Wake Up Laughing, And Wise Up Loving:
The Upwising Has Begun!

By Swami Beyondananda

“We’re not here to earn God’s love, we’re here to spend it!”
– Swami Beyondananda

Well, another 12-month episode of that long-running comedy of situations, Universe Knows Best, is in the can, and you’ll be happy to know the show has been renewed for another season. The Producer thinks it’s hilarious.

However, if you’re like most of us, you really had to strain to hear the laugh track in 2009. Certainly, there was plenty to not laugh about. Take our political system — please!

A year ago, Americans believed they had chosen not just a new President, but a new precedent. Well, now that the hopium fix is wearing off, we must face the inconvenient truth that if we want a truly new deal, we the people must become the new dealer. Unfortunately, the old dealer seems to have dealt a great hand to the uncommonly wealthy at the expense of the commonwealth.

Obama Bails Out Wall Street, and Bails Out On Main Street

Riding high on the shoulders of public opinion, President Barack Obama came down to earth, showing he — like anyone else in the employ of the American Empire — must answer to the Board of Directors, and not the shareholders. To give credit where credit is not due, the Administration bailed out the big banks, which immediately reinvested the money in three big houses: The White House and the two houses of Congress. Yes, it’s a buy-ological fact. When the banks are picking up the tab, the government becomes more usurer-friendly.

No wonder they have names like Chase and Wachovia. Sadly, a lot of little folks are feeling walked over. Last year, downsizing and lay-offs affected every industry. I recently went to one of those 50s and 60s rock music nostalgia shows, and was shocked by the line up: The Jackson Four … The Three Tops … Two Dog Night … and the Everly Brother.

Even I went minus last year, and frankly it left me nonplussed. So I too have had to downsize. I’m now wearing smaller pants.

Meanwhile … the Up-Wising Continues

Fortunately, the up-wising continues, as the body politic now recognizes the difference between change, and chump change. I predict even more awakening and a-wisening in 2010. Americans are waking up left and right, because the news is alarming and the snooze button no longer works. Anger is becoming all the rage, proving once again that

Do we really have a chance to change the world? We do and its possible we are or shall I say Obama is and we can emulate.

As reported by the Miami Herald

“[Obama] listened with an extraordinary patience, and he was intellectually elegant in his responses.” – Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez

“I can’t recall a U.S. president who has sustained such an open-minded dialogue with the region.” – Argentinean Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana

Naturally, all this articulate, respectful diplomacy means one of two things.

One: We are blindly kowtowing to all sorts of scummy, evil forces of the underworld and undermining America’s godlike supremacy, and soon will be overrun by drug lords and baby rapists and fat, sweaty, cigar-chomping socialists who love to coddle baby-raping drug lords. This is known as the “Fox News angle.” Also known as the “Hysteria Special,” and also, simply, “The Limbaugh.”

Option two: We are about to make extraordinary progress in the world, as we set a new tone of intelligent cooperation in our foreign policy, restoring much of the respect and international goodwill Bush so grossly destroyed, as we finally step back up to the adult’s table, not as the domineering father figure everyone fears for his drunken, violent tirades, but as the kind of elegant intellect and influential peacemaker everyone wants to emulate.

That last thing? About emulation? I think that’s the most potentially transformative thing of all.

See, we all know the idea of how Obama’s raising everyone’s game. It’s barely 100 days in and already people speak glowingly of the Age of Obama, how the calm, constructive vibe he exudes like a beacon is actually changing people’s everyday behaviors, redirecting our attention from violence and rancor and overconsumption toward something a little bit lighter, smarter, less fear obsessed, more respectful or even just simply nicer. The bastard.

Upon which we can propose a slightly radical amendment: What if it’s not just us? What if it’s not merely most of America whose behaviors and attitudes will shift and lift accordingly?

What if, as evidenced by the Summit of the Americas, it’s also various prominent world leaders, many of whom formerly loathed or mistrusted the U.S., who suddenly see this highly intelligent, hugely popular, peacemaking U.S. president as worthy of stepping up and emulating? These are massive, tremulous egos we’re talking about. Most of these guys want what Obama has achieved so effortlessly: the deep admiration and trust of his people, near-instantaneous global respect, the power to transform the planet.

What if Obama’s genuine, Zen-like example proves an irresistible lure, as various leaders of the world see that you actually can govern successfully, not via the Bush method of coercion, dishonesty, misprision, antagonism and megalomania, but instead by way of respect and intellectual engagement and minimal drama, by actually not speaking down to your enemies or your own citizens alike?

