It's said that miracles come in threes. I have two here for your consideration. (This bit starts out with the cheeky and ends with only modest seriousness, so'kay?)
Of course, the only real miracles are human.
Resorting to the supernatural is lazy, a recourse driven by fear and anxiety, or the failure to admit that there are things we don't (and even can't) know. There are no super human beings except when ordinary people do extraordinary things, which is here the definition of a miracle.
So how'bout it? I will make the point with examples ‘cause otherwise we’re just making stuff up.
Miracle #1 A person in political power freely, willfully, and with great self-sacrifice and humility actually relinquishes power when he isn't obliged (as yet) to do as much. Of course, Biden was kinda'sorta' cornered and it took some time before he would acknowledge those facts. We don’t know what he was saying or doing or thinking privately behind closed doors, we may never know. I don’t think he had some grand plan but I do think he has exhibited superb political instincts over the course of a long career. But giving up power? To the office he has aspired to hold nearly his entire political life?
That this person in power actually listened to his most trusted advisors telling him something he did not want to hear may already qualify as Miracle #2. Your call. But giving up power of any kind is rare, exceptional, downright miraculous.
Miracle #2 The Democratic Party responds and—-this miracle got me even more than Biden willfully giving up power—-actually has its shit together. Groups rarely act with real coherence unless compelled. Dissonance is normal, whether or not articulated. Diverse and divergent views are essential to constructive conversation and honest criticism. But Democrats acting like they know what they are doing and, more significantly, offering a coherent message? Coherent messaging among the Democrats has been their oxymoron for perhaps the past two centuries. Having their shit together? That would be the most elegant way of putting what we might otherwise have expected.
While I might be (rightly) accused of too often being 51/49 the cynic over the skeptic, allow me a moment of contrition and self-reproach by saying I can barely believe it. I am nearly breathless over this one. What do you mean? No circular firing squad? No public squabbles (when they ought to be private)? Speaking with clarity and unity in coherent and effective rhetoric? That serious individuals with ambition for power actually decide to act for the benefit of the country rather than pursue their selfish agendas? Since when are politicians both principled and selfless in their pursuit of goodness?
I love being wrong having been proven wrong.
So Miracle #3? You can pose your own as the Yet to Come but do remember we've been waiting (albeit looking busy just in case) for Jesus for, oh, a coupla'thousand years now. Mine might be: Democrats Continue to Sustain the Enthusiasm or The American People Actually Can Tell the Difference Between a Convicted Felon and a Prosecutor for President?
I am a professional skeptic. I would suggest this is also the job of anyone in pursuit of the examined life. It may well be that well-considered inquiry led by the power to use doubt and uncertainty as critical tools, that this is an ersatz-definition of the "spiritual life."
I write here in the first-person not to presume, well, much of anything about your take on such matters. You get to be "spiritual" however you damn well please.
It's my job not to espouse or confirm beliefs. It's my job to point out that all we have to comprehend what humans are doing. This means we must question their actions, statements, consider their motives, agendas, assumptions, the "facts" as they present them, review the evidence, take as seriously their irrational and non-rational claims, and then assess their arguments or assertions.
Our job is to distinguish the irrational, non-rational, and rational and to appreciate that we're not here to agree but for the sake of understanding itself. Understanding may not be the sole goal of a life well-lived but so long as we admit that understanding remains unfinished business, that certainty is often no friend to learning when doubt empowers, then we’ve got half a chance at meaning. Meaning will be far more difficult a task because happiness is too often mistaken as more important. Meaning may in truth be nothing like happiness but let’s leave that for later.
When we (try to) understand what's being said or done and, if we can, examine intentions (including the nuances we think of as unspoken) then we can decide for ourselves what to make of this being human thing.
There's a lot to the rest of being "spiritual" but let's be reductive and superficial for now. We have to figure what we think and feel, how the social and historical is informing, influencing, and even directing our responses, and then that pesky Unconscious, which is so Important and Powerful that it warrants Capital letters.
Like I said before making meaning is not the same as being happy, and that might well be the key to all the rest. We just did a whole seminar about this. More soon. Live long and prosper and never, ever give in to mere belief.
You have made “miracles” respectable again, to tweak a too often heard phrase! This is a high energy, enthusiastic post. We will keep looking for the continuation of all here that amazes you, and us, allowing the inevitable lapses along the way. Fight the menace and his attendants and enablers, give no quarter, but be honest; rage on calmly; it indeed may be a “new day”! Thank you!!
