corporations, and they’ve drifted to the right, and as a result, voters drifted away from them.
That’s why we have Trump; that’s why until 2018 Democrats had been losing ground at all levels of government for decades.
And once again, the corporate centrists are trying to sell the idea that progressive ideas are just too far out there.
And the usual suspects – the pols, pundits and mainstream media who told Democrats that Trump couldn’t win, and who told them to run a centrist in 2016 – are telling the Party that if they want to beat Trump, they need to . . . well . . . run a centrist.
The scary thing is, since they control much of the media, and most of the Party, they just might convince folks to commit the same mistake they made in 2016.
For "music night" this evening at The Wild Reed I share Shirley Bassey's stirring rendition of the song that's been on my mind (and heart) of late: Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Klebansince's "What I Did for Love," from the musical A Chorus Line.
As Wikipedianotes: "[The song] was quickly recognized for its show-business potential outside Broadway and was picked up by popular singers to include in their performances in their club and television appearances. Both female and male singers have made it an inclusion in their recorded albums to great effect."
Shirley Bassey recorded "What I Did for Love" for her 1976 album, Love, Life and Feelings. Following is her 1979 performance of the song on the BBC TV series she had at the time.
Kiss today goodbye
The sweetness and the sorrow
We did what we had to do
And I can't regret
What I did for love, what I did for love
Look, my eyes are dry
The dream was ours to borrow
It's as if we always knew
And I won't forget what I did for love
What I did for love
Gone
Love is never gone
As we travel on
Love's what we'll remember
Kiss today goodbye
And point toward tomorrow
Wish me luck, the same to you
Won't forget, can't regret
What I did for love
Our relationships do not die,
they just change form.
– Marianne Williamson
Dear God,
In releasing this man, I feel both dejected and relieved.
I pray for the power to trust completely my decision
and to love him so totally that I shall move beyond
feelings of sadness and any sense of failure.
For my love, I know, shall set me free.
Let me not be tempted to minimize the experiences
of the last four years.
Let me see how they have helped us
both grow and evolve.
May we both now fly free.
May I keep my faith in the wisdom of all things.
May we both learn to respect each other's choices
to go where we each need to go.
May we both find another love,
may these loves flourish.
For truly, the arc of love
is a blessing on us all.
Wherever he goes, loving God,
please go with him.
May he be blessed in all his doings.
Please protect and guide him
Please protect and guide me.
Bring us joy.
May we be happy.
May we be loved
May we both find our way.
She may not have made the September or October debates, but Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson is still very much in the race.
Last week, for instance, her campaign announced that she had raised $3 million in the third quarter, a haul that, as CNN reports, “is a significant boost from the $1.5 million Williamson raised respectively in both the first and second quarters of 2019.” Furthermore, “Williamson's ability to double her third quarter haul during a three-month period where it is notoriously difficult to raise money, signals she may have the fundraising base to sustain a longer run.” . . . Yes! And I'm happy and honored to be part of that fundraising base! Indeed, Marianne remains the presidential candidate about whom I feel most excited and energized.
Another hopeful sign of the vitality of Marianne's 2020 presidential campaign is that in a field of 19 remaining Democratic candidates, Marianne registered sixth place in the national Monmouth Poll released on October 2. This despite being frequently (and disparagingly) labeled an “outsider” and a “long-shot,” kept from the third debate, and smeared with predictable stereotypes dished out by the corporate mainstream media.
Speaking of the mainstream media and its stereotypes, I don't know who created the meme below but it gave me a much-needed chuckle, especially after Saturday Night Live's recent skit involving “Marianne” (Chloe Fineman, left).
Of course, the real Marianne has never talked about crystals, essential oils, yoni eggs, magic, or the astral plane. I guess it's easier to make fun of an erroneous caricature than to actually acknowledge and find reality-based humor in the depth and substance of her message and/or the establishment's efforts to marginalize this message.
Just how serious and informed is Marianne Williamson's message? Well, you be the judge by checking out the following video compilation of her "best moments" in the second Democratic candidates' debate back in July. (These two videos are followed by a compilation of comments excerpted from articles and op-eds generated by her debate performance.)
[Williamson] used her limited time on the microphone to maximum effect, attracting attention for meaningful answers on race and Democratic ideology. She was the top-searched candidate of the night, according to Google Trends, besting Sanders and Warren. She drew cheers when she wondered aloud why some of her rivals “seem to think there’s something wrong about using the instruments of government to help people.” And she invoked language unusual for a political candidate when, referring to the legacy of slavery and racism, she vibrated her hands in the air and warned of “an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface, an emotional turbulence that only reparations will heal.”
