Deepak Chopra: August 2008 Archives

Listening to Barack Obama's acceptance speech, I got two messages. The first was tactical. Like a general mapping out a battle strategy, Obama has listened carefully to his critics, and in the speech he rolled out rebuttals, one by one, to the charge that he must announce plans and solutions to the country's nagging problems. His trademark eloquence mostly had to wait until the last few moments, but when it came, the giant stadium audience was moved. Yet for all its effectiveness in terms of tactics, the speech didn't dispel the specter that hung over it, and over the Obama campaign as a whole. The second message I heard was one of doubt and bewilderment. Can it really be true that a vast swath of the electorate thinks that Obama isn't an American or Christian, that he's a Muslim who wants to raise their taxes? A wiffle ball celebrity who has no real ideas?

At the root of this specter is apathy and indifference. By now, the country should know who Obama is and what he stands for. Most people do, in fact, and they have picked sides. They probably picked sides months ago, since the better informed a voter is, the more likely they are to make their decisions in the opening months of an election. The least informed and most apathetic voters make up their minds late, and it's these whom Obama must persuade. Can he?

For the past eight years the Republican machine has counted on the power of apathy to win elections. The effect works on several fronts:

--Appeal to bias and prejudice: Tell the voter that he's right to distrust Obama and all black men in general. If you're lucky, no new thinking or attitudes will pierce the shield of fixed opinions.
--Paint easy stereotypes: In Obama's case, the stereotype is of the snob and outsider, the elitist who isn't like you and me.
--Appeal to patriotism: Imply that Obama doesn't love the flag and therefore is inclined to cut and run, give in to foreign enemies, and neglect security.
--Fabricate falsehoods and never back down from your lies: Swift boating is the classic example, but calling Obama a Muslim competes on the same level of sleaze and dishonesty.
--Doubt your opponent's masculinity: This goes along with branding Obama a snob and an elitist but takes a subtle turn with the suggestion that he isn't experienced enough to run a war: he's a green youth sent to do a soldier's job.
--Fan the flames of fear: A tactic that won over the security moms for Bush in 2004 but has since weakened its punch. Fear could easily rise again if there is a major security threat between now and the election.
--Tell the public that everything is fine and not to worry. This is the opposite of the last point, but a certain segment of the population isn't bothered by contradictions. If Obama can be a Muslim and have a crazy Christian preacher at the same time, people might buy that the economy is tanking but there's no need to rock the boat.

It's tragic that these simple, low tactics have been so thoroughly effective since Reagan's rise in 1980, became perfected when the first George Bush slimed Michael Dukakis, and reached an apogee under Karl Rove. It's not an absolute truth that appealing to the most indifferent and least informed voters wins elections. But in an environment where two or three percentage points can shift the Presidency, playing the apathy card seems to work. What Obama has on his side is powerful: higher registration among Democrats, a surge of charisma and optimism, intelligence, a widespread sense that the Bush administration has been a massive failure, all the blunders in Iraq, a sagging economy, soaring gas pries, a mass perception that the country is headed in the wrong direction, and a workable vision for getting America back on track. In ordinary times, these advantages would overwhelm the Republicans and their none-too-strong candidate. Then you look at the polls and ask yourself, If Obama is so obviously superior by almost any measure, why isn't he ahead already?

I don't think anyone knows. We can speak of hidden racism and a need, as yet unfilled, for the average person to find out more about Obama, who remains, oddly, an enigma to many on Main Street. But the larger truth is that we have lived in the post-Watergate era with apathy and cynicism as the common denominator of politics. It would be a greater tragedy if this sad tradition continues, yet it will take nothing less than a sea change to end it.

Get a sneak peak of our new venture at http://intent.com

www.intentblog.com

www.deepakchopra.com

An article in the Washington Post On Faith section in response to their question: Advise John McCain and Barack Obama on the role religion should play in their presidential campaigns.

This will be a short response: I'd advise both candidates the same way. Don't mention religion a single time in the upcoming campaign. Various reverends and pastors have already embarrassed both McCain and Obama, proving that the clergy is even more fickle than the general public. (The fact that these reverends and pastors throw in their private brand of anti-Semitism, reverse racism, social paranoia, apocalyptic fantasies, and other flavors of kookism is even more embarrassing and offensive.) Courting the Christian right worked for the Republican party because the Democrats largely left the field open. Their distaste for wooing fundamentalists was well-founded and remains well-founded.

Religion is a divisive subject, and the founding fathers were wise to dampen its effect on government. Obama had every right to expect a smooth endorsement from his pastor, whom he regarded as a mentor and a friend, but the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was so dazzled by the limelight -- and the scent of political influence -- that he grossly overstepped the bounds of the pulpit. On the right, preachers overstep that boundary and regularly get away with it. They shouldn't. God does not send a signal through any messenger that one candidate is more worthy than another, and anyone who claims to be such a messenger is a fraud. As for Jesus, the Lamb of God is silent on political matters. Take your cue from him, if you need one.

