MEETING THE OPPOSITE

Shaktima Brien

"Why him? Why not me? I should be there, not him!" Peter said, biting his lips and fidgeting, while watching President Clinton at the White House on TV. Later that night, Peter explained in detail to a radio talk show host, how Vince Foster's body, the White House Deputy Counsel in 1993, had been found with blood dripping upstream instead of downstream, which was a proof that the corpse had been moved before it had been found, and that was another fishy intrigue on Bill Clintons road to power. The radio host hung up on Peter. I, wide awake in bed at, freezing and waiting for Peter's body to warm me up at two o'clock in the morning, was hearing him from the living room, clearing his throat to swallow his pride and feelings of powerlessness. Nobody listens to me, he said, coming to bed. Well, maybe you could use a reporter's voice, instead of sounding so fanatic, I timidly said. It was 1993, and I was living in West Los Angeles with my opposite, a Christian Republican and a computer scientist with military background, whose family 'had fought for freedom all over the world from the Civil war to the modern times', he had told me. "Freedom comes with responsibilities, and Clinton is compromising the integrity of this country, Peter said. As a French journalist, I wanted to understand what he was trying to tell me, --what the words meant to him. I wanted to know this kind of American I had never met before, so that I could better understand where he was coming from, and have a larger view of the world. We agreed to communicate our religious and political views without getting angry or starting to despise each other for our differences. Easier said than done. He continued to sulk, flare the air waves, flame the Internet, and become ill-tempered, aggravating everybody on the air waves and in the Internet chat-rooms. *** One day, he woke up all excited: "We will get Clinton out of office before the end of his term!" "And why would you do that?" I asked. "For corruption and abuse of power," Peter snapped, leaping out of bed, and running to his networks of fuming dogs online and the radio, -- from Gordon Liddy to Rush Limbaugh. "What do you have against him?" I asked, starting the coffee in the kitchen. "Clinton represents the worst of his kind. He lies, abuses, manipulates and cheats for his own purposes. We will impeach him!" I poured the coffee in mugs, searching for words to appease his feverish anxiety. "Aren't Clinton's social programs good for people?" I asked. "Doesn't Clinton want freedom for us as much as for himself?" "The difference is that I really fought to earn that freedom, while he sneaked out.

I sacrificed four years of my life in Vietnam," Peter said, tears coming to his eyes. I was touched. "I didn't know you had fought for freedom," I said. "Like many foreigners and some leftists, I was under the impression that Americans fought to rule the world." We didn't ask to fight in Europe. We have been asked, and implored to help get rid of Hitler, he said. I moved things from the couch, taking time to turn my tongue seven times before saying what was burning inside since a long time: Ironic! I always perceived the Conservative-Republicans as being restrictive, oppressive and dictatorial as fascists." Peter reddened. What you don't seem to realize is that the Democratic Party lives from people's abandonment' of responsibilities, so that big daddies at the government, bureaucrats who produce nothing but rules to tell you what to do or put sticks into your wheels. I had never thought of that, as I had never anyone around to give me that perspective. A small government encourages personal initiative, letting the people organize their own lives. We like to take care of business ourselves," he said. Don't you? Of course! I went to the kitchen to breathe, and assimilate the shared content, head spinning with more doubts and questions. *** "In the fifties, Communism started to infiltrate the government, schools and universities to impose values such as 'don't worry, we'll take care of everything for you,'" Peter continued later. This was a perfect set-up for corruption, public servants aiming at a long-term security jobs in heavy, hierarchical abuse of powers bureaucracies." I didnt react, and went to make the bed to reflect. This led to the students' revolution in the Sixties, a cancer that started to sabotage individual minds and freedom," he rambled, following me, helping. I was shaken by his revelations. Call me university ignorant, like I had heard my father say many times, those perspectives were new to me. I was educated in liberal institutions, where the Russian Revolution and its authors were regarded as heroes by thinkers of the Sixties. "I read Trotsky, and admired Che Guevara for talking in terms of 'camaraderie and equality for all', I said, arranging bedspread and pillows against the wall. That sounded more democratic than conservative, who condemned sex and freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is okay, as long as you don't ask me to pay for it, like to subvention art that pisses on me, he said. In my mind, the fascists are the oppressors, those who profit from others. Communists and socialists look at long-term, survival solutions for all, like the sharing

in the profits." "Whose profits?" Peter asked. I left the room to take a shower. He joined, starting to shave his beard. "It seems that socialist-communists need large organizations to handle masses of helpless people who never learn to take care of themselves," Peter said. "Masses that want to depend on large organizations of loafers to secure their life, pension and future. At the other end, the Republicans say 'you are free to start any enterprise and succeed; you are in control. You are a leader, a creator'. Socialism and communism depend on masses of weak people to stay in power," he said, heightening his voice over water and razor noises. "Yet, I don't see you as a free man!" I yelled. "I am free!" he yelled louder. "I have choice of career and religion. I can earn as much money as I want to, and can study anything I want. While he was brushing his teeth, I told him that to me, freedom meant to be free from belief, religion, dogma, rule, authority, boss, and even money. "You liberal," he said, choking, you are such a rebel!" How free from God's threats of burning in hell for eternity are you, since you have been trained with that kind of beliefs? "I can't help but be totally disgusted by Clinton's behavior," Peter continued, spitting into the sink, ignoring my comment. "Why do you hate him so much?" We continued to groom, and got dressed. "First, he escaped military service. How can I let a coward be Commander-inChief, and have power over me? Second, he lied about inhaling marijuana. Third, there is a trail of unexplained murders in his footsteps from Arkansas to Washington: awkward accidents, suicides, explosions, sudden deaths, cover ups, mysteries and conspiracies that all point in the direction of plots to acquire power. Peter was becoming spiteful and cynical. I only saw sparks of light coming from his aura, when he melted in my arms, enjoying my body, but the embraces were short lived. They were always followed by guilt: we were not married, and consequently, according to his religion, we were living in sin. I had started to befriend Peter by compassion for what came across as arrogance. We were both mid-forty loners and bachelors. After having been neighbors for nine years, we had started to respect each other enough to exchange conversations , nutritional tips and Tantric massages. Though he remained suspicious of anything Eastern, he always came back for more. For these reasons, and the fact that I sometimes referred to myself as Goddess when we made love, he was perceiving me as the Pagan she-devil. *** His prejudices hurt. He didn't want 'pleasure,' he said. He was a 'fighter'. "There

