Senator:

Since your appointment as co-chair of the “SuperCommittee,” you’ve probably gotten a lot of mail. No doubt a lot of people are trying to get you to move in one direction or another. After all, the decisions of your committee will likely decide the immediate financial future of this country. I am sure you know the responsibility lying on you. As a longtime supporter, I am writing to you regarding potential spending cuts that your committee may recommend.

It’s become clear that raising taxes is necessary, so long as the taxes are only on those people who actually have money, the richest. But cutting spending will be needed as well, for political purposes as well as practical ones. But what to cut?

Many Americans are calling for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Others are advocating cuts for defense spending.

And that puts you in a tight spot, doesn’t it?

Senator, everyone knows that you have worked hard to bring contracts and Federal money home to Washington State, and everyone knows that a lot of what you’ve brought home is defense spending, and everyone knows that you’ve gotten a fair amount of money from Boeing and other major defense contractors. So while as a Democrat you’ve staunchly defended Medicare and Medicaid, you also have a vested interest in supporting Washington’s economy, specifically by bringing home Pentagon contracts.

Let’s consider, though. When we spend money on weapons, what do we get? Death and destruction. Ideally for our enemies, often for unlucky bystanders, occasionally (war being the chaos that it is) for our own. If the weapons are used at all, of course. I think all but the most bloodthirsty and xenophobic will hope and pray that they never will be.

When we spend money on health care, what do we get? Life. People living, working, thriving, and (let’s be direct) voting. And health care is something we definitely will use.

In these times, can we afford to build bombs we hope we’ll never drop, missiles we hope we’ll never launch? In these times, can we afford the luxury of war? Or should we bend our efforts and our treasure to the necessity of life?

The answer is, in part, in your hands.

Your longtime supporter,

Paul Christiansen

Dr. Paul’s recent words on the subject:

“That’s what freedom is all about: taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to take care of everybody…”

He didn’t quite finish his point, as there were too many people applauding.

Let’s see: was Mr. Snyder taking his own risks? To an extent, of course, but the implication is that he would have purchased insurance if he had been able to. He was not able to, because of the premiums — in other words, the health insurance industry had decided that insuring him would not be profitable.

This focus on the bottom line is what bothers me about the idea of health care as industry. A friend of mine was struck and nearly killed by a car some years ago; apparently one of the first people on the scene was a doctor who happened to be passing. That person, and the other doctors who saved my friend’s life and returned her to miraculously good health, are without question heroes. A few seconds of delay could have killed my friend, and I dare say the doctors never gave a moment of thought to whether or not my friend could afford everything they needed to do. That’s not their job. They spring into action because that’s what they are called to do, because they have the power and the duty to preserve life. Doctors, firefighters, and paramedics: these are high in the ranks of the noblest and most heroic people in the world.

To commodify that nobility, to stop these heroes from doing what they want to do, what they need to do, until money changes hands… to keep the suffering and dying from help until the cash register rings… well. That’s not just coercive, that’s abusive. Imagine what we’d say if someone had run up to the doctor helping my friend and grabbed the doctor’s hands; we’d file criminal charges. Yet the health “industry” does exactly that, routinely.

Now, as it happens in an immediate crisis such as the one I’ve described, the doctors do the work regardless of insurance, because doing anything else would indeed be criminal, under a law signed by none other than President Reagan. But then the insurance companies or the hospital hands out a bill that’s astronomically high, and if the patients can’t pay they don’t come back for necessary remedial care, or whatever. Chronic problems, i.e. dying slowly, doesn’t get treated. And forget about preventative care. There are free clinics and hospitals in almost every city of the country, of course, but swamped as they are they bear only a fraction of the health care burden in this country; the majority of us must pay or suffer. By industrializing health, we permit our doctors to do their jobs if someone has been poisoned, but not if the person is merely being poisoned and can’t afford the antidote.

So, where did this idea of health care as transaction come from?

Well, that’s capitalism for you; there can be nothing without payment. Businesses have to make a profit, and hospitals are businesses. No such thing as free lunch; even the free clinics are being paid for by someone, and the ERs, which turn no one away, are publicly funded. So this idea that we have to take care of everyone…

…Now, there’s a fair question. Where did that idea come from? Where did us crazy liberals get this notion that we should help everyone?

Well, maybe this chunk of text might help explain:

“These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions […] ‘Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.’” (Matthew 10.8)

Huh. Considering that “demons” usually referred to the demons of mental illness, that’s four explicit health-care commands. And the very next instruction is to do it all without accepting so much as a wooden nickel for it.

Now, Christian scripture is not directly relevant to government-run health care, although there are quite a few Republicans who state outright they want the US to be a Christian nation, and a Christian government would therefore have to follow Christian commands like this one. That aside, this passage does imply that Christians should be carrying out Christ’s command. We can’t match his reported healing prowess, especially when it comes to raising the dead, although I still feel that when we pool our resources we can do rather well.*  Moreover, this passage means that the idea Dr. Paul has ridiculed was explicitly commanded, if not originated, by the moral teacher he claims to follow. His god, in fact.

