I spent two months in Spain years ago and in every European city I have ever visited, I have envied them their extensive rail systems. For my honeymoon a couple of years ago, we traveled all around Italy completely by train and it was a lovely experience.

Before the light rail opened here, all we heard was morons bitching, moaning, and groaning about how no one will use it and what a waste of money it will be. How amazingly short-sighted people are! As it turns out, people LOVE the light rail and ridership has far exceeded what even the city planners expected. Last night there was a game at the “Bobcats Arena” and the train was chock-a-block! No one will ride it indeed! Yes, of course, people would rather sit in traffic inhaling fumes, getting their blood pressure up instead of riding the train, relaxing, reading the paper or listening to an IPod when the option is available.

So last night, thanks to the train, we had a fun night out with dinner and drinks downtown. Before all the drinking, the hubby and I headed to an RV show. Thinking that we had narrowed down the options, we decided this time to focus on a low-priced fifth-wheel, the stablest of the trailers. As usual, we left more confused than when we arrived. We’re told that an RV loan is tax-deductible as a second home. A smart salesman told us all about people who transport trailers for you and how some people park them at desirable locations such as the beach. That would solve the problem of where to store the trailer and provide a guaranteed beach vacation whenever we want. So now we’re thinking, maybe we want something a little nicer if we’re going to be keeping it as a “second home?”

Lots of fun decisions ahead.

Last weekend, my husband and I were searching for something to rent from Blockbuster and discovered that every single plot has been done. There are no new plots. Then my husband saw “Bobby,” so even though I knew it wouldn’t be uplifting, we decided to rent it. My husband didn’t know what to expect, just like I, embarassing as it is to admit, know even less about British politics and history. (Except the part where we threw away their tea in the start of the “War of American Rebellion” as someone close to me has been known to call it.)

The movie was okay. It was a story about fictional characters who are shot in the Ambassador hotel (demolished in 2006) the night Robert Kennedy was shot. Only the ending of the movie had anything to do with Bobby, as the soundtrack from his speech, “Of Mindless Menace and Violence” plays over the remaining scenes. To me, the speech is heart-breaking and I can never hear it without getting upset and wondering what would our country, and our world be like today if he, as well as King, hadn’t been killed?

Here’s a portion of Kennedy’s speech, “Of Mindless Menace and Violence,” so much of it relevant today.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man’s spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Dare we have the audacity to hope? Can we return to a nation with higher ideals and integrity?

We desire something greater than large sums in corporate bank accounts. We crave a return to harmony, a national dialogue that brings us toward each other instead of the constant barage of divisiveness that drives wedges between us, a national dialogue that reminds us to find our commonality and remember our collective responsibility to one another. We need a president who elevates us to something greater than a constant search to fulfill our own individual selfish wants, but to find our deeper purpose and helps us to exercise our capacity for more noble motives, which include concern for the well-being of the majority instead of an interest in the grand profits of a select few.

Mostly we crave a return to a respect for diversity, where we have respect for the ideals of our founding fathers who designed our political system so that private matters, such as religion, remain in private spheres where they belong. Instead of trying to force everyone to adopt the same religion, all the while claiming that we’re not, wouldn’t it be great if we could return to a time when we’re proud that people with different cultures, ethnicities, and religions can live in harmony, not secretly hoping that we were all the same, but loving the fact that we’re not, learning as much as we can from each other, about each other, and about ourselves. Instead of hiding in corners where we never have to think about our own beliefs and values, what if we sought to have a circle of diversity so that we might gain complete inner clarity, come to the best solution when confronted with a decision, and become skilled and careful thinkers? Wouldn’t it be nice if we and our neighbors were less easily seduced by rhetoric, but were more interested in facts and truth? Wouldn’t that be a great country to live in?

You can find the audio of Kennedy’s speech here, and more speeches here. Won’t it be refreshing when our next president has a command of his native language and has greater ideals than making his wealthy cronies even wealthier.

Incidentally, if you ever have a chance to watch any of the American Experience Series, The Presidents, they are phenomenal!

If that doesn’t work, you can always resort to chocolate fondue:
~ Get a microwave safe bowl.
~ Pour in some chocolate chips.
~ Mix in some Kahlua, or liqueur of your choice.
~ Melt 30 seconds in microwave. Stir. Melt a little more.
~ Add whipping cream. Stir.
~ Cut up fruit. Dip. Eat.
~ Be happy.