Marianne Williamson has been a surprisingly valuable voice in the 2019 Democratic presidential debates. She’s been radical in the real meaning of the word, calling on America to treat not just our tangle of symptoms but the underlying diseases. Even better, she understands that high-level political leadership is not about whose policies will elicit the best graphs from the Congressional Budget Office but rather the murky alchemy of human emotion. And she’s clearly connecting, since on Tuesday night she was the most searched candidate on Google in 49 states.
This is all bad news.
The problem is not what Williamson, the author of four bestselling books, is saying. It’s not even that she’s the person saying it. It’s that she was the only Democrat on the stage saying it – which suggests America’s problems have grown so large we can’t face them.
. . . [T]he most startling part of Williamson’s performance was her explanation on Tuesday of her support for reparations for slavery. CNN’s Don Lemon spoke of reparations as “financial assistance.” No, she responded, this was wrong: Reparations would not be financial assistance, but “payment of a debt that is owed.” And the point of reparations is not just money, but ending the price we pay for avoiding reality. “There is an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface, an emotional turbulence,” she said, but “people heal when there’s some deep truth-telling.”
It was here that Williamson demonstrated most clearly that she understands what standard-issue elected Democrats don’t: that politics isn’t about what we call “politics.” It’s not ultimately about taxes, or budgets, or immigration, or regulations. It’s about hope and fear, and love and hate.
Donald Trump definitely knows this – in fact, it may be the only thing he knows about politics. And it was enough to get him elected president. He may not understand what she means when she says that “only love” can beat him in 2020, but he surely intuitively understands that to win he needs to nurture the opposite, what Williamson called the “dark psychic force of collectivized hatred.”
Across Twitter, there was a bit of a two-step reaction. First, “Hahaha, the new age guru just used the phrase 'dark psychic force.'” Then, second, “Wait, there’s something to what she just said.” . . . It is absolutely, positively crystal clear that Trump builds much of his appeal with his base on his own rage and fury. He stokes anger and then basks in the chants and cheers. No one can look at Trump and argue that he is trying to bring Americans together. . . . Williamson’s moment may have been the most important of the entire debate [because] she tapped into something real. There is, in fact, something dark lurking in American civil society, and all the wonks and all the plans in either party won’t purge that darkness so long as stoking partisan fury is seen as the most expedient path to power.
In Tuesday’s Democratic debate, Marianne Williamson, better than anyone on the stage, captured the number one issue that has been sabotaging democracy in America for decades, when she said: “The issue of gun safety, of course, is the NRA has us in a chokehold, but so do the pharmaceutical companies, so do the health insurance companies, so do the fossil fuel companies, and so do the defense contractors. And none of this will change until we either pass a constitutional amendment or pass legislation that establishes public funding for federal campaigns.”
CNN’s pundits asked questions that were designed to generate heat at the expense of shedding light. But Williamson was having none of it. She dodged the gotcha questions and reframed the narrowly framed single-issue questions to address the systemic problem facing America today. To be fair, Sanders and Warren did, too, and have been for some time, but Williamson was relentless in her focus and did it with a magnanimity that kept the focus on the issue of money in politics, not the candidates who won’t admit it’s the main problem.
Yes, healthcare is important, and yes, income inequality is important, and yes immigration is important, and yes, gun violence is important, and certainly climate change – a truly existential threat – is important.
And the fact that we have a narcissistic, racist incompetent as President, and that no one in his party will stand up to him is a problem. But at the end of the day, Ms. Williamson is right – these are symptoms. Money in politics is the real impediment to solving any of the problems we are facing, including the erosion of our system of government.
Again and again, this impossibly youthful 67-year-old broke through with a cut-the-crap sensibility. She kept pushing her higher-profile competitors to think, and talk, in deeper perspective and sweeping context. . . . [Marianne Williamson] seemed to grasp what others on the stage didn’t as they argued over small differences. As Trump proved in 2016, voters don’t much care about 10-point policy plans – what Williamson calls “wonkiness” – nor even about whether a politician’s promises are realistic. They like candidates who speak plainly and passionately. . . . [She is right about many things including] one big thing, which she returned to in the closing moments of the debate. "Our problem is not just that we need to defeat Donald Trump," she said. “We need a plan to solve institutionalized hatred, collectivized hatred and white nationalism. And in order to do that, we need more than political insider game and wonkiness and intellectual argument.” Williamson will not be the Democratic nominee. But hopefully the one who will be is taking note.
