John McCain and Sarah Palin have sunk to a new low, perhaps most succinctly demonstrated by Palin's outrageous lie that Obama thinks so little of his country that he "pals around with terrorists."
So where's John Lennon's instant karma when we need it most?
My first awareness of karma came many years ago. I was working for a music magazine where a record-promotion guy with a taste for cocaine, payola, and threatening the magazine's staff was finally exposed and fired. DeDe Dabney, our R&B editor, strode calmly into my office. "What goes around comes around," she declared, and she walked out.
Belief in karmic justice -- that bad acts will come back to haunt those who commit them -- can be powerful and appealing. The ancient Jains were so fearful of bad karma -- even the inadvertent harming of an insect -- they did their best to remain literally immobile. But then there's George Bush & Co., who seem to have gotten away with eight years of bringing incalculable suffering to the world. Bush is a lame duck with pathetic approval ratings, but who's to say he and his cronies won't amble into mega-rich retirement with arrogance and powers of denial intact? A good Buddhist might argue that their karma will catch up to them in the next life; but a really good Buddhist, trained to reject all received wisdom, would say, "Who knows?"
But what do Buddhists know anyway?
An evangelical pastor kicked off a recent McCain rally by praying to God for a McCain victory lest other religions -- he mentioned Buddhism -- claim their gods are "bigger than You." Note to pastor: Buddhists don't believe in God.
Karma is supposed to be automatic, a kind of self-regulating mechanism. That's one of its apparent attractions -- that the universe weighs, judges, and punishes or rewards.
In reality, karmic justice will only work when lots of people act wisely and skillfully to defeat ignorance and mean-spiritedness. Maybe if enough of us work hard for Obama/Biden and make sure to vote on November 4, then, yes, karma might be said to have won the day. But if we get complacent, the world may have to wait many agonizing lifetimes before karma -- if it's real -- makes things right.