One of our friends from Hong Kong last night arranged a traditional Chinese dinner at a local restaurant. It was essentially an endless course of delicious food that was delivered to the table, one scrumptious dish after another. It’s true I’ve only celebrated one Chinese New Year, but so far it ranks far above both the Jewish and the American New Years.

To add insult to injury, as I sit here in my cubicle, I think about how my friend, who a year ago sat in this very spot, is probably making muffins in Hawaii as I type this sentence. She acquired this B&B in December and then without any effort on her part, like magic, the New York Times just ran a whole article about great deals in Hawaii, mentioning her very establishment. She emailed me last week to say her phone started ringing off the hook the morning the article ran.

I am so happy for her that things are working out so well. She deserves it. If she’d find time to get to the computer, we could launch her new site and maybe even get me some exposure, so maybe I could escape my life of cubicle imprisonment.

“At home, you know, you never have a big joint. And it’s really lovely to have something of a really nice, big joint.”

What in the…? Wow. The sixties really took hold there. “Are they in Amsterdam?” I asked.

1) Solve world peace.
2) Fix problems in Africa.
3) Reclaim OPACY from the Red Sox fans.

Three is looking challenging, but I’m optimistic that one and two are within reach. We’ve already figured out why smart people believe dumb things. Check. Now, if I can figure out why people turn toward evil deeds, maybe I can tackle all three goals at once.

I’ll spare you the heartbreaking bit of the introduction about Rwanda that made me wish I believed in hell, that is in terms of an afterlife, because there’s plenty of hell on earth. I will share a few passages about the power elite that reminded me of Pierre Bordieu’s work, Language and Symbolic Power, a tough, but interesting read if you can get through the page long sentences. I’m not kidding. How in the hell anyone managed to translate the original French is beyond me, but I guess that explains why I’m in a dead-end job and not a smart capable type who is making gobs of money translating French books, sipping cafe in a cafe, manging Napoleons and fraises-stuffed crepes. But I’ve digressed.

Think about this.

The Power to Create “The Enemy”

The Powerful don’t usually do the dirtiest work themselves, just as Mafia dons leave the “whackings” to underlings. Systems create hierarchies of dominance with influence and communication going down–rarely up–the line. When a power elite wants to destroy an enemy nation, it tuns to propaganda experts to fashion a program of hate. What does it take for the citizens of one society to hate the citizens of another society to the degree that they want to segregate them, torment them, even kill them? It requires a “hostile imagination,” a psychological construction embedded deeply in their minds by propaganda that transforms those others into “The Enemy.” That image is a soldier’s most powerful motive, one that loads his rifle with ammunition of hate and fear. The image of a dreaded enemy threatening one’s personal well-being and the society’s national security emboldens mothers and fathers to send sons to war and empowers governments to rearrange priorities to turn plowshares into swords of destruction.

It is all done with words and images…The process begins with creating stereotyped conceptions of the other, dehumanized perceptions of the other, the other as worthless, the other as all-powerful, the other as demonic, the other as an abstract monster, the other as a fundamental threat to our cherished values and beliefs. With public fear notched up and the enemy threat imminent, reasonable people act irrationally, independent people act in mindless conformity, and peaceful people act as warriors. Dramatic visual images of the enemy on posters, television, magazine covers, movies, and the Internet imprint on the recesses of the limbic system, the primitive brain, with the powerful emotions of fear and hate.”

Zimbardo promises to answer these questions:

How do ordinary people adapt to such an institutional setting? How do the power differentials between guards and prisoners play out in their daily interactions? If you put good people in a bad place, do the people triumph or does the place corrupt them? Would the violence that is endemic to most real prisons be absent in a prison filled with good middle-class boys?”

My hope is that if we have the language to articulate and a cognitive knowledge of how we’re manipulated, we’ll be resistant to it. As Zimbardo states,

“…how we can resist unwanted social influence, how to build resistance to the seductive lures of influen[tial] professionals…how to combat mind control tactics used to compromise our freedom of choice to the tyranny of conformity, compliance, obedience, and self-doubting fears…By understanding how social influence operates and by realizing that any of us can be vulnerable to its subtle and pervasive powers, we can become wise and wily consumers instead of being easily influenced by authorities, group dynamics, persuasive appeals, and compliance strategies.”

We are capable of great evil, but we are also capable of being heroes.

I’ll end this post with a link to this picture of Rosa Parks, which my friend Chris just coincidentally sent to me because he was fascinated with her eyes. Look at what they say: “I’m strong. I’m disgusted. I am not intimidated.”