If that prompts you to think with seriousness and relentless inquiry then, please, go right ahead. Personally, I need more thorn in my shoe to pay attention and apply myself.
If anyone like 1/2 Bollywood 1/2 “art” movies, I watched “Dunki” last week with best buds, and we cried & cried. It speaks to the “concept” and “reality” of “home,” and crossing randomly drawn boundaries, i.e. borders.
Thank you for your insights Dr Brooks. Your words are easing my anxiety and constant panic to move to an island!
I appreciate your enthusiasm here, Douglas. I wish I could offer such hope to the state of our country right now. We have just spent the last nearly 10 months funding aiding and abetting and covering for an obvious genocide. The fall of President Biden was in good part about his unconscionable support of some of the worst war crimes certainly of this century, but well beyond just this century. US policy has supported the worst of Zionism for decades. Even as the ICC and ICJ slam Israel with rulings that they must cease and desist, that genocide is plausible, that the occupied of the last many decades is absolutely illegal, we host the perpetrator of these crimes in our hall of congress. We cover and protect him from the warrant for his arrest. I want to be hopeful. And yet, I am not naive. Maybe this will be the beginning of something new for this country... but until we recognize the humanity of Palestinians as just as human as all other peoples, I am very guarded. I see these things you are calling miracles as steps in the right direction, but a miracle would be the US caring about international law, and ceasing our unabashed support of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. There can be no real conversation about moving forward with moral clarity in this country that does not include our complicity in Israel's war crimes and ongoing genocide.
The Palestinians have rejected the Jewish State from its inception and have called for the annihilation of these people. The post-WWII pax established the nation state as the fundamental political boundary and the Zionist State is an assumption of that peace. Palestians too deserve the protection of their own nation State. What have those governments done to secure the safety of their people? I have nothing good to say about the current Israeli government but your reading of this situation strikes me as dissonant to the assumption of the world order that followed the Holocaust, the assumption that Zionism is a legitimate claim, and the peace established across the globe in the aftermath of that war. Your comment leans into no such historical perspective but it may well be we do not share the same assumptions or values. It is difficult to conduct a serious conversation when the parties do not share assumptions and read the evidence so differently. Such differences are real---because to deny them is folly. But I cannot agree with your assessment of either Israel's legitimacy nor American policy under President Biden.
I guess your understanding of and perspective on Zionism is very different from mine. No, I do not believe there was any good will or peace to be had from a movement that denies the Nakba it perpetrated in 1948, and that has continued in varying forms to this day. Zionism at its core is racist and has for the last 100 years had the backing of western colonial powers as it has persistently executed a mission of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. If you want better historical sources than me, I recommend Rashid Khalidi, The 100 Years War on Palestine. For current truthful reporting about the Wests collusion in Israeli war crimes, I recommend Jonathan Cook, right here on Substack. Another excellent publication is Mondoweiss, put together by an American Jew who was enlightened as a young adult when he began to understand the brainwashing that was his upbringing. Netanyahu is a product of Israel, not the other way around. Israel's historical impunity has allowed successive governments to become more and more brazen in their mission, which has never really changed since Israel's inception. There is no peace without justice. A state whose fundamental purpose is to create a home for a "chosen people" on top of and at the expense of another people is not a state that is seeking peace or that values "democracy." Our collusion and complicity in this mission is nothing short of shameful.
I have little doubt that we will come to much agreement or concurrent on these issues. Best that you go your way and I go mine. I think our conversation has no meaningful continuance. Take care.
I've held back on commenting on this thread and I will keep to holding my tongue except to say this: That's not cowardice or unwillingness to listen to what each of you express. There are points in both sets of the comments posted with which I both agree and disagree. I simply don't think further comment here is useful though I am appreciative that the topic came up. This situation will likely cost the Democrats votes in what will certainly be a close election even if the Biden administration successfully helps negotiate a cease fire agreement in Gaza before November. As I see it and feel it if an agreement is not reached by the Election Day, a Harris/Walz administration is our next best chance at seeing a cease fire negotiated.