are more important things in life than love!" Peter reminded me of the serious man in The Little Prince by St-Exupery, who only had time for serious calculations on his very serious planet, and no time to grow a rose. "You don't understand and there is no time to explain," Peter said. "We have a job to do, and well finish it!" "Who are we?" "Republicans and American groups unknown to you that are very angry, -- very, very angry," he insisted. Peter was gathering information from the Republican Circle, the Christian Coalition and the NRA via e and snail-mails. Plus, The National Review and The American Spectator magazines were piling up on the coffee table. Once in a while, I would browse through them to see what they were saying. The spite, hatred demeaning jokes and caricatures found in those pages appalled me. "Why are you feeding your spirit with such literature," I protested. "This is trash, propaganda! And you claim to be Christian?" The paper columnists sounded just like the angry priests of my childhood, who had threatened me with excommunication for reading the Existentialist philosophers. *** All saddened me. How could my lover be anything less than bitterly thirsty for revenge, when he had been shaped by domineering parents, teachers and colonels who had programmed him to lower the eyes, shut his mouth, and obey without question? Those were my views. What did I know? "We won't put our attention on anything else till Clinton is out of office, and we will win!" Peter shouted, defiant. I was concerned. The obsession was escalating. Was he right or crazy and I, wrong and ignorant? "We don't have to have "a" winner", I said. "As boomers are aging, America is wising up, and moving at the center. "What angers me most," said Peter outraged, "is when a liberal adopts a Republican discourse, disguising himself as a chameleon. You know the nature of the chameleons? You never know where they stand. They change colors, and blend with the environment. With their slippery qualities, you can never put your finger on where they start, and where they finish. "Like tricksters-." "There must be only one winner in the end," he said, "and it has to be us!" I was devastated. I could see there was nothing I could do to change the course of a chaotic future. Peter had started to hate Clinton more than loving me. Night and day on the

Internet, he was pushing me out of his life for irreconcilable differences. The same differences we can't do without, I was trying to explain, like the left and the right hands, men and women, the opposites and all in between. We all live together for the common wealth, I said. He winced with disgust. *** I returned to my Tantric, Yogic and Zen practices, everything he hated and would "never, never have anything to do with, he said many times. "If we are going to live together, we will have to learn tolerance!" "Its impossible," he said. "That would mean to betray, and forget all that I have learned. I am afraid civil war is unavoidable". I was not sure I was hearing right; it was probably his inner G.I. Joe talking. "We don't have to kill each other anymore" I said. "We are in the 20th Century; we can communicate." I was getting nervous and upset, despite working on quieting my mind to remain objective. "You don't understand," he said. "We cannot have a free world as long as the power is in the hands of a manipulative person. It is to save democracy that we impeach him, and I am not asking you to understand." The presidents devious character was a serious matter for many, and for me too, frankly. All Peter could think or talk about was Clinton, gradually loosing interest for food, sex, and his favorite ball games. According to him, everything was wrong and unworthy as long as a coward was in the oval office. Tight jaws and braced chest, my usually clear-minded soldier got entangled in a cat-and-mouse game with a larger-than-life alter ego. So he left the nest, and moved all his files, newsletters and magazines to his old bedroom at his mother's house. *** To release pent up emotions, I went chatting online: My partner is frustrated, seeing Bill Clinton having fun at the White House while he is trying to make it big in California. At forty-eight, he has yet to realize his American Dream. Cut off from his orgasmic body, he focuses on others' sins, anxious to punish. There is nothing I can do to get his attention. His blood calls for respect; I can understand-. Surfing the net, I was searching for models of harmony based on nature: circles of interwoven energies that bring balance and abundance to a group rather than dictation and intimidation of the weak. I imagined a Senate adopting the Native American Medicine Wheel as a model for conflict resolution and redistribution, as opposed to rings of pit bulls, biting at each others, to better destroy the opposite.

*** January, 1999 There was nothing that could have prevented the President from being impeached, according to the media. The Republicans thought they would get Clinton with the Whitewater scandal, then with Foster and Wileys suspicious deaths, but they finally caught him in a web of lies about a sexual liaison. Unfortunately, what was expected to be a sensational victory for them fell flat. To lie about his sexual affair to authorities was rapidly forgiven, the polls revealed. The fact that Clinton wanted to keep private his sexual explorations when Hillary was busy serving her causes was understandable to most of the population. Of course, Bill Clinton couldn't show his hand. He would have lost everything. Same with O.J. Simpson. They had to continue to waltz around the truth to survive. Waving like kings, the show must go on. The continuous parade of American, deceptive characters, Peter couldn't swallow.