By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
What a week! Emotions running the gamut, flying high only to plummet in a tailspin. Hints of transcendent energy peeking out from behind darkening clouds, teasing us with possibility and then fleeing the scene. Hopes of awakening from a long political nightmare dashed by the votes of those who should know better. My dear friend — and retired union rep — Fishin’ Jim likes to say that our freedom can’t be taken from us, but we can sure as hell give it away. Wisconsin proved him right.
If you’re wondering what those folks were thinking — how thirty-something percent of union families could vote for a man dedicated to the demise of their lifestyle and future security — then perhaps you’ve noticed that here, in post-rational America, we’re obsessed with things that aren’t real.
We create enemies we can go after and are subconsciously afraid of those who actually threaten us, so intimidated that we never glance their way. For instance, unable (and largely unwilling) to hold Wall Street accountable for criminal misdeeds, we are holding Main Street responsible for asking too big a share of what’s left.
In addition, we’ve bought this austerity business hook, line and sinker while handily ignoring how similar policy has created emergency in Europe.
This is as painful to contemplate as ‘moderate’ ex-Senator, Alan Simpson — charged by the president as co-chair of a commission that gave us the budgetary recommendations known as Simpson-Bowles — accusing the California Alliance for Retired Americans of being “a wretched group of seniors” and “greedy geezers” for depending on Social Security insurance. Oh yes, Mr. Simpson is a clod, but he and his friends, preoccupied with austerity measures, have discovered how to strike a dangerous and small-minded note in the nation’s psyche, causing the self-interested and fearful to decide that public workers must be punished for thinking their unions will protect them from having to work well into old age, and suggesting that seniors everywhere must come to terms with cat-food recipes.
To the naive, Simpson — along with pundits like Tom Friedman and David Brooks, who seem always anxious to embrace a new center-right — is a crusader for moderate ideas and practical solutions that sustain establishment politics. It always boils down to whom we listen to, and listening to any of these guys will rot our brains, but what to do? We’ve been pushed so far right at this point that the dramatic and inspiring history of the union movement, written in the life’s blood of the working class, has been forgotten by a population no longer taught the responsibilities of citizenship. Big money and corporate power are currently celebrating their flagging influence, happy that insulting blowhards like Alan Simpson have the ear of the nation and America is the loser. But you and I love this country, and we’ve come so far, we can’t give up now.
I think the public might not have been so easily turned if the nation didn’t have a decades-old, on-going accountability problem. Like everyone else, I wish Obama had gone after the banksters earlier, but I see that the task force he created to investigate the financial crisis is projecting some aggressive activity in the fall. Maybe that’s perfect timing, what with Romney suddenly leading some polls and employment numbers falling off the cliff. If I had the bully pulpit for just a moment, I’d remind the American people that eight years of Bush gave us this emergency, and then two years into recovery the pea-brains freaked out and gave us two more years of Republican nonsense. Now, in Wisconsin, we’re asking for another helping, while wondering why things aren’t looking up. I’d like the world to take a really close look at itself, instead of pointing fingers and laying blame.
In Wisconsin, the Republicans spent $34.5 million — $30 million more than the Dem contender — which did NOT include issue ads contributed by groups funded by the NRA, Koch brothers and Chamber of Commerce. It’s painfully obvious that corporate America is trying to punch a stake through the heart of the union movement to provide itself cheap labor, yet the public can’t seem to see the obvious. Me, I can’t imagine thinking that teachers, firefighters and cops are too uppity to deserve their paycheck, but that’s where we are today. In this latest dumbed-down version of America, unions are the enemy of capitalism and public servants are their minions. In the mind of the uninformed, somebody has to pay for these hard times and Gawd forbid it be the banksters, the rogue capitalists, the politicos and their moneyed cronies or the 1% who pay a pittance to divide us into an infighting mob, unable to discern our own best interests. Better to attack the poor, the disenfranchised, and even those who serve the good of the public rather than piss off the corporate powers that control us.