Thank you for this comment, Cynthia. As a Palestinian American, born and raised in this country, a daughter of someone who fled the Nakba, I understand both American privilege, and the complete and full betrayal of our "democracy" and the totality of our hypocrisy when it comes to meaningless speech about freedom, unity, or any of the other platitudes we like to feel proud of in this country. If Palestinians don't matter, which clearly we don't, this is a lost nation. The DNC convention so turned my stomach, the hope I wanted to have for Kamala and Tim was fully erased. The exclamation point for the disgust from the convention was offered during the CNN interview that Dana Bash had with Harris, and has received praise for. I don't know how you whitewash or pretend genocide is not happening and call yourself a supporter of democracy. I am embarrassed to admit, that my close following of all things Palestine only became urgent after October 7. Not that I didn't have awareness of or pay attention, I certainly did, but the realization of the depth of the Palestinian exception is something I have been following and watching much more closely. Hope upon hope for evidence otherwise is shattered on a daily basis. To think that someone who proudly proclaims that her policy will not change from Biden's is our best hope moving forward, only reinforces just how morally bankrupt this country is. Unless there is a meaningful revolution we will be splitting hairs as we consider the real difference in a Trump vs a Harris administration. I hope I'm wrong on that, but there can be no democracy if we are dishonest and in denial of who we are. Banging our chests as we proclaim "exceptionalism" gets us where we are and worse. I am sorry for such cynicism. I only hope that we wake up enough to save ourselves from ourselves.
Donna, again I thank you for your comments. Were I a Palestinian American, no doubt I would express similar sentiments in a very similar manner as you have. I am, however, the daughter of an Italian mother and a father of Eastern European descent who also happened to be Jewish. I am not ignorant regarding the reality in Israel and Gaza. I have been conflicted about the Israeli-Palestinian situation most of my life and never more than right now. If you are interested in any further thoughts I have regarding that please message me directly. While I believe I understand what may be at the heart of your comment about a Trump vs. Harris presidency and splitting hairs, (and I also hope you are wrong about that) I maintain that the best possibility of seeing both effective change in current US policy in Israel, and effective change with respect to our current domestic injustices exists with a Harris presidency. As I see it, either we keep a demagogue and would be dictator out of the Oval Office, or any hope for a cease fire in Gaza, any semblance of justice for the Palestinian people, and the continuation of democratic principles of any ideological persuasion in the US will be non-existent. And yes, I can well understand how hollow my words may sound to you.
You have made “miracles” respectable again, to tweak a too often heard phrase! This is a high energy, enthusiastic post. We will keep looking for the continuation of all here that amazes you, and us, allowing the inevitable lapses along the way. Fight the menace and his attendants and enablers, give no quarter, but be honest; rage on calmly; it indeed may be a “new day”! Thank you!!
I am in agreement. Yet, prefer a more positive languaging. How about “curiosity” versus “uncertainty & doubt”?
If that prompts you to think with seriousness and relentless inquiry then, please, go right ahead. Personally, I need more thorn in my shoe to pay attention and apply myself.
Ha ha
It is a very good week when Douglas writes to us and an even better one when he writes twice...a downright amazing week when he writes 3x!!! Awesome!
If anyone like 1/2 Bollywood 1/2 “art” movies, I watched “Dunki” last week with best buds, and we cried & cried. It speaks to the “concept” and “reality” of “home,” and crossing randomly drawn boundaries, i.e. borders.
Thank you for your insights Dr Brooks. Your words are easing my anxiety and constant panic to move to an island!
I appreciate your enthusiasm here, Douglas. I wish I could offer such hope to the state of our country right now. We have just spent the last nearly 10 months funding aiding and abetting and covering for an obvious genocide. The fall of President Biden was in good part about his unconscionable support of some of the worst war crimes certainly of this century, but well beyond just this century. US policy has supported the worst of Zionism for decades. Even as the ICC and ICJ slam Israel with rulings that they must cease and desist, that genocide is plausible, that the occupied of the last many decades is absolutely illegal, we host the perpetrator of these crimes in our hall of congress. We cover and protect him from the warrant for his arrest. I want to be hopeful. And yet, I am not naive. Maybe this will be the beginning of something new for this country... but until we recognize the humanity of Palestinians as just as human as all other peoples, I am very guarded. I see these things you are calling miracles as steps in the right direction, but a miracle would be the US caring about international law, and ceasing our unabashed support of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. There can be no real conversation about moving forward with moral clarity in this country that does not include our complicity in Israel's war crimes and ongoing genocide.
The Palestinians have rejected the Jewish State from its inception and have called for the annihilation of these people. The post-WWII pax established the nation state as the fundamental political boundary and the Zionist State is an assumption of that peace. Palestians too deserve the protection of their own nation State. What have those governments done to secure the safety of their people? I have nothing good to say about the current Israeli government but your reading of this situation strikes me as dissonant to the assumption of the world order that followed the Holocaust, the assumption that Zionism is a legitimate claim, and the peace established across the globe in the aftermath of that war. Your comment leans into no such historical perspective but it may well be we do not share the same assumptions or values. It is difficult to conduct a serious conversation when the parties do not share assumptions and read the evidence so differently. Such differences are real---because to deny them is folly. But I cannot agree with your assessment of either Israel's legitimacy nor American policy under President Biden.