Political observers seemed stunned to hear best-selling author and spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson speaking so eloquently on issues near and dear to the average Democratic voter’s heart. They shouldn’t have been. A quick visit to her website or a Google search could have disabused them of the idea that she’s a dingbat interloper in the Democratic race. But why do research when you can snark and mock instead? Full disclosure: Williamson is a friend, so I have been well aware of her brilliant mind, well-honed worldview and deep thinking around the most important issues we face as a nation. I’ve been frustrated watching her be denigrated and caricatured based on a profound ignorance of her experience and abilities.
Marianne Williamson’s draw is her uncanny ability to drive straight to the spiritual heart of the issues at hand. She not only lays out the expected progressive ideology but goes further, housing it in a metaphysical context. While the Left of recent years has claimed a position of moral authority on the political issues of the day, Williamson actually provides something of an underlying framework for this demand. As her campaign’s tagline, “Turning Love into a Political Force,” exhibits, Williamson seeks to redefine why we have government in the first place. Her campaign has demanded “a politics that goes much deeper, . . . a politics that speaks to the heart.” Williamson sees politics as a platform to heal the psyches of the American people. For her, politics isn’t [primarily] about policy, it’s about an ongoing battle between wisdom and fear.
[T]he unsung heroes of [the first two debates] were the long shots new to politics completely, unschooled in the cautious contours of campaign rhetoric. They were full of crazy ideas that were just this-side-of-sane enough to get people talking – and a few sane ideas that are spoken so infrequently in politics that they only sound crazy. So as we await the inevitable shrinking of the field, let’s raise a glass to Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, and that rarest of campaign artifacts: the unvarnished truth.
Williamson . . . [an] author with the speaking cadence of Jane Fonda in a 1960s B-movie, and was the most Googled candidate from Tuesday night’s debate, when she broke up the progressives-versus-moderates fight with interjections about reparations, a conceptual critique of the health care system and a killer line about the Flint water crisis.
. . . Williamson served up [the night's] more cogent critique, saying Democrats were foolish to think that detailed policy debates would work against a force as toxic and fact-challenged as Donald Trump.
“If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country,” she said near the end of Tuesday’s debate, “then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.”
For the most part, she was right. What’s going to beat Trump is not any particular set of 17-point plans. It’s a combination of vision and charisma, the ability to sell a broad idea of where the country is and where it needs to go. Four years ago, an unschooled, unqualified, unapologetic candidate – speaking an emotional truth that spoke to certain crowds – rode that philosophy straight to the White House.
Sneer if you will, but a call for a little spiritual healing is in order in the unspiritual, racist, hate-filled era of Donald Trump. . . . Debates are about the visceral, and Williamson has that down. Not since Admiral James Stockdale, a fan of the Stoic philosophers, opened the vice presidential debate in 1992 by asking “Who am I, why am I here?” has there been a line as arresting as this one from the philosopher of love: “If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I'm afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.”
Aside from Harris’ strong performance, Pete’s disarming humility and Biden’s slow-rolling flameout, I found Marianne Williamson to be one of the most intriguing people on the stage. When the subject of the concentration camps at the border was raised, Williamson boldly went to one of the core issues of the crisis. “I haven’t heard anybody on this stage who has talked about American foreign policy in Latin America,” she said, “and how we might have in the last few decades contributed to something being more helpful.”
It was a necessary shout-out to a facet of U.S. foreign policy that gets short shrift because it is uncomfortable for the many politicians of both parties who have long supported it. To no small degree, U.S. actions in Central and South America are a reason why so many migrants have been flooding north, and Williamson damn well said it out loud.
Having Marianne Williamson on the stage was like having the internet participate in the debate. That is not an insult; the internet is my office, and it was important to have someone up there willing to say the kind of things that get left out, even by candidates like Sanders and Warren. A friend noted that most run-of-the-mill politicians focus on problems in the branches, while Williamson has a way of looking at the roots. She was a welcome and refreshing presence . . . and I hope she stays in the race for a while.
There is a numinous sense in which Marianne Williamson “won” this debate. She was compelling on health care and education, and dazzling on “institutionalized hatred.” As a wonk, I don't love Ms. Williamson's anti-wonk agenda. She's right, though: we're useless against the “dark psychic force.” But I can feel it. Can't you?
I close with Marianne's September 19 C-SPAN interview and the text (with added images and links) of her October 11 e-mail to supporters of her presidential campaign. Enjoy!
Many voters say “I just want someone who can win!”
I understand that, and it’s why I’m running. A politics of love is the BEST possible politics to defeat a politics of fear.
In 2016, people were angry. But that’s not the dominant emotional tenor of the American voter in 2019. Today, people are exhausted. They aren’t looking for a fight now; they’re looking for inspiration.