Will the sleepers awaken in time? Even as I tell you we still have a long night ahead of us, I’m going to reassure you that dawn will break and Light will stream through the windows to illuminate all the dark corners, so take heart. We’re weary and we’re discouraged, but it will accomplish nothing to allow fear’s whisper that we cannot break through this density, that ignorance will prevail and humankind implode long before we can stop this assault on democracy. We must keep a picture of clarity, discovery and rationality in our mind’s-eye, an affirmation for the whole of humanity.
I’ve been using a quote by Sri Nisargadatta as my e-mail signature for some time now: “The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.” The collective mind has created our current mess, hearts shut against compassion and civility, unable to cross the divide that separates us. We know this is driven by fears, and some of them loom large, especially among those who know they brought much of our current circumstance upon themselves. But we’ve lived through some hard times now, learned that what does not kill us makes us stronger, and if we’ve discovered that we still have a working brain on the other side of twelve-plus years of mayhem, then we’re among the blessed. It’s up to us to bring blessing, then, by continuing to point out the real threat to society and civility: the unchecked and unregulated money that the Koch brothers insist is “within the law,” the growing influence of commerce and corporation to sway the legal and political systems — the self-serving signature energy of the unopened heart.
We lost the skirmish in Wisconsin but we must refuse to allow someone else’s fears to shape the reality of the other 49 states. We must celebrate when adults rise above the stilted conversation to speak truth to power, as does Jon Stewart in this recent conversation with a Wall Street supporter. We need every open heart to speak its truth, every willing citizen to perform acts of courage and activism and provide encouragement to a world standing at a crossroads in history. We must remind everyone we know — including ourselves — that there is enough of everything we need, plenty to share, including a higher level of self-awareness and accountability. We’re better than our circumstances, finer than our aspirations. We are shifting the world’s understanding of itself from the bottom up, and we dare not close our hearts against the journey, whatever it brings.
Let’s trust where we find ourselves, then, mourn our latest disappointment and move along. Let’s remember who we are and where we’ve been. In the middle of the last century, with a tax rate on the rich close to 90%, commerce was making money, the middle-class was expanding nicely, and the culture was poised upon an awakening. In this new century, in the 11 years since Bush turned back taxes that might “interfere” with job creation at the top levels of income while doing nothing to prevent an off-shore manufacturing exodus, WHAT exactly has trickled down besides despair and growing inequality? If you can answer that question rationally, you’re part of the solution to our nations problem’s, and if you can answer it with a calm heart and a smile, you’re the answer to your own. Remember, it all works to good when we choose love.
Dear Judith: I unequivocally forgive you! Thank you for your love and support – right back at ya, you hippie tree-hugging genuine commie.
Namaste.
Please forgive my absence this weekend, dearhearts; computer troubles had me down. First off, gratitude to be, who ALWAYS pays attention to the details and answers the questions, and to aword and lyd for kind words and loving support, appreciated more than you know.
Thanks to MandyM as well, for poem and message: to love ourselves. If we could each do that — literally balance ourselves out from the polar opposites of too much ego or too much timidity, both aspects of blinding self-involvement — so many of our problems would simply evaporate. The Golden Rule is a profound bit of mystic wisdom; we all know about it, we simply ignore it. We’ll know we’ve made real progress when we see that energy begin to out-picture in our lives and world.
Interesting link, rucognizant — I think we’ll find more and more folks like this one stepping up with healing modalities, ways to be of service to the w[holy]e of us. We must EXPECT leadership from among the aware to step up, now, offering us more than just head-sense but the expansive HEART so necessary to bring about Shift. Thanks for sharing.
Carrie, the 2012 energy is about establishing a new Epoch, and I’d add Atlantis and Lemuria to those civilizations you offered. We’ve done this so many times before, it seems silly that so many of us remain “blank” about what it means! Granted, we’ve not been able to make a shift of Ages without destroying everything to birth the new — a Phoenix affair — except, perhaps, this time. We shall see if we can establish a new pattern.
Meanwhile, this is what ALL of us that are aware and awake must accomplish: “I want to do both; preserve the knowledge and try to birth the world of compassion and love by my actions and words.” That’s our part, that’s what Heaven expects of us. That’s what our hearts demand!