What if, simply put, many of these guys begin to raise their games, calm the hell down and rise to the occasion of the Obama Era? Is that nothing short of changing the world?

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Thoughts about this column? E-mail Mark.

Mark Morford’s Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate.com. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing. To get on Mark’s personal (i.e.; non-Chronicle) mailing list (appearances, books, readings, blogs, yoga and more), please click here and remove two more.

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Go ahead, let the Obamafied optimism wash over you. For now.
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

You might think it’s all said and done. You might think the economic crisis and the nonstop war and the mandatory belt-tightening means that, despite the Obama-led overhaul about to happen in Washington, it’s still locked down and certain that you have far less mobility, elasticity, karmic wiggle room than you had hoped.

You would be wrong.

I say go ahead. You can still do it. You can still allow a rush of progressive confidence — and even a crazy hint of optimism to begin to wash over you like a warm breeze, like a mad shot of unbridled potential. Despite the housing crisis and the fiscal firebombs and the ugly talk of those enormous, untapped strongholds of racism that won’t truly emerge until Election Day, optimism is still allowed. Required, even.

And that nagging thought that, no matter how glorious an Obama win might be, the stunning all-American hole Bush has dug for us is simply far too deep to emerge from unscathed? Let it go.

Just for now. Just for the moment, as you stare in joyous wonder at all the state and national polls that are increasingly leaning Obama’s way, if not fallen over completely. Plenty of time in the coming few weeks to imagine the uglier possibilities, America’s darker demons, late October surprises. Save that for the final week.

Because the truth is, the notion of an Obama presidency yields many gifts. Foremost: a refreshed intellectual climate, a far higher quality of basic discourse. Squinting and bumbling and “is our children learning” are out, articulation and oratory nuance are in. Out: aw-shucks “go with my gut” Joe Six-pack pseudo-cowboy Jesus-says. In: thoughtfulness, polysyllabic words, sentences with complicated construction and meaning.

The bar has been raised. Or rather, the bar has been lifted out of the cave where it was dumped eight years ago; it’s been polished up, reinstalled.

Will you pause, even for a moment, to mourn the end of shrill “culture war” quasi-issues that clogged the pores of the national complexion and gave Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter their careers? Bible literalism, creationism, intelligent design, and screeching over stem cells, flag burning, “f–k” on TV, abstinence education, feminism, censorship, nipples in public, pregnant teens, birth control, the “war on Christmas”?

The “culture warriors” still scattered across the megachurches and Fox News channels of America, they are muted. Their throats are hoarse from all the screaming. No one is listening anymore. Do you see them there, off in the corner of the Olive Garden, re-scouring “Left Behind: The Final Victory” for something they might’ve missed, their skin turning translucent, their cough getting worse, wondering why it didn’t happen for them as the New Reality begins to sink in?

They know their 15 minutes are up. They know they had their shot, gave it everything they had. Six solid years of complete control, their most potent leaders, their best ideas, war and terror and jingoism, anti-gay anti-women anti-science. Also: a million new surveillance cameras, ten thousand right-wing judges, a front-loaded Supreme Court, pummeling the line separating church and state, blaming gays for 9/11, keeping Christian rock alive, creepy museums in Kentucky where humans walk with dinosaurs.

And they failed. Spectacularly. Historically. Unsurprisingly.

In fact, their failure is now so complete, nearly every idea they offered up now proven to be so regressive and detrimental to the advancement of the human experiment, theirs will go down in history as one of the most profound collapses of any totalitarian power cluster in our short history. Mark your calendars. You were there. You survived. Barely.

Be not like them. Be generous, forgiving, compassionate. Offer them a cup of coffee, a well-thumbed copy of “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” an empathetic pat on the back as you pass by on your way to Burning Man to pick up your fallen hopes and your fire and your newly grinning gods. For they are as lost as the undead, doomed to forever wander the cold purgatory of their shell-shocked fears.

At last, a president who really does care about black people. And minorities. And women. Children. People who make less than two million a year. Animals. Ecosystems. Imagine.

Apathy is the new polyester. Ennui is the new smoking. Willful belly button-pickin’ ignorance of world events, environmental issues, energy policy is no longer considered cute and obvious and painfully American. Can you imagine?