Get a sneak peak of our new venture at http://intent.com

www.intentblog.com

www.deepakchopra.com

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/deepak_chopra/

The saddest part about the period of sleepwalking that the U.S. has experienced over the past eight years is that we don't have to return to the status quo before Bush was elected. History can move forward to the benefit of America, but only if we recognize that some uneasy trends cannot be reversed. The reactionary backlash that allowed the neocon vision to take hold has been disastrous. Since it was based on cherished illusions, there's a strong chance that the voting public might be seduced by McCain's promise of "no surrender" and the promotion of old-fashioned nationalism backed up with overwhelming military threat.
Those illusions need to die, and with them another that prevails on the economic front.

5. The illusion that America and the free market are synonymous. Fifty years ago the slogan "What's good for GM is good for America" was at best a half truth (was it good for women, blacks, and immigrants?), but today, in the guise of the free market, the same shibboleth lives on. Capitalism prevails as a system that once vied, supposedly, with Communism for world dominance, yet its deep flaws remain. Three come to mind. Capitalism discourages equal access to wealth, leading to enormous gaps between rich and poor. The free market lacks a conscience, giving rise to inequalities of education, health care, and job opportunities. Finally, capitalism if unchecked promotes corruption, both economic and political. In the wake of Tom DeLay's corrupt selling of Congress to the highest bidder, the collapse of Enron, and the untrammeled greed that led to the current subprime mortgage crisis, these flaws should be glaringly obvious. They always existed, and yet the illusion of the free market as a godsend and purveyor of all good things persists.

A wealthy society isn't automatically a society without a conscience. The free market's flaws -- which are more than its excesses, the usual term for it -- can be ameliorated. By promoting socialism and Communism as the twin evils that keep the goodness of free markets from flowing, the right wing deals in sheer illusion. Social planning exists in many countries and many beneficial forms, from successful mass transit in Europe to Brazil's independence from fossil fuels. The U.S. is addicted to overconsumption and the ethos of unregulated wealth. It's the robber baron philosophy, with some amendments, all over again. One does not have to claim that the chickens came home to roost in the current economic crunch. In good times and bad society needs to distribute its benefits fairly, to treat every citizen in good conscience, and to promote general well-being, not just the indulgence of the wealthiest.

Under the spell of free market virtue, this country has seen stagnation in benefits, economic and social, even to the middle class, not to mention the poor, whose interests have largely been ignored. Without returning to the welfare state, we need to devise a modified capitalism that encourages humane attitudes over selfish ones. There are many signs that all of the illusions I've recounted are weakening, but choices remain open. The best any citizen can do is to promote the new realism that wants to emerge. Reversing history is a toxic dream. Moving ahead is the only option that favors everyone's well-being in the long run.

Get a sneak peak of our new venture at http://intent.com

www.intentblog.com

www.deepakchopra.com

A great deal of confusion is being stirred up now over where the disastrous experience of Iraq and the collapse of neoconservatism will lead. By an ironic twist, Barack Obama has been labeled an idealist, when in fact he is an arch-realist who detected the need for change much earlier than any other major politician. John McCain, who cannot escape his share in promoting right-wing illusions, advocates the reversal of history, which means ignoring Iraq and continuing on as if it never happened. But some significant illusions died on the battlefield over the past five years, leading to major shifts on many fronts. Let's continue down the list.

3. The illusion of America as the friendly superpower. As pure wishful thinking, this one has no peer, and yet the vast majority of the public still probably believes in it, thanks to a long history of using American power for good. That good is undeniable, but in its shadow the U.S. acts like any other nation state, aggressively promoting its own ends and using military force when it meets opposition. The concept of nationalism by definition excludes other nations, and that exclusion is never neutral. "They" are suspect foreigners who are different from us, not just in their policies but in their moral being. Thus the U.S. has a ridiculous image of vaguely immoral France, and for fifty years the image of evil Russians was promoted without shame as a means of pumping up American militarism. (The public still believes that Reagan toppled an evil empire, ignoring the blatant fact that the collapse of Communism was primarily caused by its own internal failings and dissension within the Warsaw Pact.)

After 1989, when the U.S. became the only surviving superpower, the illusion of our friendliness turned paper thin in the hands of militant neoconservatives who aimed to Americanize the world by force, In total disregard of other traditions and local history, they set out to reinvent the Middle East, essentially by saying, "Our way of life is obviously so much better than yours -- adopt it now or else." Suddenly the friendly superpower found itself saddled, not with the global sympathy earned on 9/11 but its opposite: we are imagined to be a worldwide threat and rampantly selfish in our ambitions to dominate others.

4. The illusion that alliances are expendable. The Iraq war began with touting the alliance of the willing, typifying as right anyone who wanted to fight Bush's cause and wrong anyone who didn't. As if this wasn't divisive enough, the morally righteous countries who joined in the conflict met with miniature debacles that mirrored our own. But Iraq was a nakedly unilateral war when all the verbal gloss is stripped away, and as such it showed almost complete disregard for alliances. In addition, the neocons left the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to fester on its own, the first time since 1948 that the U.S. withdrew its good offices and refused to act as a peace broker despite the crying need for one. But 9/11, plus some canny maneuvering on the part of Ariel Sharon, forced the administration's hand, and a show of allying Israeli and American interests had to be resumed.