Funny, somehow that puts me in mind of another Bible verse, from a little earlier in the book. In fact, there’s a certain resonance with Dr. Paul’s exact words. Let’s see if I can find it…

“Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’”

Yeah, that sounds about right.

*: I should also note that this can’t be the kind of care where healing is contingent on joining the faith, or even on hearing a sermon, and definitely not the kind of care where two should die rather than one.

Then I read the comics.

This means that today I read an article by Noam Chomsky pointing out the deep contradictions and hypocrisy of our “war on terror” and the assassination of Osama bin Laden… an article about a police officer who sexually assaulted a teen girl while on duty, the author pointing out the connections to the NYC cops accused of rape and the still-ongoing Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals… an indignant rebuttal of a conservative columnist who doesn’t want poor people to vote… a column about a woman raised in a church which felt menstruation was unclean because it was “wasting life”… and finally a post about the commericalization of the care package, i.e. selling prefabricated packages to send to kids at camp to show how much you love them.

You can understand how this might work me up to a certain degree of anger and disgust. You can understand how this might inspire me to write, to speak out, to take action, to try and set things right.

Instead I click over to the funnies, read up on the latest antics of Frazz and Caulfield, check out the new xkcd, follow the novels-in-webcomic-form that I love. Then it’s off to the fanboy sites: what’s Joss Whedon up to this week? What movies are coming out? What’s the latest in geekery? Then there’s Facebook, of course.

Why do I do this? Well, sometimes it’s because the world is so grim and depressing — at least through the lens of media sources that know bad news sells better than good. Sometimes I feel like I need a good laugh after a morning’s rants and disasters. But usually I do it because that’s what I always do: it’s the routine. I still occasionally have to stop myself from going to websites I stopped reading long ago, just because I went there automatically for years. The fingers still remember.

All in all, it puts me in mind of the New Deal.

During the Great Depression there was every possibility that the country was about to go socialist. Capitalism looked like a horrible option, after all: rampant unemployment and kids starving, while farmers destroyed food to drive up prices and manufacturers claimed anyone could work who wanted to while firing thousands. There was the Soviet Union (which, due to some early prosperity and a lot of secrecy, looked pretty good at the time), setting a counterexample of how it could be done. And here came the Bonus Marchers, veterans of the World War who wanted the government to pay them the money they were owed immediately instead of in 1945. Vets, organized and protesting, camped on the National Mall: that raised the specter of revolution. Another two or three years and the US might have seen a socialist revolt.

Instead Franklin Roosevelt was voted in, and we got the New Deal, which put a few socialist fillips on the basic capitalist system: Social Security is a socialist process of shared support and protection, grafted onto capitalist paychecks. The economy came under some government oversight and protection with the FDIC, the Glass-Steagall Act, and the SEC, but all these were designed to make banks, those most capitalist of institutions, function well and honestly rather than to supplant them. There was the picture of some people being put back to work through the “alphabet agencies” like the WPA and the CCC, and major projects like the Columbia River and Tennessee Valley dams, but those did not actually employ many people, though oftentimes providing invaluable and otherwise unachievable services. It’s important to recall that the New Deal did not end the Great Depression, though in some ways it helped head off another future collapses. Instead the New Deal gave people hope. It made people bear the present while looking to the future. What FDR would have done if World War II hadn’t rescued our economy I don’t know, but it’s pretty easy to argue that the New Deal restored American faith in the capitalist system.

It was, in fact, a palliative.

The New Deal treated symptoms, not the disease. It made people happier — Roosevelt’s campaign song in 1932 was “Happy Days Are Here Again,” for crying out loud. He won at least in part on the strength of his smile. He famously claimed we had nothing to fear except fear, which is quite an endorsement of a system whose structures tend to breed exploitation. The New Deal stopped the worst excesses so that the system itself wasn’t stopped.

In the same way, although obviously on a different level of magnitude, the comics I read keep me from boiling over. And I rather suspect I’m not alone in this. We laugh at the Daily Show, but it’s not until Stewart stops joking and starts making us think, starts making us angry (notably about the Zadroga Bill) that anything actually gets accomplished. Molly Ivins, of sainted memory, gave us any number of zingers and talking points about the procession of GOP politicians to ride out of Texas, but she didn’t actually halt the procession. Mocking President Bush was not the same as stopping him.

Of course, are palliatives such a bad thing? Man does not live by rage alone. There’s such a thing as burnout. It’s also easy to lose sight of the real progress being made: seventeen years ago, gay sex was still a crime in Texas. Currently there are lots of people in the running for president and Congress who want to make us go back to that, yes, but the fact that they want to go back means progress has been made. Planned Parenthood doesn’t have to duck the Comstock Laws. Unions are under attack but not under literal fire, unlike the 1910s. There’s a black man in the White House. Moreover, trying to reform by means of rage and riot often winds up with a lot of people dead or hurting.

So what’s a little laughter? Is a smile so bad? Is Randall Munroe a problem because he takes my mind off our troubles?