And, although I’m late to the party, today I discover that I’ve been promoted from common, everyday hippie tree-hugger to genuine COMMIE. When I quit laughing, I mulled it a bit and I figure since I am concerned about the commons that belong to us all, the community dynamics that nurture our growth and the communal mental health of the planet, I prob’ly AM a Commie — LOL — but my own version. And bless yer little heart, HorizonScanner, I hope the Light will give you a better dream, a bigger picture and a brighter future than the one you’re holding. You’ll be surprised how much better it will feel than what you’re feeling now!
Thanks so much for playing this week, dearhearts — as always, you are my joy! Namaste.
I always wonder what kind of “jobs” are created when politicians talk about the subject. And I suspect the data they flaunt as evidence of those jobs. My husband was telling me something he heard, about how a school bus driver was a “green” job. Yes. I guess it is, but is an airplane pilot also a green job?
Judith…could not access JS show way up here in the Village across the border, but did find this article in the Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/why-the-conard-interview-matters-or-why-the-democrats-need-karl-rove/258303/
I will second ‘Aword’, in holding the lantern, in all respects.
‘be’: throwing you a thank you for “Practice Three” today…big time…
Jude,
What Be said. The trickle down feels something like a thin cold stream of water finding its way through the cave wall. I am thirsty and it is dark, but you are there holding a lantern.
Thank you.
It matters not. She speaks for Chiron alone./be
The Moon doth square Venus, yet also sextile Pluto. Trickster Mercury doth oppose Pluto. Or is it the other way ’round?
be
“Greed genes?”
Sounds like Mengele talk. Sounds like the criminal science of eugenics.
Palaver.
Propaganda.
You appropriate the terms of astrology for communist ideological purposes.
Communists are inimical to the Republic of the United States of America.
You don’t have a Constitutional right to rig the taxing power of the Wisconsin government to FORCE citizens to pay dues to YOU!
Your rants echo the multi-houred harrangues of Castro in his heyday, when he was busy becoming a billionaire on the backs of the Cuban people.
Why are Wisconsin citizens STANDING UP to people like you?
Bottom line: They see that you are tyrants.
Also, they see that the black hole of debt YOU CREATED is now erased in Wisconsin’s budget.
Plus, you INVADED the state capitol building and trashed it.
Moreover, YOU THREATENED GOVERNOR WALKER’S LIFE!
What gives you the right to rig the rules of governance so that you and your union bosses can force people to pay dues to your orgs?
You installed puppets into the offices of the government to rubberstamp your union bosses edicts; this is what you call, absurdly, “collective bargaining.”
You were destroying free enterprise in Wisconsin but now that the PEOPLE have spoken and business is returning. No thanks to you.
You just want to take from what others have worked to create and call it your own.
If what your unions do is so wonderful, why have union dues been cut in half since Governor Walker rescinded the statutes that FORCED government employees to have taken from their paychecks hefty sums for these dues?
And what were these dues used for? To fund violence in the state capitol building. $4,000,000.00 dollars in damages.
Well, the Citizens of Wisconsin stood up and PUT YOU DOWN.
Next step? To drive you out of public life forever.
If ASTROLOGY has anything to do with what you people wrote in your posts, you didn’t demonstrate it.
All you demonstrated is that you want to use the language of astrology to justify your communist ideological mind warp.
Carrie says ……………….
“I would posit that until the greed genes are found and then separated from the survival genes; these patterns in humanity will continue. Until the genes which goad people to follow the path of least resistance are found and fixed, humans will choose the easy way, the easy path, the mindless, greedy, corrupt path.”
I have found that someone at the Dem State Convention last week. SHe ran for DNC rep to DC………..stepped up to the podium to speak………voila, return of the Goddess energy! Vesta, Pallas, Lilith? I haven’t decided…………….but one of them for sure.
Dressed in white and lavender A CLOUD OF WHITE HAIR FRAMING HER FACE SHE TALKED, SHE TAUGHT……………..My fellow delegate & I recognized the SHIFT. Unfortunately, the majority did not. They voted in the incumbent, a standard cheerleader type who stimulated/illicited excitement/enthusiam, instead of saying anything substantial, presenting any solutions or even any real shared understanding of the problems we need to deal with. I called her last night to find out the results of the voting, and we are working together on a different tack. I volunteering to be a mouth piece/connecter, communicating ideas…………….