No longer will it be tolerable when chatting up a sweet young thing or an older tasty thing at a bar or fetish dungeon or Whole Foods cheese aisle and casually toss in a reference to Obama’s solar initiative or the multifaceted cultural upheaval happening in China or India, to watch his eyes glaze over as he shrugs and stares at his shoes and mumbles something about getting baked while lubing his skateboard and watching Xtreme Motocross on ESPN2. Next generation’s motto: Engage the world, or become irrelevant.

Oh, there will be recoil. Count on it. There will backlash, green fatigue, a deep reluctance to engage a collective mind so unused to thinking for itself. No matter. We could very well be on the cusp of something new. There is an opportunity to be reborn.

As Bill Maher points out, much of the U.S. has been primed for years to become like a great European city-state: cultured, world-wise, intellectually curious, inclusive and sophisticated, less obsessed with sour Puritanical prohibitions and more fascinated by the interplay of body and mind and spirit and national identity.

But it’s this other half, this uneducated, terrified right-wing Bible set, that’s shackled us to the mammoth cruise ship of ignorance, refusing to let us evolve.

It is, as always, a choice. But right now, it’s a choice hasn’t been this clear, this available, in ages. And right now, it’s certainly helpful, if not mandatory, to be just a little optimistic about it.

I’ve tried very hard to keep politics out of this blog — despite nearly overpowering impulses to the contrary — for two reasons: one, there’s no reason to alienate people who don’t share my political views, as wrong-headed as those people may clearly be; two, there’s no reason to expect my opinion on political issues should be any more valid than any other reader of what, these days, passes for the New York Times.

That said, in light of the extraordinary events playing out around us right now in the run-up to the presidential election, I would like to share with you a personal experience that I was lucky enough to have early last year.

Early in 2007, a friend of mine who is active in both high-tech and politics called me up and said, let’s go see this first-term Senator, Barack Obama, who’s ramping up to run for President.

And so we did — my friend, my wife Laura, and me — and we were able to meet privately with Senator Obama for an hour and a half.

The reason I think you may find this interesting is that our meeting in early 2007 was probably one of the last times Senator Obama was able to spend an hour and a half sitting down and talking with just about anyone — so I think we got a solid look at what he’s like up close, right before he entered the “bubble” within which all major presidential candidates, and presidents, must exist.

Let me get disclaimers out of the way: my only involvement with the Democratic presidential campaigns is as an individual donor — after meeting with the Senator, my wife and I both contributed the maximum amount of “hard money” we could to the Obama campaign, less than $10,000 total for both the primary and the general election. on the other hand, we also donated to Mitt Romney’s Republican primary effort — conclude from that what you will.

I carried four distinct impressions away from our meeting with Senator Obama.

First, this is a normal guy.

I’ve spent time with a lot of politicians in the last 15 years. Most of them talk at you. Listening is not their strong suit — in fact, many of them aren’t even very good at faking it.

Senator Obama, in contrast, comes across as a normal human being, with a normal interaction style, and a normal level of interest in the people he’s with and the world around him.

We were able to have an actual, honest-to-God conversation, back and forth, on a number of topics. In particular, the Senator was personally interested in the rise of social networking, Facebook, YouTube, and user-generated content, and casually but persistently grilled us on what we thought the next generation of social media would be and how social networking might affect politics — with no staff present, no prepared materials, no notes. He already knew a fair amount about the topic but was very curious to actually learn more. We also talked about a pretty wide range of other issues, including Silicon Valley and various political topics.

With most politicians, their curiosity ends once they find out how much money you can raise for them. Not so with Senator Obama — this is a normal guy.

Second, this is a smart guy.

I bring this up for two reasons. one, Senator Obama’s political opponents tend to try to paint him as some kind of lightweight, which he most definitely is not. Two, I think he’s at or near the top of the scale of intelligence of anyone in political life today.

You can see how smart he is in his background — for example, lecturer in constitutional law at University of Chicago; before that, president of the Harvard Law Review.

But it’s also apparent when you interact with him that you’re dealing with one of the intellectually smartest national politicians in recent times, at least since Bill Clinton. He’s crisp, lucid, analytical, and clearly assimilates and synthesizes a very large amount of information — smart.

Third, this is not a radical.

This is not some kind of liberal revolutionary who is intent on throwing everything up in the air and starting over.

Put the primary campaign speeches aside; take a look at his policy positions on any number of issues and what strikes you is how reasonable, moderate, and thoughtful they are.

And in person, that’s exactly what he’s like. There’s no fire in the eyes to realize some utopian or revolutionary dream. Instead, what comes across — in both his questions and his answers — is calmness, reason, and judgment.