Well, here’s the beginning of an answer: “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” (If you’re unhappy that I’m quoting the Bible, pretend I’m quoting the Byrds instead.) Sure, I can laugh. The problem comes when I dissipate the anger I should feel, and quell the inspiration to write that I should act on, for a quick silliness fix. The problem comes when the palliative interferes with the real cure.

So I’m simply going to flip my morning routine. I’ll still read all my funnies; I’ll still read all the news. I’ll just read the funnies first. Then, when I close out my browser for the morning, I’ll put pen to paper on the topics I need to.

Interestingly enough, it seems our political leadership is taking a similar approach, although obviously for wildly different reasons. The president’s latest plan is no New Deal, less a palliative than a stick to bite down on. And we shall see if his political enemies allow him even that much, since they seem intent on dismantling what’s left of the actual New Deal. The Great Depression ushered it in, and now the Great Recession may well usher its remnants out. A bargain was struck in 1933: the government would protect the people safe from the worst of capitalism, with Social Security, regulation of banks, and other elements — and thereby keep capitalism safe from the wrath of the people. The GOP is embarking on the interesting experiment of tearing down the safeguards at a moment when the people have more reason than ever to be wrathful. They are altering the deal. Perhaps they feel they can steer the people’s rage, as they often have before. Perhaps they see an opportunity to get rich off the chaos (see “Neoliberal Sustainability”). Or perhaps they are counting on certain palliatives.

Either way, we’ll see who gets the last laugh.

And then I do this: I hope. I whisper, “Make it this one. Do it. Break us. Shatter our cities, open our eyes, make us see. Hit us. Hurt us.”

There’s a storm brewing; I hear there hasn’t been a storm like this since Gloria, or Bob, or the “Long Island Express.” This one is called Irene. It could tear up the whole coast, whack every city from Savannah to Boston, roll right into New York Harbor and hit that city as it has not been assailed in generations… no, not even ten years ago.

I was talking with my friend Jay, of whom I’ve written before. She lives in DC, and I said to her, “I’m glad you don’t live in New York.”

Saying this, I stopped. Jay’s not in New York, but Phoebe is; she’s an old flame of mine, I’d hate to see her hurt. And Jo, to whom I owe so much, is in Boston, which may suffer just as badly. In fact Irene is going to pass over every woman I’ve loved in the last five years.

Which made me wonder: do I only care if someone I’ve had a crush on is in danger? I actually have people all along that coast. Friends. Family. So many people I love in so many ways, from Atlanta north.

It hit me then: every single person in the storm-path is loved by someone.

If even one person dies, then someone’s heart will be broken.

I was ashamed then. I still am. Ashamed of quietly calling for a killer storm on everyone else, whispering prayers for divine judgment so long as they didn’t touch me or mine, not seeing or not caring that any deaths would rend someone as much as I would be rent if Jay or Jo or Phoebe or anyone else were hurt. Here I was, just months ago, saying how we are all connected. Here I was, just days ago, teaching myself to see everyone as people, so I can take the next step and love them as neighbors. And here I am today rooting for a city-breaking, world-changing storm to hit the next town over from my friends. I’ve drawn a circle around the people who matter to me and said, “Take the rest.”

We all do it, of course, not that it excuses me. Everyone has that circle, and beyond it we rarely raise a finger. Oh, sometimes we do, when a quake hits Haiti or a storm smashes New Orleans. But we don’t care enough to change the world’s ways — our ways — that put those people in the path of the storm to begin with. They are outside the circle.

But Christianity is about drawing one big circle around everyone ever created and saying, “This is who we care for. No one gets left out. No one is unloved.”

Hard, yeah. Likely impossible. But it’s written plain right there in the law: “Love your neighbor. Love the stranger. Love your enemy.” If we don’t… well, then, the man from Galilee won’t even want to know us.

Then I remember that the One I follow is mercy and forgiveness incarnate, and that we absolutely get points for trying.

Irene is not the wrath of the One. If there’s anything heavenly in this hurricane, it’s in the hope that people will help each other. Not just this week or this year but all the time, in advance and ever after.

And if there’s no such thing as god, then absolutely nothing changes. If there’s no one watching us, we’re still watching each other. If there’s no reward, then helping just for helping’s sake is all the more beautiful and selfless.

Hurricanes will come. They aren’t the wrath of a heaven too long ignored. There won’t be a god-storm that opens eyes. If I want eyes opened, then I have to speak up.

So.

What will it be? Will we turn away from each other? Will we leave each other in the lurch again, forever look the other way?

Or will we face this storm and all storms? Face it together? Together as a community, as a country, as one people? Shall we again disappoint, or shall we rise to meet our promise?

Take my hand. Make the circle. Bring everyone in.

When you’re out in the world, look around you. See who else is out and about. Then call them what they are: people. Practice naming them as people.

It helps if you start out by ignoring everything you know about them. First to go should be appearance. Nice clothes or shabby? Doesn’t matter. Different skin, different hair, different eyes? Forget them. Young, old? Irrelevant. Ugly or attractive? Not a factor. Male or female? Beside the point.

