In response to the controversy generated by Colin Kaepernick sitting down during the playing of the national anthem prior to San Francisco 49er football games, singer-songwriter and award-winning producer Joe Henry posted the following on Facebook:

Back when my children were still in elementary school, I sometimes drew looks when, at each holiday pageant, I would stand for the pledge of allegiance but always with my hands held behind my back –never across my heart; for in truth –and though I deeply love my country— my allegiance is not first to a nation but to the human family.

So it ever shall be; for I can cherish my country while refusing nationalism, and do.

Such personal choice of expression –as would one to the contrary— falls within my ownership and ultimate authority; and any who might deem otherwise hasn’t understood the concept or its fierce intention.

I come by my citizenship honestly, and by the happy accident of my birth; and thus require no one’s permission to have the relationship with America that I authentically both enjoy and wrestle; refuse the invitation that I leave if I cannot, in fact, love it to the prescribed satisfactions of another. My “marriage” to my culture and nation of origin, then, is as mine to my beloved: private, complex, and –with all due respect— wholly resistant to your concern and druthers.

Likewise, Colin Kaepernick will express his national alignments and the lack thereof as his heart, experiences, and the brutal histories of his peers and elders direct. And those throwing flags suggesting otherwise should go back to saluting their own if so moved –wherever it happens to fly.

Silent and seated observance is neither disrespectful nor unpatriotic; but any insistence that it might be most definitely is.

The Clinton Foundation story highlights a real problem: Big Money gets access.

Unfortunately, the Clintons have not admitted their mistake and many of their supporters decline to criticize them. That makes it more difficult to get Big Money out of politics.

The Clintons are not the problem, which is systemic. I will still vote for Clinton.

But denying that the Clintons are part of the problem will not help us solve it.

Whether specific favors were done is secondary. The primary point is that in general large donations work. They get donors in the door and improve their chance to get what they want. Why would the wealthy donate otherwise?

Mutual back-scratching may be natural. But when large sums of money are involved, it changes the transaction. We cannot scratch backs they way they can.

Why did Clinton Foundation staff ask State Department staff for any favors for their donors? They could’ve just told them, “Sorry. I can’t help you. That would not help us achieve our charitable mission. We are are not political. We can’t help you with the government.”

Prior to being appointed Secretary of State, Senators warned Hillary to avoid even the appearance that donors would be able to influence the government by donating to the Clinton Foundation.

But she ignored their advice. And they think making Chelsea President of the Foundation will solve the problem?

Granted, access is the main issue. But State-department approved arms deals suggest the strong possibility that donors got more than access.

To prevent them from influencing the government, foreign governments buying American-made arms are barred from making campaign contributions. But it was legal to donate to the Clinton Foundation.

Seventeen of the twenty countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation saw increases in arms exports authorized by Clinton’s State Department. All of the countries listed on the Foundation’s website as having donated $5 million or more received arms. None of the countries that receive no U.S. arms donated to the Clinton Foundation. Were those mere coincidences?

And it’s been documented that Hillary was personally involved in at least one of those deals. As David Sirota reported:

…an assistant secretary of state, Andrew Shapiro, declared that the deal had been “a top priority” for Clinton personally. Shapiro, a longtime aide to Clinton since her Senate days, added that the “U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army have excellent relationships in Saudi Arabia.”

American defense contractors also donated to the Foundation and paid Bill Clinton speaking fees.

Sirota wrote:

Hillary Clinton’s willingness to allow those with business before the State Department to finance her foundation heightens concerns about how she would manage such relationships as president, said Lawrence Lessig, the director of Harvard University’s Safra Center for Ethics.

“These continuing revelations raise a fundamental question of judgment,” Lessig told IBTimes. “Can it really be that the Clintons didn’t recognize the questions these transactions would raise? And if they did, what does that say about their sense of the appropriate relationship between private gain and public good?”

If Hillary and her supporters were to acknowledge that she mishandled this issue and use it as an example of why we need to get big money out of politics, it would be encouraging.

By Alan Levin

If one seeks inner peace, tranquility and serenity, all relationships are a challenge. When we look at how even a personal relationship founded in love can be at times so difficult, it is easy to see why our community, national and international relationships (which are essentially what politics is about) border on insanity. Yet, we are inevitably involved in these relationships.