I guess your understanding of and perspective on Zionism is very different from mine. No, I do not believe there was any good will or peace to be had from a movement that denies the Nakba it perpetrated in 1948, and that has continued in varying forms to this day. Zionism at its core is racist and has for the last 100 years had the backing of western colonial powers as it has persistently executed a mission of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. If you want better historical sources than me, I recommend Rashid Khalidi, The 100 Years War on Palestine. For current truthful reporting about the Wests collusion in Israeli war crimes, I recommend Jonathan Cook, right here on Substack. Another excellent publication is Mondoweiss, put together by an American Jew who was enlightened as a young adult when he began to understand the brainwashing that was his upbringing. Netanyahu is a product of Israel, not the other way around. Israel's historical impunity has allowed successive governments to become more and more brazen in their mission, which has never really changed since Israel's inception. There is no peace without justice. A state whose fundamental purpose is to create a home for a "chosen people" on top of and at the expense of another people is not a state that is seeking peace or that values "democracy." Our collusion and complicity in this mission is nothing short of shameful.
I have little doubt that we will come to much agreement or concurrent on these issues. Best that you go your way and I go mine. I think our conversation has no meaningful continuance. Take care.
I've held back on commenting on this thread and I will keep to holding my tongue except to say this: That's not cowardice or unwillingness to listen to what each of you express. There are points in both sets of the comments posted with which I both agree and disagree. I simply don't think further comment here is useful though I am appreciative that the topic came up. This situation will likely cost the Democrats votes in what will certainly be a close election even if the Biden administration successfully helps negotiate a cease fire agreement in Gaza before November. As I see it and feel it if an agreement is not reached by the Election Day, a Harris/Walz administration is our next best chance at seeing a cease fire negotiated.
Thank you for this comment, Cynthia. As a Palestinian American, born and raised in this country, a daughter of someone who fled the Nakba, I understand both American privilege, and the complete and full betrayal of our "democracy" and the totality of our hypocrisy when it comes to meaningless speech about freedom, unity, or any of the other platitudes we like to feel proud of in this country. If Palestinians don't matter, which clearly we don't, this is a lost nation. The DNC convention so turned my stomach, the hope I wanted to have for Kamala and Tim was fully erased. The exclamation point for the disgust from the convention was offered during the CNN interview that Dana Bash had with Harris, and has received praise for. I don't know how you whitewash or pretend genocide is not happening and call yourself a supporter of democracy. I am embarrassed to admit, that my close following of all things Palestine only became urgent after October 7. Not that I didn't have awareness of or pay attention, I certainly did, but the realization of the depth of the Palestinian exception is something I have been following and watching much more closely. Hope upon hope for evidence otherwise is shattered on a daily basis. To think that someone who proudly proclaims that her policy will not change from Biden's is our best hope moving forward, only reinforces just how morally bankrupt this country is. Unless there is a meaningful revolution we will be splitting hairs as we consider the real difference in a Trump vs a Harris administration. I hope I'm wrong on that, but there can be no democracy if we are dishonest and in denial of who we are. Banging our chests as we proclaim "exceptionalism" gets us where we are and worse. I am sorry for such cynicism. I only hope that we wake up enough to save ourselves from ourselves.
Donna, again I thank you for your comments. Were I a Palestinian American, no doubt I would express similar sentiments in a very similar manner as you have. I am, however, the daughter of an Italian mother and a father of Eastern European descent who also happened to be Jewish. I am not ignorant regarding the reality in Israel and Gaza. I have been conflicted about the Israeli-Palestinian situation most of my life and never more than right now. If you are interested in any further thoughts I have regarding that please message me directly. While I believe I understand what may be at the heart of your comment about a Trump vs. Harris presidency and splitting hairs, (and I also hope you are wrong about that) I maintain that the best possibility of seeing both effective change in current US policy in Israel, and effective change with respect to our current domestic injustices exists with a Harris presidency. As I see it, either we keep a demagogue and would be dictator out of the Oval Office, or any hope for a cease fire in Gaza, any semblance of justice for the Palestinian people, and the continuation of democratic principles of any ideological persuasion in the US will be non-existent. And yes, I can well understand how hollow my words may sound to you.