It’s hard, truly hard. (I said it was a simple exercise, not an easy one. This is why we have to practice it every time we go outside.) Society has trained us to place people in categories, boxes really, which is why it’s so important to practice getting away from that. Because people are not boxes and do not conform to our expectations. When I see a black man, I don’t always think “criminal/dangerous” — but I have thought that, in the past. This despite the fact that such a snap judgment is a) ridiculous and b) goes against everything I’ve been taught by my parents and my faith. Society insinuates its lessons, despite all counter-instruction. I’m getting better. Even as I frequently manage to dissociate “black” from “criminal,” however, my brain still performs the snap categorization that permits such a false and discriminatory judgment in the first place: when I as a white man see a black man, my brain says, “black man.” When I see another white man, though, my brain says, “man.” Until I can change that, I am still racist.

Note that even just “man” puts people in boxes, though. The oldest divide in the human race is between male and female, a split we now know does not have a clear line, but a split regardless. Here I fight not just my socialization but my genes (and hormones!), for my brain has a deep predisposition to focus on young attractive women. Women, however, are far more than objects to look at, and far more than sexual targets to be desired.

Possibly the most important if least-frequent label to remove is “annoyance.” People bother me a lot, talking when I’d prefer silence, intruding on my time when I’m hurrying, interrupting the tasks I’ve set myself. They cut in front of me, they block my way, and (when traffic is involved) they may even hazard my health or life. Seeing those people as people is perhaps the most urgent part, because to see them as people may head off conflict. Harboring anger or resentment for someone permits our minds to denigrate, disrespect, and ultimately dehumanize someone who is, after all, a relative, no matter how distant. Dehumnanization is what permits all forms of violence, mental or emotional or physical. In fact one might say that to see someone as a problem or an annoyance is the first act of violence. Everyone who looks at another with anger has already punched that other in the face.

So I strive to pull back from all the labels I place on the people around me, and only call them “people,” nothing more specific. “Person,” I tell myself. “People. Person. Attractive person.” (I haven’t perfected my technique yet.) “People. Person. People. People. People.”

That’s the first step, pushing through the mass of labels and boxes and preconceptions to the point where you recognize human as human. This first step then enables the next. Once you have trained yourself to set aside all that you see of the people around you, appearance and action, then you need to remind yourself of what you can’t see, but is definitely there: hopes. Fears. Dreams. Love. Anger. Joy. Wisdom. Mistakes. History. A future. In short, all the stuff that makes a soul a soul, all that makes you, you and me, me — it makes them, them.

Look. Call them people. Fold up your boxes and put them away. Remember what you don’t see. Then take the last step, and love these your neighbors as you love yourself.

This whole year our elected representatives have been wrangling over the budget — first with the showdown over the shutdown, and now with the debt ceiling high noon. And much of the discussion has centered not on bringing more money in, but cutting the money that’s going out, usually focusing on “entitlements.”

There has been discussion of cutting all Title X funding for women’s health on the basis of “no taxpayer money for abortions,” even though none of the Title X money goes to abortions at all. There have also been proposals to effectively defund the Environmental Agency, specifically making it illegal to regulate greenhouse gasses. And most significantly there have been “bold” proposals for cutting or even effectively privatizing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security over time, never mind that these measures would almost certainly increase costs for the poor and elderly and thus completely gut the main mission of those organizations.

Note that many of these issues are still in contention — some guaranteed not to pass, others being used as bargaining chips. Both parties, however, are agreeing to major cuts in the so-called “entitlement programs” that (mostly) benefit older and poorer folks; the difference between the parties’ positions is only in how much they’ll cut, not if. Note that the parties are also united in deregulating major industries, such as banking and telecommunications — again only differing in degree. And while President Obama has proposed raising taxes, he had the opportunity to do exactly that some months ago and, quite simply, didn’t — meaning that the parties, in deed at least, are also united on cutting taxes.

They’re also united on saying as little as possible about the defense budget. There has been some acknowledgment that the Pentagon’s share cannot be expanded much further, but this year’s “cut” was actually a six percent increase, only a reduction in that it could have been much more. The defense budget, by the way, is almost double what it was in 2001. It’s six times what the next-biggest spender, China, forks out for its armed forces. China could fight us if it chose to attack its biggest customers and kill their economic boom; Russia, spending half of what China does, could fight us… if it were 1962. The other six big military spenders are all such close allies that if they’re against us, we’ve already lost. In short, there is absolutely no credible military threat to us in any way. Terrorism is a different story, but ten years ago we invaded a country to catch one criminal, a decade later, that criminal is dead because of long and patient spying combined with a rather small assassination raid. The war we began for his head is increasingly irrelevant; the Iraq War was certainly a total diversion, and a brutally costly one at that. Meanwhile almost all the terrorist attacks prevented since the wars began were partially caused by the wars, while they were in fact prevented mostly by careful police action and good luck, not military operations. War as a method of preventing terrorism seems to leave something to be desired, considering what other options are available and necessary.