The neocons were so certain of American hegemony that the general message sent to our long-time allies was "Who needs you anymore?" This attitude, even if by some miracle of history it proved true, made the world order uncertain and steadily began to allow traditional allies to drift away. Now that American dominance is uncertain, to say the least, two things are happening at once. Europe is feeling friendlier to the interests of Russia and China, while formerly subservient countries have discovered that they can stand up to the bully on the block and not be crushed. This two-sided instability has yet to show how far the U.S. has toppled; confusion still reigns, but the signs are ominous.

(to be cont.)

Get a sneak peak of our new venture at http://intent.com

www.intentblog.com

www.deepakchopra.com

Societies don't remain the same after a war but find that they have radically changed. Sometimes the change is catastrophic, sometimes not. But it can never be ignored. A major undercurrent in the 2008 presidential campaign centers on this fact, because the people who devised and promoted the Iraq war want to preserve the illusion that nothing in America has really changed, when in fact a host of illusions died on the battlefield. On the other side, the anti-war party (as the Democrats became de facto over the past five years) is struggling to invent new realities to replace these lost illusions. The public is caught in between, for there's no doubt that comforting illusions have a way of springing back to life, if only history could be reversed.

Consider the major illusions that perished -- or should have -- in Iraq:

1. The illusion of a "free" war.
2. The illusion that American nationalism is good nationalism.
3. The illusion of America as the friendly superpower.
4. The illusion that alliances are expendable.
5. The illusion that America and the free market are synonymous.

Each one has a complex history and will continue to, but there's no doubt that reality has shifted so dramatically as to undercut all these false beliefs.

1. The illusion of a "free" war. In the wake of the first Gulf war and the so-called Powell doctrine, it was supposed to be true that overwhelming force could reduce U.S. casualties to a bare minimum. Conflicts would essentially cost us close to nothing as long as victory was certain beforehand and technology could quickly overpower an under-equipped enemy. But this notion of a "free" war was dead before it began, as witness the quagmire of Vietnam and the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. A determined insurrection cannot be defeated quickly, easily, or by conventional means.

Iraq was supposedly free in other ways. The war was going to pay for itself through Iraq's resurgent oil revenues -- until the rebels started blowing up pipelines and terrorizing the contractors hired to rebuild the oil industry. Another free aspect was the social cost on both sides. The Iraqi population was going to suffer minimal damage compared to Saddam's elite corps of soldiers in the shock and awe campaign. Instead, innocent citizens died by the tens of thousands, while the Iraqi army dispersed into the shadows and turned into bitter insurrectionists. As for minimal loss to American civilians, it's true that only a small percentage have been wounded or killed, but the vast majority became lulled into allowing the war to continue years after it failed, thus promoting and extending its toxic effects.

2. The illusion that American nationalism is good nationalism. (One could easily say the only good nationalism so far as the right wing is concerned, since God approves of it wholeheartedly) Because of the humanitarian effect of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe in the late forties, the U.S. firmly believes that it holds a patent on good nationalism, the kind that the whole world loves. We are shocked to find out that we might be hated elsewhere, and when that revelation dawns, our nationalism reverts to the bad kind, which invades, kills, and wreaks havoc. After five years of doing this in Iraq, and threatening more of the same in Iran, a realist would abandon good nationalism for something more palatable to the world at large.

Specifically, the U.S. possesses such strength that it can afford to put nationalism on the back burner and reinvent itself as the leader of a global interests vision. There are stirrings of this new role, and it may yet prevail. But a huge amount of old conditioning has to be overcome. We are conditioned to believe that the U.S. is the freest country on earth, which makes no sense given the equal freedom enjoyed in England, Australia, Canada, Scandinavia, and the rest of Western Europe. We conveniently forget the numerous countries, as many as 29 by some counts, that the U.S. has either invaded or tampered with internally since the Fifties. We overlook our greedy overconsumption of natural resources. Most of all, we use nationalism as a wall, protecting our insular view of the world -- in large part the fiasco of the Iraq war was due to deep ignorance about that country and Islam in general. Finally, American nationalism is outdated, running on the fumes of victory in World War II and the notion of defeating nation-based enemies through a large standing army, when in reality the enemy is diverse, scattered, and free from national boundaries. The invasion of Iraq was a nationalist cause to begin with based on landing in Normandy on D-Day, again an illusion that should have died in Vietnam but refused to.

(to be cont.)

Get a sneak peak of our new venture athttp://intent.com

www.intentblog.com

www.deepakchopra.com

An article in the Washington Post On Faith section in response to their question: What's your response to this question from a Post national poll of low-wage workers? "What role does God or your faith play in helping you get...

People need a way to deal with the global changes suddenly surrounding us. As often happens, second-hand opinions are gaining the most power. The vocabulary on the left speaks of positive change, a new order, rising prosperity in what used...