We need a candidate who can counter the president’s outrageously dangerous lies with outrageously exciting truths. His campaign in 2020 will be laced with fear, but mine will be stronger than his because it’s a politics laced with love.
What will win the presidency in 2020 is the ability to create a new political coalition – based not on people’s anger but on people’s conscience. Not on people’s rage, but on people’s desire to believe once again in the promise of America.
I guess the strategy is to make the-once-unthinkable – asking the Communist Party of China and an ally totally dependent on U.S. aid in its war against Russia to “investigate” a political rival – seem normal by saying it out loud. It is not normal. It is un-Constitutional. It is un-American. It is the behavior of a mob boss, not a President.
If you don't understand that, you aren't a “conservative” standing-up to “liberal elites” or the “deep state” or whatever; you are an enemy of the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law and American sovereignty, someone so unpatriotic he puts loyalty to Trump over loyalty to country. For patriotic Americans, the integrity of the Constitution is more important than tribe. This isn't debatable anymore.
There is no hint at a dark side in the Celtic presentation of Cernunnos [KER-noo-nos] himself, but his human/beast ambiguity fed into early Christian notions of beastiality, pagan chaos, and contradictions of the notion that humans had been fashioned in the image of God.
Donald Trump strikes me as nothing so much as a man who has never known a love that he hasn’t had to pay for. And I think that forms all of his decision-making. I think that explains all of the things that we see. This is someone who sees the world through a prism of a very, very sad lens, which is that what he is, who he is, does not today, and never has, and never will have any value. The only thing that matters is what he has, what he can trade. And I think that really explains all of the transactional corruption that we have seen throughout this administration. [He’s] simply someone who thinks that’s what life is.
There is much to be shocked about in an intelligence officer’s whistle-blower report that is roiling official Washington – but perhaps nothing more shocking than the fact that when it reached the Trump Justice Department, the complaint was met with a big “nothing to see here, folks.”
The allegations in the complaint, which was partially revealed [last] Thursday morning, go way beyond just one phone call between President Trump and the new president of Ukraine, in which Trump pressured the Ukrainian leader to do him a political favor. They detail a months-long pattern of abuse and evidence that “the president of the United State is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election,” the whistle-blower wrote.
The memo also raises the fear that “senior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records” of Trump’s July 25 call with President Volodymr Zelensky of Ukraine “especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call.” The use of that separate system to shield the conversation is itself both suspect and further evidence that “White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.”
Trump has been breaking norms since the moment he declared his candidacy and in many of his biggest policy and political moves while in office. In the past week, Trump has violated a notably large number of norms surrounding good government, but the general pattern of gleeful, frequent norm-breaking has defined most of the Trump presidency.
That’s the meta-scandal of the Trump administration: Each individual scandal stems from the president’s fundamental character, his lack of interest in the workings of democratic government and outright contempt for the idea that corruption might be a bad thing.
Trump sets the tone, and lower-ranked officials in his administration follow suit. The quality of American government is being eroded, slowly but surely, to the point where the kind of corrupt, undemocratic behavior that’s typically found in fragile young democracies is becoming a regular feature of the world’s oldest. This is the kind of norm erosion that’s undeniably scary, one that undercuts some of the rules of the road that democracies genuinely do need to function properly.
Now, it’s important to note that the problems in American democracy don’t start and end with Trump. There are much deeper sources of democratic rot in the United States, even in the Republican party alone, than one person. Trump is a symptom rather than a cause.
When allegations of ethical lapses or wrongdoing surface against people on one side of the aisle, they can always claim that someone on the other side has done far worse. But taken together, all of these examples have contributed to a toxic norm. Joe Biden is the man who, as a senator, walked out of a dinner with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Biden was one of the most vocal champions of anti-corruption efforts in the Obama administration. So when this same Biden takes his son with him to China aboard Air Force Two, and within days Hunter joins the board of an investment advisory firm with stakes in China, it does not matter what father and son discussed. Joe Biden has enabled this brand of practice, made it bipartisan orthodoxy. And the ethical standard in these cases – people’s basic understanding of right and wrong – becomes whatever federal law allows. Which is a lot.
Who among us has not admired or supported people who have engaged in or provided cover for this kind of corruption? How did we convince ourselves it was not corruption? Impeachment alone will not end our national calamity. If we want to help our country heal, we must start holding ourselves, our friends, and our allies – and not just our enemies – to its highest standards.