In short all our wars are wars of choice, and the choices we’ve made have mostly proven poor. Yet the military budget goes up, while the “entitlement” programs are threatened with evisceration or extinction.

Why is it that no one calls the “defense” budget an entitlement program? Considering that the Pentagon cannot pass a basic audit and cannot account for billions given away in no-bid contracts, it would seem to have as much fiscal responsibility — or lack thereof — as the worst hypothetical welfare queen. And you bet the contractors feel entitled to the money; the merest whiff of a cutback and howls of protest are raised, lobbyists dispatched, members of Congress bought.

There are other giveaways that could be termed “entitlement” programs, yet aren’t labeled as such: the FCC’s de facto legalization of media monopolies, for instance, have effectively given away the public airways at zero profit for the public. Wall Street, the author of our current financial woes, makes its money in ways that were illegal not too long ago, before the big banks persuaded both parties to let their lobbyists rewrite the law; when the disasters those laws warded off duly came upon us, we got the “too big to fail” banks back on their feet, which… as might be said… only encourages them. In short Wall Street felt entitled to the people’s money and got it. Finally there are the tax cuts for the wealthy. Ask any of the beneficiaries of those cuts if they’re entitled to keep the money we’re now, in essence, giving back to them.

It is frequently said of giving money to the poor — on the personal or the governmental scale — that it’s worse than useless because “they’ll only buy booze/drugs/etc.” with the money. To my knowledge only my mother has ever said, “Don’t give that CEO a tax cut, he’ll only buy a yacht.”

Perhaps no one calls these giveaways of the public wealth “entitlement” because neither party is at all interested in anything but the status quo (as I said here). But the status quo cannot endure; radical action will be needed. Yet there is no voice for that action. The Democrats and the Republicans do differ somewhat — look at health care — and I do not wish to say that President Obama has done nothing. But he has positioned himself as the ultimate guardian of business as usual. His Secretary of the Treasury was in New York as the economy tanked, and did nothing; his chief of staff is, of all people, a Daley. Guantanamo is still open, the warrantless wiretaps continue. The wars go on, and even spread. Change, indeed. The differences between Democrats and Republicans are clear, and the differences are not enough.

So it is up to us.

It is tempting to say, “We must reclaim the Democratic Party!” — or even the Republican Party instead. But every politician, in either party, is there because they were good at the game as it is. You’d have to gut the party leadership.

In that case it’s tempting to say, “We must establish a third party!” But first off, nothing united the two extant parties more than a third. You might say they feel entitled to their position. And I have to wonder at the long-term wisdom of responding to the GOP becoming the Tea Party and the Democrats becoming the GOP by creating a new liberal party that would, in time, fall prey to exactly the same problems.

No, any purely political solution would be at best a band-aid, at worst cosmetic. Even a constitutional change would only be first aid. Even a grassroots campaign might not have any real effect. None of these methods would treat the fundamental problem that we’re wrestling with.

What we need is not a change of party, a change of government, or a change of constitution. What we need is a change of mind.

Usually when we talk about self-defense, we are referring to defense of one’s person, family, or property against theft or assault. There is a second and broader strand of “self-defense” talk, concerning the defense of a country, usually either the United States or Israel. Finally people speak of defending rights.

What all these usually imply or assume is that there are evil people who would harm us in a variety of ways, and that the natural recourse of good and decent people is to defend themselves violently. Almost all references to “self-defense” that I can think of regard a violent response to a violent affront. Usually there is some connection to the Second Amendment or to the military. Handguns come up frequently. The speakers usually identify as conservative.

Yet there is a far broader definition of self-defense that is equally valid, and far broader means of self-defense that just the violent resort. (I will not say “last resort,” for when the violent resort is available, it is almost never used last.)

Consider the first statement above: self-defense is usually about protecting one’s person. Why do we always refer to protecting one’s person from another person or people? Cannot large, impersonal forces attack our persons do damage, just as lasting and lethal? If our air is polluted, simply inhaling can be an assault, and require self-defense. Consider also that our persons go far beyond our bodies. Harassment and abuse attack our minds and spirits. The women facing catcalls on the streets or unwanted attention at work, and the LGBTQ* people facing bullying or discrimination are under a form of attack too. Then there is poverty, which is not so much an assault as an all-out offensive along every conceivable front. Poverty assails health through inferior nutrition, medical care, environment, and simple stress and exhaustion. Poverty assails minds by consuming or denying chances for education, either by limiting access to good schools or to self-education (if I wish to learn something, I have the leisure and luxury of spending hours reading a book). Poverty assails rights, specifically “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” through all of the above and through diminished political power in a system where money has become equated with speech. Finally poverty assails the dignity and pride of the poor through the daily degradation, the daily reminders that others have comfort and security while they the impoverished live their lives at another’s whim; above all rises the vicious and wrenching slander that poverty is earned, poverty is deserved, poverty is just.

These attacks are quite real, and require just as much self-defense as invasion; more so, perhaps, considering the relative frequency of discrimination and poverty versus robbery or war.

