Dear Hillary

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Dear Hillary

I know from watching you for all these years that you have a big heart. I saw you perform as a group presence, which is how the heart always presents itself, in many, many ways besides the efforts you and you husband made to gain the human right of medical care for all people. It Takes A Village, was another heart expression. Because of the fact that it was about children, those who do not see form a heart focus missed that it was a deeply wise observation about raising a Democracy or any other growing thing. (These deeper implications of your thesis, however, did and continue to excite the ire, cynicism,  and criticism of the heartless blind.)

In fact it is because you and the President were so heart motivated that you received such vicious and relentless attention for those eight years. My point: The heart focus attracts the attention of the retrogressive forces. Every heart centered person will travel over such a path. Regardless of one’s place or role in life, the would be heart focused will be “tested”. As it was noted, “Blessed are the obstacles by them we grow.” Perhaps you are familiar with Marianne Moore’s “In Distrust Of  Merits” I have appended it to this note, just in case.

I watched over the years as the heart in you got gradually pushed aside and all but buried in the unending onslaught of the heartless retrogressors that masquerade in the midst of the Republican party. When you faced President Obama in the 2008 primaries, it was all but gone. President Obama was a heart force in those confrontations. And in virtually every day of his presidency he has been moving through that fire about which you know so much.

Today, I see flashes of your heart whenever you address a women's group or speak to woman's issues, and it showed up a few times in the your recent New Hampshire talk. When talking to our Sisters, you have every ounce of your considerable experience  and intellectual strength, and you also reveal the fearless power of the heart. When you speak about Women's issues there is a kind of energy and light that flows through the heart into your speech and mannerisms that touches hearts and then minds with real power.

Noticeably missing in such presentations is even the slightest hint or question of comprise on any of the issues. Nor should there be. The heart does not compromise. That is why so many of our Hearts have been murdered over the eons. For you, for the heart, these are not things that would be nice to have; they are inalienable rights, and we will have them.

Usually, however, when you are discussing other issues of equal importance to Human Rights you present this “reasonable” side, this “pragmatic” side that “knows” from intellect and  “experience”. When you say that you work for what will work, you have already compromised. The retrogressors, who insist that it does not in fact take a village but a few self appointed, strong, invariably “males”, to make things work, already have achieved over half of their objective.

Equal pay for equal work is a Human  Right, that all women should be able to vote is a Human right. These things are not negotiable. There is no compromise here. Since we cannot get equal pay for equal work for women we will settle for 70%, is not acceptable. If  all people should have opportunity to earn a living wage is a Human Right, then agreeing to a less than living wage is no more right than having only married women or blue eyed women vote.

Compromise is always the coward’s half hearted, halfway measure. The heart does not deal in halfwayness, not on women’s issues or on anything that violates the basic Laws of Humanity. These are not things that would be nice to have in a perfect world, but too hard to get here. They are the things that make life on this world work. Without them we are heading toward a very sad ending. 

You have this kind of drive in you, I hope that you will embrace it. Humanity needs another President that is willing to give everything.

lots of love 

-tom

In Distrust Of  Merits

Strengthened to live, strengthened to die for
medals and positioned victories?
They’re fighting, fighting the blind
man who thinks he sees,—
who cannot see that the enslaver is
enslaved; the hater, harmed. O shining O
firm star, O tumultuous
ocean lashed till small things go
as they will, the mountainous
wave makes us who look, know

depth. Lost at sea before they fought! O
star of David, star of Bethlehem,
O black imperial lion
of the Lord-emblem
of a risen world—be joined at last, be
joined. There is hate’s crown beneath which all is
death; there’s love’s without which none
is king; the blessed deeds bless
the halo. As contagion
of sickness makes sickness,

contagion of trust can make trust. They’re
fighting in deserts and caves, one by
one, in battalions and squadrons;
they’re fighting that I
may yet recover from the disease, My
Self; some have it lightly; some will die. ‘Man’s
wolf to man’ and we devour
ourselves. The enemy could not
have made a greater breach in our
defenses. One pilot-

ing a blind man can escape him, but
Job disenheartened by false comfort knew
that nothing can be so defeating
as a blind man who
can see. O alive who are dead, who are
proud not to see, O small dust of the earth
that walks so arrogantly,
trust begets power and faith is
an affectionate thing. We
vow, we make this promise

to the fighting—it’s a promise—’We’ll
never hate black, white, red, yellow, Jew,
Gentile, Untouchable.’ We are
not competent to
make our vows. With set jaw they are fighting,
fighting, fighting,—some we love whom we know,
some we love but know not—that
hearts may feel and not be numb.
It cures me; or I am what
I can’t believe in? Some
in snow, some on crags, some in quicksands,
little by little, much by much, they
are fighting fighting that where
there was death there may
be life. ‘When a man is prey to anger,
he is moved by outside things; when he holds
his ground in patience patience
patience, that is action or
beauty,’ the soldier’s defense
and hardest armor for

the fight. The world’s an orphans’ home. Shall
we never have peace without sorrow?
without pleas of the dying for
help that won’t come? O
quiet form upon the dust, I cannot
look and yet I must. If these great patient
dyings-all these agonies
and wound bearings and bloodshed—
can teach us how to live, these
dyings were not wasted.

Hate-hardened heart, O heart of iron
iron is iron till it is rust.
There never was a war that was
not inward; I must
fight till I have conquered in myself what
causes war, but I would not believe it.
I inwardly did nothing.
O Iscariot-like crime!
Beauty is everlasting
and dust is for a time.

Marianne Moore