Fourth, this is the first credible post-Baby Boomer presidential candidate.

The Baby Boomers are best defined as the generation that came of age during the 1960′s — whose worldview and outlook was shaped by Vietnam plus the widespread social unrest and change that peaked in the late 1960′s.

Post-Boomers are those of us, like me, who came of age in the 1970′s or 1980′s — after Vietnam, after Nixon, after the “sexual revolution” and the cultural wars of the 1960′s.

One of the reasons Senator Obama comes across as so fresh and different is that he’s the first serious presidential candidate who isn’t either from the World War II era (Reagan, Bush Sr, Dole, and even McCain, who was born in 1936) or from the Baby Boomer generation (Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, and George W. Bush).

He’s a post-Boomer.

Most of the Boomers I know are still fixated on the 1960′s in one way or another — generally in how they think about social change, politics, and the government.

It’s very clear when interacting with Senator Obama that he’s totally focused on the world as it has existed since after the 1960′s — as am I, and as is practically everyone I know who’s younger than 50.

What’s the picture that emerges from these four impressions?

Smart, normal, curious, not radical, and post-Boomer.

If you were asking me to write a capsule description of what I would look for in the next President of the United States, that would be it.

Having met him and then having watched him for the last 12 months run one of the best-executed and cleanest major presidential campaigns in recent memory, I have no doubt that Senator Obama has the judgment, bearing, intellect, and high ethical standards to be an outstanding president — completely aside from the movement that has formed around him, and in complete contradiction to the silly assertions by both the Clinton and McCain campaigns that he’s somehow not ready.

Before I close, let me share two specific things he said at the time — early 2007 — on the topic of whether he’s ready.

We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven’t had meaningful experience as an executive — as a manager and leader of people?

He said, watch how I run my campaign — you’ll see my leadership skills in action.

At the time, I wasn’t sure what to make of his answer — political campaigns are often very messy and chaotic, with a lot of turnover and flux; what conclusions could we possibly draw from one of those?

Well, as any political expert will tell you, it turns out that the Obama campaign has been one of the best organized and executed presidential campaigns in memory. Even Obama’s opponents concede that his campaign has been disciplined, methodical, and effective across the full spectrum of activities required to win — and with a minimum of the negative campaigning and attack ads that normally characterize a race like this, and with almost no staff turnover. By almost any measure, the Obama campaign has simply out-executed both the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

This speaks well to the Senator’s ability to run a campaign, but speaks even more to his ability to recruit and manage a top-notch group of campaign professionals and volunteers — another key leadership characteristic. When you compare this to the awe-inspiring discord, infighting, and staff turnover within both the Clinton and McCain campaigns up to this point — well, let’s just say it’s a very interesting data point.

We then asked, well, what about foreign policy — should we be concerned that you just don’t have much experience there?

He said, directly, two things.

First, he said, I’m on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where I serve with a number of Senators who are widely regarded as leading experts on foreign policy — and I can tell you that I know as much about foreign policy at this point as most of them.

Being a fan of blunt answers, I liked that one.

But then he made what I think is the really good point.

He said — and I’m going to paraphrase a little here: think about who I am — my father was Kenyan; I have close relatives in a small rural village in Kenya to this day; and I spent several years of my childhood living in Jakarta, Indonesia. Think about what it’s going to mean in many parts of the world — parts of the world that we really care about — when I show up as the President of the United States. I’ll be fundamentally changing the world’s perception of what the United States is all about.

He’s got my vote.

Ed note: And mine. My sense is that there is one new paradigm presidential candidate and that’s Obama. Clinton and McCain certainly have their strong points but represent a continuation (McCain certainly more than Clinton) of old ways of thinking and the world requires much more than that. As I’ve said before, we don’t need to move pieces around a tabletop. We need a new tabletop and I believe Obama offers that field of possibility that also contains hope and an explosion of imagination and creativity in politics and every other discipline more than the other two candidates.

At this critical moment, we need evolutionary change in the eyes of the electorate and the world. My sense is that Obama will rise to the occasion and provide visionary leadership. Of course, we will only know that after he is elected, but I believe he is just the person we need right now and the people he will bring aboard will be in sharp contrast to an administration that employs more felons than any other and has benefited those with the highest incomes and net worths at the expense of those at the lower end while contributing to the destruction of the environment. Not a very enviable record. Conscious evolution is on Obama’s side.