The Ukraine crisis exposes the bipartisan corruption inherent in the US imperialist foreign policy. An investigation into Ukraine may expose what are actually common practices by both Democratic and Republican administrations in regime change efforts. As John Kiriakou explained when he gave a talk at the Venezuelan Embassy during the Embassy Protection Collective action, the CIA has a secret regime change office that provides plans to overthrow any government the US chooses to target. These plans involve similar tactics – the investment of large amounts of money into NGOs (often “human rights groups”), support for a violent opposition, installing US-trained and controlled leaders and payoffs for those involved.
The efforts by the Democratic Party and much of the press, including CNN and The New York Times, to remove Trump from office, as if our problems are embodied in him, will backfire. Our social, cultural, economic and political crisis created a demagogue like Trump. These forces will grow more virulent if Trump is impeached. The longer we fail to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for the misery of over half the U.S. population and our broken democracy, the more the disease of cultism will spread. It was the seizure of power by corporations that vomited up Trump. And it will be only by freeing ourselves from corporate rule, by rebuilding our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, that we can roll back from the abyss.
Corruption largely operates on autopilot at equal levels within Democratic and Republican parties, resulting in a bloated concentration of control and an anti-democratic sense of entitlement at the top. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed with policy changes and beyond superficial modifications.
In her 1997 book, Healing the Soul of America, [2020 Democratic presidential candidate] Marianne Williamson wrote: “Clearly we must work on healing our own neuroses in order to become effective healers. But then, having worked on our own issues a while, another question begs for an answer: how healed can we ultimately become while the social systems in which we live and move, and have our earthly being, remain sick?”
Williamson has a background in grassroots organizing and recognizes the underlying issues propelling the widespread self-sabotage happening in our country. She describes this dynamic in her most recent book, A Politics of Love. She has a keen ability to identify proposed policies that hinder democracy and has adamantly opposed such policies, while supporting proposals that boost voter engagement.
I established The Wild Reed in 2006 as a sign of solidarity with all who are dedicated to living lives of integrity – though, in particular, with gay people seeking to be true to both the gift of their sexuality and their Catholic faith. The Wild Reed's original by-line read, “Thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective.” As you can see, it reads differently now. This is because my journey has, in many ways, taken me beyond, or perhaps better still, deeper into the realities that the words “progressive,” “gay,” and “Catholic” seek to describe.
Even though reeds can symbolize frailty, they may also represent the strength found in flexibility. Popular wisdom says that the green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm. Tall green reeds are associated with water, fertility, abundance, wealth, and rebirth. The sound of a reed pipe is often considered the voice of a soul pining for God or a lost love.
On September 24, 2012,Michael BaylyofCatholics for Marriage Equality MNwas interviewed by Suzanne Linton of Our World Today about same-sex relationships and why Catholics can vote 'no' on the proposed Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment.
"I believe your blog to be of utmost importance for all people regardless of their orientation. . . . Thank you for your blog and the care and dedication that you give in bringing the TRUTH to everyone."– William
"Michael, if there is ever a moment in your day or in your life when you feel low and despondent and wonder whether what you are doing is anything worthwhile, think of this: thanks to your writing on the internet, a young man miles away is now willing to embrace life completely and use his talents and passions unashamedly to celebrate God and his creation. Any success I face in the future and any lives I touch would have been made possible thanks to you and your honesty and wisdom."– AB
"Since I discovered your blog I have felt so much more encouraged and inspired knowing that I'm not the only gay guy in the Catholic Church trying to balance my Faith and my sexuality. Continue being a beacon of hope and a guide to the future within our Church!"– Phillip
"Your posts about Catholic issues are always informative and well researched, and I especially appreciate your photography and the personal posts about your own experience. I'm very glad I found your blog and that I've had the chance to get to know you."– Crystal
"Thank you for taking the time to create this fantastic blog. It is so inspiring!"– George
"I cannot claim to be an expert on Catholic blogs, but from what I've seen, The Wild Reed ranks among the very best."– Kevin
"Reading your blog leaves me with the consolation of knowing that the words Catholic, gay and progressive are not mutually exclusive.."– Patrick
"I grieve for the Roman institution’s betrayal of God’s invitation to change. I fear that somewhere in the midst of this denial is a great sin that rests on the shoulders of those who lead and those who passively follow. But knowing that there are voices, voices of the prophets out there gives me hope. Please keep up the good work."– Peter
"I ran across your blog the other day looking for something else. I stopped to look at it and then bookmarked it because you have written some excellent articles that I want to read. I find your writing to be insightful and interesting and I'm looking forward to reading more of it. Keep up the good work. We really, really need sane people with a voice these days."– Jane Gael
"Michael, your site is like water in the desert."– Jayden