The limited discussion of self-defense also neglects, understates, or simply conceals the other options available for protection. Almost every war I know of could have been prevented through diplomacy. There are lots of stories of robberies averted through simple compassion. More broadly, there are numerous means of self-defense that don’t involve semiautomatic weapons fire. A community gathering together to confront drug dealers, through observation and a refusal to be intimidated, is self-defense. A community gathering together to protect itself from pollution and environmental degradation (which, as Van Jones has pointed out, almost always requries the simultaneous degradation of people) is self-defense–and oftentimes the form the self-defense takes is called “government regulation” or to apply the more true and less obfuscatory name, “law.” Women gathering together to protect themselves against sexual harassment, wage discrimination, and rape is self-defense; it’s called “feminism.” It’s also far more effective self-defense than pulling out a Glock, since so many harassers and rapists are not those “evil people” but friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors. Poor people gathering together to protect themselves against the violent assaults of poverty, in all its thefts of health, power, and pride, is self-defense too. It has gone by many names–Leveling, Chartism, collectivism, socialism, anarchy, unionism, populism–and garnered many insults, too: mob rule is just one that’s relatively polite. The true name, however, is simple: revolution.

By now you many have noticed something: the plurals. Under the more usual definition of self-defense, we usually refer to an individual, one person against the world. Even in wartime, the pressure is to unite, quiet dissent, and bring all people into step under one flag, one leader, one idea. But in the alternate forms of self-defense I’ve just laid out, disparate people come together to protect themselves and each other. There’s self-interest in it, but it’s enlightened, for these groups learned a valuable lesson long ago: when you protect others you protect yourselves. Self-interest isn’t the only motivation before long, because when you work alongside someone bonds quickly form, bonds of friendship and compassion. Self-interest soon becomes selfless interest, and true generosity blooms.

So, my friends: let us defend ourselves! Many of us do already, of course; please, keep it up–and call it by its right name. Reclaim “self-defense” and apply it to its wider and more accurate definitions. Defend our bodies, our minds, our spirits. Use tools, not weapons–the tools of boycott and protest, the tools of organization and discourse, the tools of law. Use the methods of Buddhism and Daoism, deflecting, avoiding, resisting like water. These, the tools allowed us under the First Amendment rather than the Second, are in fact better, for violence breeds violence, but the methods of nonviolence–”the generous grasp”–cut the escalation short, give us lasting peace, and restore those who attack us to their place as neighbors, not “evil people.”

Defend yourselves, and remember always that we defend ourselves best when we defend each other.

I mean that both about my life in general and about me, today. It’s genetic; I can see traces of problems on both sides of my family. I could also attribute it to a biological father who left me and my mother when I was young, or a stepfather who meant to teach me to avoid ego and instead taught me to avoid self-worth. I can blame brain chemistry, an awkward and isolated childhood, my social life, lack of light in Seattle winters. But ultimately blame leads nowhere, least of all to solutions.

For me depression means lack of energy, lack of interest, feelings of hopelessness, and above all a bitter self-loathing and self-sabotage. I can remember feeling sad with no cause when I was very young, and I can remember taking out my frustrations against myself. I learned emotional masochism, making myself feel worse through guilt or making my life more difficult, so that at least I would be in control of the amount of pain I was feeling. Since I was a storyteller from almost my first word, this meant my heroes would all prevail against vicious odds, but pay the price, suffering serious wounds in the moment of victory. They would then live out the rest of their lives maimed and meaningless.

It took twenty-odd years, but eventually I went from telling stories about it to doing it myself. I was a cutter for a year and a half, and I have nearly a score of scars visible on my arm.

One night I tried to go further. I knew a high place, and I intended to jump off it. Something or Someone stopped me, but it was a struggle. I contemplate suicide to this day. I won’t do it. But I think about it. Living is not easy; it’s like going through life in heavy chains, forever constrained by the bonds and by the sheer weight. Everything is a little harder, a little worse, a little more painful, and self-destruction to one degree or another is my constant companion. This is what depression is.

Yet for all this, my case is light. Many days I have no symptoms, and I can live like anyone else. My case is sufficiently mild and sufficiently idiosyncratic that I have never considered medication. I have never trusted any method that would rely on me alone. I am too good at self-sabotage to be solely responsible for my own health. If I chose to take medication, I could just as easily choose to not take it, and frankly, knowing myself, I would stop at the worst possible time.

Besides, I have a cure.

It is not a quick fix; nothing is. My cure is more Sisyphus than silver bullet (and while it works for my mind it couldn’t possibly work for all mental illness). And it is less easily weighed, measured, and dosed than any pill. My cure is other people.

When I look into a mirror, I see flaws, failures, a useless lump of flesh that cannot–will not–accomplish anything that is worth the oxygen it consumes. This is because mirrors lie. We look into them and see what we expect, out of our pride, our misery, or our mediocrity. It takes someone else, someone who loves us for who we really are, to tell us the truth and do what no mirror can: show us our real selves.

