I’m quite sad that Vivek Ramaswamy is out of the Republican race. The way he invited in people he disagreed with was a masterclass in open hearted boundary setting while still speaking to one’s own beliefs. I’m a bit hesitant to write this because of being assigned labels by those quick to jump to conclusions, especially from bleeding heart, my way or the highway liberals. So please allow for the possibility that there’s more nuance in what I write than what you might be seeing a.k.a. don’t assume my political affiliation or where I stand on ALL his policies.

Just yesterday, I had posted how deeply moved I felt by the story of Christina Figueres, the UN diplomat responsible for the success of the Paris Accord, getting 192 countries to sign on after a massively disastrous Copenhagen convention. Her story is a direct modern day example of how if one roots one’s heart in hope, one can bring about massive change at the global scale in otherwise despair-worthy circumstances.

I wish there was space—nay—I hope for space in politics for those who want to solve climate change through the machine of Capitalism. Presently, it seems like climate change is firmly in the Left. And Capitalism is firmly on the Right. (in the US, at least). The current startup I write code for is taking steps in that direction—software defined power grids that can sell excess energy back from businesses and pay them so as to incentivize them to make conscientious use of energy. So you know, Trader Joe’s gets a *monetary* incentive to turn lights off when no one is in the store.

I find it ironic to see educated liberals in democratic countries with a Communist orientation. I hope they talk to any of the Cubans who live in Miami or spend time actually listening to many of the black Conservative YouTubers. By actually listening, I mean, putting aside the part of them that wants to save the downtrodden (a noble heart-centered value) and listen to what the supposedly downtrodden have to say about how they’d like to be saved.

Communists seem to have a tendency to believe that “this time we will get it right” no matter how many times they’ve gotten it disastrously wrong. It’s the essential trait of the Revolutionary. Dogged commitment to bringing about change no matter how much difficulty one faces because one is rooted firmly in an Idea whose time has come, or so one believes. Aquarian Revolution. The question every Communist Revolutionary should sit with is—what do we do after the folks at the top have been toppled? The true Revolutionary answer to this is to keep on generating more Revolutions. Which is what Che Guevara did after succumbing temporarily to the seduction of Power in Cuba. He went to Congo and Bolivia to foment further revolution, dying in the latter country.

I believe educated Communists have extra deep Father wounding. Because they seem to not have much awareness of or care for the work the state does to set up *infrastructure* for commerce. Fathers (in a traditional role) work silently setting up the *infrastructure* for their families. Working homes, efficient finances. Infrastructure is invisible when it all works well. So the effort put in by a father figure in setting up the infrastructure can be invisible too. If one has deep Father wounding (in my work exploring childhood sexual trauma, I’m only too familiar with how horribly deep this wounding can be. I’ve met both men and women raped by their fathers), one might fail to have gratitude for the safety net the father created that allowed for one’s life to unfurl, including in scenarios where deep wounding occurred. If I don’t see the hard work my sexual abuser of a maternal grandfather put in to set up my mom for success and thereby contribute to my emergence on this planet, then I’m just not seeing the full picture. If I don’t see the full picture within, I’ll try to fill the holes inside with revolutions outside, to no avail.

Che Guevara had a warm bond with his father. With Uranus on his rising, he did his soul’s work. Fidel Castro was born out of wedlock and only recognized by his father as a legitimate son in late childhood. (I recognize I’m cherry-picking here.) Fidel clung onto power post revolution.

One of the claims that Vivek kept on making was that “racism is almost over” and that the Left tendencies of shouting down at racists actually feeds the disease that is racism. I mostly agree with the latter. Often when I see angry White anti-racists, I wonder what their relationship with their father is and wonder what their father’s political orientation is. This is not a dunk on “anti-racism” but more so a dunk on anger. Anger channeled outwards at another human is ALWAYS, WITHOUT ANY EXCEPTIONS, regressive. Note here that I’m speaking about anger the emotion, separate from an action and that one could even kill from a place of love (or dharma, which is a facet of Love) as Lord Krishna exhorts Arjuna to do in the Gita. The fire of Anger should ALWAYS be channeled into the Heart and allow for an action to emerge from a blazing heart.

There’s a video of Vivek’s wife, a really soft spoken, intelligent doctor talking to a White couple in the mid west asking them “what do people typically say when they don’t want to vote for Vivek?”. The couple pauses, looks at each other and the lady answers “well, you know, it’s his dark skin.”

When Vivek was making claims about “racism being almost over”, I wonder if he was just pandering (perhaps even unconsciously fawning) to the predominantly White voter base that his ideas seemed to appeal to. I wonder why that is? Why is it that conservative economical ideas in the US have more support amongst White people? Is it that on account of large scale colonial/slavery trauma, darker skinned persons are more trapped in victim identity? Are independence and sovereignty as notions more accessible to white culture on account of the general shift in global power structures towards Whites over the last 500y or so? I’m not sure.

Vivek’s obvious blind spot was his downfall. It’s always been a surprise to me when I’ve encountered racism. I consider myself as an individual who is very successful on many dimensions and generally live with a high sense of self worth. So when I encounter racism, it’s quite a surprise. It doesn’t need to be very overt. It can be very subtle. Inherently, it seems to stem from a combination of unfamiliarity with darker skinned humans and perhaps a disconnection from the notion of immigrating to another country, especially a country represented off-handedly as “developing”, “backwards” as contrasted with the “developed” country one lives in. A white skinned lover of mine once admitted to me that she had never imagined that she’d be in a romance with an Indian man. This really contrasts with my experience growing up sexually on Western porn, where a White woman was considered the trophy, consciously or unconsciously. It stung to hear that. I think most “racist” interactions fall under this category—the deep contrast between “never imagining connecting with darker skin” one one end and “seeing lighter skin as the trophy” on the other end. Which is why on the lighter end, when they are shouted at, it’s “not such a big deal” because from their perspective it’s just not something they had imagined. And I the darker end, it’s a shocker to feel invisible in front of your trophy. I have since attempted to track where my “never imagined”s come into play—easy enough to spot the easiest track, towards lower economical class Indians (& other dark skinned people). There was a moment while I was waiting for the train ride from Gaya to Varanasi, where I was absolutely awe struck by the beauty of a poor villager man, waiting on the train. Absolutely brilliantly dark skin like Krishna himself and beautiful eyes. I don’t think I’ve experienced that much in my life. It was a small success. I see now why some Western tourists click pictures of poor Indians (and then get shouted down by more affluent Indians for poverty porn). Perhaps they see the beauty that we don’t.

Racism exists. Shouting it down with anger won’t fix it.

Democracy is beautiful. Capitalism has more potential than people who complain about it give it credit for.

Feeling gratitude for your father (& all male ancestors) is important irrespective of how horrible they might have been to you, just so that you may see clearly in your day to day life.

The US constitution is a well thought out document (akin to the Indian constitution) and it is a tremendously rare phenomenon in modern history that the foundations of a nation are laid by philosopher kings rather than just plainly power hungry despots. We should cherish that. Cherishing it can be done without pedestaling it as perfect.