I’ve been told many times by people on a spiritual path that they will no longer pay attention to politics; “There’s too much fear and anger; it’s too disturbing and unproductive.” Yet, before long I always hear those same people complain or express their anger at what is going on. It’s only natural to feel the distress at injustice, the oppression of one people by another, the destruction of the natural balance with Mother Earth. These people are, after all, our brothers and sisters; Mother Earth is our mother. As Bernie Sanders says, “We hurt when they hurt.” There is no escaping it, least of all through spiritual awareness which makes us even more sensitive to our interconnectedness.

The pain we feel is the calling of attention to problems that won’t go away by ignoring them, nor by wringing our hands. The pain calls us to heal and to act. To act wisely, yes. To act with compassion, yes. To act with awareness of the ultimate peace that abides at all times throughout all this, yes. Truly, it is from that peace that right action flows.

Being honest here, the recent events in Baton Rouge, in Minnesota and in Dallas had me floored, disheartened and feeling hopeless. I still feel a deep heaviness in my heart, even more so by the divisive reactions to the events that seem to be escalating. For myself, I have found that meditation and related spiritual practices allow me to return to the deeper truths, to regenerate my body and mind, and to reconnect with that eternal optimistic Spirit that creates and affirms life.

I really don’t have the answers to our collective problems. But I do know that for me, as a White male, I need to stand in solidarity with those whose peace of mind, in fact their lives, are threatened every day because of the color of their skin. I need to do my part to help end the fear and racism with which we all have been infected. I need to, as Clarissa Pinkola Estes says so movingly, wisely and eloquently, “mend the part of the world that is within my reach.”

Please read Ms. Estes’ very inspiring and wise words below.
Thank you for doing your part

in and for peace,

Alan
www.SacredRiverHealing.org

(P.S. I am open to and appreciate your own thoughts and feelings. If you would like more information on groups and books that offer perspective on integrating spirituality and the political world, I would be happy to share that with you.)

We Were Made For These Times

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

By Clarissa Pinkola Estes

American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves.

Re: Wade’s Bio

I am 63. I was 19 when I started going to same sex dances at Alternative Futures Commune. I read your bio and unbeknownst to me, I discovered you’ve been behind or integral to most of the stuff I have been involved with all of my life: Network Against Psychiatric Assult, Madness Network News, Other Avenues Food Store, The Tenderloin Times, etc.

Just sayin’.
Best wishes

–Dennis Conkin

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My friend…he has and continues to change the world…one conversation at a time.

–Charla Doughty

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Impressive credentials, sir!

–Rene Burke Ellis

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Re: I Love Donald Trump

I think this is the best thing you’ve written. Thanks.

–Nedi Safa

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Excellent piece, Wade. I’m proposing that the “our revolution” movement, following up on the Bernie political revolution, include a spiritual openness that speaks directly to your concerns for compassion towards all.

–Alan Levin

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Re: Birthday Reflections: 2016

Thanks for sharing — your dream and your frustration. I support the former and somewhat understand the latter.

The one suggestion I have is as follows:

Create an online ‘community of interest’.
Initial members = those you know and have communicated with in the past.
Each is encouraged to invite others to join.
All are encouraged to share ideas and respond to ideas.
Separate action groups can be formed as ideas gain traction.
Engages the introverts who are not face-to-face oriented.
Engages the young who are online oriented.
Has national reach potential – with local action groups as useful.

I have run a modest version of this for 13 years and have found it personally effective and rewarding.

Happy to share ideas on this.

–Larry Walker

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Thanks Wade for sharing from your heart and soul. Jan and I would like to get together again sometime. Have you tried the Green Party? Jill Stein presents a real altrnative to the two war candidates. The lack of community in SF is tragic.

Talk with you soon.
Peace,
David Hartsouugh

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Re: Class Myopia

I think you are really onto something very important, Wade. Myself, I pride myself as class-conscous, but I think I too, as low on the class totem pole as I am (or was? I am not sure), I was still looking down at certain people.

As regards Trump, I see lots of prestigious people getting all excited about the GOP establishment to some extent turning on Trump, but they don’t seem to see how few Trump supporters really give a shit about what they think. Nobody wants to be condescended to.

–Ted Chabasinski

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Sad story …! On point:

The Original Underclass

–Yahya Abdal-Aziz

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I think you have made important points. If the interests of working people were really paid attention to by the existing “major” parties, someone like Trump would get no attention.hadn’t thought much about this “upward mobility” stuff before. I’m glad to be in this discussion…. We see this elitism on the left within its own organizations as well. For all the talk of “the one percent,” it is the well-off people who dominate our organizations.