Sometimes one person is a strong enough force in my life to bring my mind into balance for a time, by herself. I’ve already written of Jay, who helped me through my addiction to cutting. She didn’t do it herself; she couldn’t have helped me unless I was willing to be helped. And I could not have done it without her to help me. So we owe each other the victory. And Jay isn’t the only one who’s been so stabilizing for me.

Hanging my sanity on one person works, if it’s the right person… but only for a time. If nothing else it’s tiring for them. I try to give back, but I can’t always, not at the right time or in the right way. And even strong relationships of mutual support will eventually end, one way or another, because everyone dies. So the only way I can make my cure work is by drawing on many people, and the only way it’s fair is if I use the strength and stability they’ve given me to help them in return.

I have often wondered why, in the One’s big plan, I was born under such a shadow of depression. And if there is no grand plan, I’ve wondered what use I can make of my illness, how I can make it serve me rather than the reverse.

Now I know.

My cure is the world’s cure, or the beginnings of one. The support I need–and the support I hope I can in turn give others–is the support we all need. I just need a little more of it. No one can go through life alone. Every great hero we’ve ever heard of had a hundred helpers; even Jesus of Nazareth needed family and friends. I have said, “We are one.” This is what I meant. People supporting other people and being supported in turn. Those who have–be it money, power, or in my case just a better view of who I am–supporting those who have not. And then, as all such stories go, the balance shifts, and those who were needy become those who give. Many times it is love and truth, as with me. Sometimes it may be a larger act, perhaps those who have money and power giving to those who need it more, and getting back what they most need: forgiveness.

It all begins in weakness. It begins by saying that we need help, then by asking as I have asked. It is a renunciation of power, a confession of vulnerability, and for many of us it is the most terrifying act of our lives. But do as I have done. Say, in your weakness, “Please. I need help.”

You’ll be amazed, as I have been amazed, at who comes to your aid, and how. Then in time you will become the one to give, so listen to your neighbor’s whispered cry–”Please. I need help”–remember your own weakness, and give to them in the same measure as someone gave to you. And so our weakness becomes our strength.

This is the story of all family, of all community, of every union and every alliance, the story of all democracy, of all humanity. Asking for help and giving it, not once but always, giving back what’s been given, day in and day out. It is the story of all hope.

Give and ask and give again, world without end, forever and amen.

This cut in state support is a tax.

The traditional definition of a tax is money taken by the state under duress, but is this much different? The state is not taxing money, but futures.

The state is also cutting funding for the Washington State Ferry system, once one of the jewels of our public transportation system, by $30 million, meaning that there will be fewer runs and (probably, in time) fewer boats. I know many people who rely on the ferries for many reasons, including islanders who have no other way of getting home. The cuts to the ferry system will inevitably fall on their shoulders in increased ferry fees, more difficulty in travel and commute, and a strain on their time.

This is also a tax. A tax on islands, perhaps.

The state, furthermore, is cutting 17,000 people from the rolls of Washington Basic Health, the lowest-cost health insurance available in the state, to the tune of $108 million. As those 17,000 people were on Basic Health because they could afford no other coverage, this essentially puts them out in the cold with no protection at all. Speaking as someone whose only insurance for the past two years has been the grace of God, I can understand the fear and dread of those 17,000 citizens, who have committed no crime other than being poor in a state that apparently considers poverty worth punishing.

This, too, is a tax. A tax on lives.

These taxes I’ve described strangle people. They steal hope, they steal days and years, they steal breath from bodies. Considering that here among our residents (I need not name names) we have several people with enough wealth to wipe out the state’s deficit and not worry about the check bouncing, and considering we have companies (I need not name names) that make more profit in a quarter than Basic Health costs in two years, and considering that this wealth has not been taxed, I am forced to conclude that there’s one more tax in effect here: a tax on souls. The state government, through its actions and its failures to act, extracts a portion of every soul resident in Washington. This tax policy that lets money go by while putting lives at risk is no less than criminal, and it tarnishes everyone in the state — the politicians for proposing it, and we the citizens for permitting it.

For our own sakes, for the sakes of our leaders, we should end these brutally punishing taxes on the poor and the sick, these levies on those who just happen to be living in the wrong state at the wrong time, and take our taxes from something that — despite appearances — is relatively plentiful: the money that’s out there.

I understand that governments cannot do everything. But if that is true, why must it take its pound of flesh from those who have so little, rather than from those who have so much? I understand the desire to retain one’s property. But does one’s right over property extend to hazarding the lives of your neighbors? I understand that the citizens have reason to distrust the state government with the power of taxing money — I’ve watched one state-sponsored, tax-funded megaproject go up despite the explicit disapproval of the voters, and now I’m watching another roll in without any voting at all. But to respond to such injustice and betrayal by withholding taxes is to punish a dispute between children by starving them to death.

We can do better. We must do better. Yes, there must be reform. Yes, trust must be regained. But when we cut taxes on our wallets we impose taxes on our neighbors. What matters more, our money or their lives? The whole history of human morality cries out, “Life first.” If we cannot help our neighbors through that form of community called government, we deserve neither help nor neighbors.

Tax your thinking on that, and make your choice.