I have seen that talking about classism seems almost banned on the left, especially by the people who have a lot of class privilege. They are very good at dishing it out, but when they are criticized, they almost go berserk.

I too used to think talking about class was pretty far out and sounded sectarian. Not any more. If we don’t deal with it in our own organizations, how can we say we are trying to create a more democratic society?

–Ted Chabasinksi

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unless by progressive you mean Hillary and the democratic party i can’t accept your characterization fully… progressives have been working for single payer and many of the benefits that cohere with that view but they haven’t, until Bernie, really had a platform. those with the platform have ranged from middle or moderate to extreme right so though we’ve worked on working class issues we haven’t been heard… business-as-usual has created alienation & that trump captures, part of it, Bernie another part. True, progressives I know, including me, rarely attempt to bridge the gap with right wing workers but we support left workers, unions etc;

–Tom Ferguson

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Interesting Wade. As you know, I read your emails, but rarely reply. This one calls me to respond: “But his [Donald J. Trump’s] performance has provided a great service. He has helped expose how progressives have ignored, disrespected, and failed to address legitimate concerns felt by white poor and working class people who suffer immensely from economic injustice. ”

This, I believe, is NOT TRUE. “Progressives have not ignored, disrespected… etc.”

College graduates, at least those of us who are women, ARE THE WORKING CLASS. We have, for the most part, failed to achieve our highest possible potential, only because we are female (and hold up half the world? Pretty heavy burden, eh?) Not that we haven’t tried, and still are moving forward. Our daughters and granddaughters do indeed have more options than we ‘baby boomers’ did, and we’re not about to stop now.

I am feeling sad to find you on the side of the white male power structure Wade. Donald Trump is a buffoon.

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Re: “The Original Underclass”

This point, of elitism among liberals, needs to be talked about a lot more. Thanks for discussing it.

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i definitely agree, in fact it’s imperative. ego’s been running things for a long time. if that doesn’t change we’re going to have to leave the experiment with consciousness to some other galaxy. my guru in this area is eckhart tolle (as you know Wade). I dabble in a combination of tolle’s idea of becoming present by suspending or observing mind chatter, and chomsky’s idea of activism – the latter enhanced in effectiveness by the former… but I also am interested in pursuing music as a means to fun, yes, but also to presence. The liberals that appear on TV, aside from Bernie who is still quite marginalized, and a few uneven personalities on MSNBC, seem more like republican-lite to me, like Hillary. And yes, poor whites don’t see much addressing of their lives… the TPP , NAFTA etc; have impacted working people big time and all i see is more of the same in the mainstream… thus trump’s appeal, false of course but all there is, like brexit, to many.

–Tom Ferguson

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Re: Hillary, Be Vulnerable and Be Positive

Great post, Wade, as usual, I hope she reads & heeds!

–Joyce Beattie

‘

Born in Little Rock in 1944 and raised in Dallas, Wade Hudson moved to Berkeley in 1962 to attend the University of California. He soon became immersed in most of the movements associated with that era, including the civil rights, human potential, counter culture, peace, student, black liberation, cooperative, women’s liberation, sexual freedom, and environmental movements.

In 1967, Wade received a Bachelor of Sciences with a Field Major in Social Sciences (and a concentration on political science and psychology) and entered the Pacific School of Religion (also in Berkeley), planning to work with the Methodist Church as an organizer of “communities of faith, love, and action.” While a student there, he helped organize the New Seminary Movement.

During those years, Wade was employed as a paperboy, short-order cook, bicycle messenger, store clerk, psychiatric orderly, hospital orderly, and church counselor.

In 1969, Wade moved to San Francisco, worked as an Intern Minister at Glide Church, intiated the Alternative Futures Community, and made a life-long commitment to community organizing rooted in “the integration of the personal and the political.”

Throughout the 1970s and most of the 1980s, he initiated a number of grassroots organizations, including the Network Against Psychiatric Assault, Muni Coalition, Bay Area Transit Coalition, District Eleven Residents Association, Bay Area Committee for Alternatives to Psychiatry, Tenderloin Self-Help Center, Tenderloin Jobs Coalition, and the 509 Cultural Center. He also volunteered with Madness Network News, San Francisco Community Congress, and other community-based projects, and co-edited the Madness Network News Reader (Glide Publications).