I have just watched a deeply troubling video of a brutal beating. It shows a transgender woman under attack by two women in a Baltimore McDonald’s. The violence is horrifying, and seems to never end; every time the attackers move off for a moment, they come back. The McDonald’s employees largely do nothing, instead recording the attack on a camera phone; one employee does try to stop the beating, but after a brief time he seems to give up. The pummeling doesn’t end until the attacked woman begins to have a seizure, her blood smeared on the floor, and the man recording the incident warns the attackers to run before the police arrive.

First let me state that the footage is not always clear. The video makes the violence plain, but does not reveal motivations, show what is happening elsewhere, follow the incident all the way to its conclusion, or even provide a clear recording of what the people are saying. All that can truly be understood from the video is the flying fists and the blood on the floor. So my analysis here may be flawed on several levels.

This whole incident cuts across so many divisions in American society. Let us count the chasms…

What first leaped out at me is that the attackers appear to be black while the trans woman appears to be white. I say “appears” because again the footage is not always clear; it is difficult to judge race from a blurry cameraphone video — again, we encounter the limits of anything filmed — but also because the racial lines in this country are themselves increasingly blurred. The attacked woman could identify as white or as Hispanic or as almost anything, which underscores the futility of ever judging by skin tone. But this doesn’t mean that we can dismiss the racial element. There seems to be greater resistance toward non-heteronormative identity and presentation from some in the African-American community. I also note that one of the people to interfere in the violence is white, and while again motivation is unknown, a yelling match between an older white woman and a younger black woman will inevitably have some racial overtones.

A second thing that struck me is that both people who attempt to intervene are older than the attackers, while the bystanders seem to be younger people themselves, setting up an age-imbalance dynamic. Speaking as a teacher, I know that younger people do not always react well to being yelled at by older people, or even just being told what to do. I also note from long personal experience that bullying by young people is always more effectively opposed not by adults but by other young people. While this battering is obviously on a different level entirely, the age of the bystanders makes me wonder: if one or more of the younger employees or customers had even spoken up, would the attack have continued so long? The tacit approval of their peers and the presence of a camera might have added to the vitriol of the assailants.

A third divide worth noting is that of citizens vs. authorities. The bystanders warn the attackers to flee before the police come, indicating that the bystanders have more sympathy for the assailants than for law enforcement. The bystanders also make no move to call for an ambulance at first, as this too would draw official notice, until they realize that with the woman’s seizure they have entered a new level. The racial element returns here, and I may also note that trans people may not always welcome the police, either.

The most obvious division, of course, is between heteronormative and transgender women.

The most fundamental divide, however, is “Us vs. Them,” sameness vs. the other, which runs through all the rifts discussed here.

It seems to me that every act of brutality, from this small-scale viciousness to the most dire genocide, hinges on drawing that line between “like me” and “not like me,” and then cutting off those “not like me” from any common feeling. Those “like me” I will protect; those “not like me” I will attack, or permit to be attacked. We are people, They aren’t. And you only have to be good to people.

This incident teaches us all too viscerally of where that line of thinking leads us: it makes us into victims or villains. It leaves us bloody on the floor, or with blood on our fists, or — most likely — watching idle from the sidelines, inactive and yet just as complicit. There are no other options if we divide the world into Us and Them; every act of human violence has happened because people allow people to suffer what they would not suffer themselves.

This incident also teaches us that all our problems are interconnected. We cannot separate the clash of heteronormative vs. transgender from the clash of race, age, class, or power.

And finally, just as all the problems are entangled — just one problem, really: dividing people — then this incident teaches us that we must be united. I write this on both Earth Day and Good Friday. Just as those two occasions are far more connected than you might think, we are all more connected than we realize. Earth Day reminds us that all the people in the video have more in common than they have differences: the same genetic heritage, the same needs and hopes and aspirations, the same oasis home on the Pale Blue Dot They are all human. Good Friday suggests that — now that what’s happened has been done and cannot be undone — then the absolute best possible outcome from this terrible deed would be all the women, attackers and attacked, becoming friends. If these blows do not lead to an embrace in the end, then the attack’s last tragedy rolls around: it cuts the chasms deeper, and hurts all involved again.

I’ve written of what weapons do to us, the harm they inflict in both directions. That is true even if the weapons are words, or fists, or feet, or power, or paychecks. Harming anyone does damage to the harmer. So I mourn for what the attackers did, both to another person and to themselves. And I mourn for the bystanders who let it happen, as I mourn every time we stand by.

All the problems we face are aspects of the dire knot, humanity’s self-division and civil war. All hope we have rests in our reunion. Unless “Us vs. Them” becomes “Us and the Rest of Us,” we can’t even begin to face the catastrophes we’ve brought on our heads, because we’ll still carry the cracks in our hearts, the cracks that will widen to chasms and divide us yet again.

So speak with me now:

All our woes are one. All people are one. All the earth is one. I must be a friend to all my foes, and they must be friends to me, or everything we have and everything we are will always live in risk.

We are one.

We are one.

We are one.