During those years, Wade was employed as a Mental Health Counselor at Marin Crisis Clinic, Coordinator at Outer Sunset Community Food Store, Staff at Campaign Against More Prisons, Manager at South of Market Food Co-op, Co-Editor at The Tenderloin Times, Resident Manager at Aarti Housing Cooperative, and part-time Cab Driver at Yellow Cab Cooperative. He also served on the Boards of Directors for Baker Places, Westside Community Mental Health, and Regional Young Adult Project, and served on the District Five Mental Health Advisory Board, San Francisco Mental Health Advisory Board, and Vanguard Public Foundation’s Community Board.

In 1988, Wade moved to Washington, DC, where he conducted research on national economic policy and worked part-time at SANE/Freeze (telefundraiser) and the Center for the Study of Psychiatry (research assistant).

In 1989, he moved back to San Francisco, worked as a part-time cab-driver, founded the Solutions to Poverty Workshop that developed a ten-point program for ending poverty, and organized the Campaign to Abolish Poverty, which persuaded Congressman Ron Dellums to introduce the Living Wage Jobs For All Act. Wade then wrote Economic Security for All: How to End Poverty in the United States and organized the Economic Security Project, which opened the Internet Learning Center as a place for low-income people to improve their computer skills. He also served on the national governing board for the Alliance for Democracy and initiated the San Francisco Progressive Challenge, which supported the Progressive Challenge organized by the Institute of Policy Studies.

In early 2000, Wade moved to a cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains, where he took a partial sabbatical from activism, brainstormed with friends and associates about possibilities for new political projects, and volunteered as Co-editor of Inlet.org, a progressive web portal. In mid-2000, he obtained his taxi medallion and became co-owner of Yellow Cab Cooperative, which appeared to provide him with his own economic security.

In March and April 2003, during the U.S. invasion of Baghdad, Wade served with the Iraq Peace Team, a project of Voices in the Wilderness. His Baghdad Journal was widely circulated on the Internet and used by high school teachers. Upon his return, Wade self-published a small book, Promoting the General Welfare: A Campaign for American Values.

In early 2004, he moved back to San Francisco and initiated the Toward Peace website, the Strategy Workshop to explore how the progressive movement might be more effective, and the Reaching Beyond the Choir Project. In late 2004, with Michael Larsen, he initiated the Progressive Resource Catalog. In 2007, he self-published Global Transformation: Strategy for Action.

In 2008, Wade volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign and communicated extensively with the national office concerning post-election possibilities and co-convened with Roma Guy the Post-Election Workshop, hoping in vain that the Obama campaign would morph into a national grassroots organization.

In 2009, Roma Guy and Wade co-convened the first Compassionate Politics Workshop. In late 2010, he joined the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples and initiated a blog, Wade’s Weekly. In early 2011, he helped convene the Second Compassionate Politics Workshop. In 2012, while immersed in Occupy San Francisco, he organized the Occupy Be the Change Caucus and the next year initiated the Holistic Three-Fold Path Workshop and created the short-lived Reform-Wall-Street.org website.

In 2013 he launched Wade’s Wire and took a nine-month road trip to write his autobiography, My Search for Deep Community, which he self-published the next year.

In 2014, he was elected President of the Western Park Residents Association, where he lives, and served one year.

In 2015, the emergence of Uber wiped out his retirement plan, forcing him to shift to working full-time in order to save money for his old age. And in an unsuccessful attempt to support the development of a unified taxi-community alliance to defend the taxi industry, he created the TaxiTalk,info website and published a newsletter for drivers to distribute to their passengers.

Since June 1, 2017, he has been retired from cab driving, which leaves him free to pursue his passions full-time.

As he wrote for Birthday Reflections, 2016:

On my 72nd birthday, my path forward is unclear. I know what I want but I don’t know how to get there.

I want to participate in a holistic, powerful, democratic, inclusive, multi-issue, nonviolent, national organization that:

• Is dedicated to steadily transforming this nation and its social system into a compassionate community dedicated to the common good of the Earth Community.
• Builds momentum with evolutionary revolution by backing progressive positions that already have the support of a majority of Americans.
• Grows a network of small groups of individuals who share that commitment and explicitly support one another in their efforts to become better, more effective human beings.
• Encourages members to engage in active listening, appreciative inquiry, and respectful, non-dogmatic, non-ideological dialog.