SHe is an MD psychiatrist who has worked out a medical solution/treatment for the “insatiably greedy” ( sociopathic 1%r’s) who so disturbed her when she first began to practice.
Here are her website and blog………….
http://bornforjoy.com/ http://blog.bornforjoy.com/
Robert A Wilson used to say “They always kill the gnosis.”
The same pattern I have mentioned also has within it a hidden pattern. In every civilization that fell to greed and corruption, there were small pockets of enlightened people who, realizing the imminent demise of their civilization, hid, blended in, and kept the knowledge alive in the hopes that some generation somewhere would finally use it for the good of humankind, animalkind, and the earth. So they went underground, kept quiet, passed the knowledge on. This isn’t knowledge of technology; technology just distracted us and though a useful tool, it isn’t the knowledge that enlightenment is about.
There were also enlightened people who went out in public and tried to pass on the message; Buddha, Jesus, Ghandi, and the female equivalents we never heard about. They were most often silenced by the ignorant who were afraid to change and afraid to do the work it takes to be different.
I would posit that until the greed genes are found and then separated from the survival genes; these patterns in humanity will continue. Until the genes which goad people to follow the path of least resistance are found and fixed, humans will choose the easy way, the easy path, the mindless, greedy, corrupt path.
These patterns make me wonder if I should spend my energy trying to change the paradigm, preserve the knowledge in the hopes that someone, someday, will be able to put it to use and create the world we need on this planet, or do both. That is a choice I see facing every enlightened or conscious person.
I want to do both; preserve the knowledge and try to birth the world of compassion and love by my actions and words.
That should be “Arabic people.” I type way too fast and don’t always catch my typos. Sorry about that.
History is not on our side. In over 5000 years of written language and lomger as human beings on this planet, we have a pattern and it isn’t pretty. The pattern is the same no matter which civilization we look at. Rise on the backs of slavery and death, establishment for a period of time, then moral decay from within and a drop into backward being.
For example, the Atabic people were once a pinnacle of learning and advancement when Europe was languishing in the Dark Ages. They had universities where men and women could learn. They had the world’s first system where a person could put their money with one bank and write a check elsewhere in the empire and get that money out. They had medicines and gave us the numeral system of our math and algebra and abstract reasoning. They had astronomy and knew about time. Yet where are they now? Far too many of the Arabic countries fell and are now living as third world or backwater countries.
The same could be said of the Roman Empire or the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Or the Greeks on whom Western civilization is founded. Greece is like a third world country as are Turkey and many parts of Italy.
The common factor in all this history is us…humans and our greed, corruption and stupidity because we fail to learn from our own history.
The US has been on a downward spiral since the deregulation of the 1980’s. I felt it then (as did many people back then) and I feel it now. The next rising power may be China but they, too, will fall and then another and then another. How many millennia will we humans keep following the same path,the same actions, the same stupidity?
We are at a crossroads. It may be too late or it may be just in time. Will we make the changes needed to move in a different direction; a direction not based on rise and fall of groups of people based on hoarding wealth but on the equality of all humans, animals, and plants? History says no. Human behavior says no.
Maybe we can prove history and human behavior wrong… this time. Maybe.
“We create enemies we can go after and are subconsciously afraid of those who actually threaten us, so intimidated that we never glance their way.” I’ve been thinking this for a long while. People are actually terrified; their sub-consciousnesses do not lie. But unable to see, to actually look at what we are truly afraid of–corporate fascism, looming theocracy and the ultimate reality that we are living our way out of our planet’s ability to sustain us–we focus instead on creating enemies out of each other. And we don’t want to hold ourselves accountable for doing what it will take to turn away from these paths. But I do believe that change happens, one person at a time. The only person I can change is me. My new practice is serious consistent commitment to changing myself and holding myself accountable for stalls and backsliding one day at a time in every present moment. One day at a time and every present moment makes this possible and is all I ever truly have.
A land was born not long ago,
and human beings still don’t know,
that it is there for them to use
if only they can find the Muse.
“What is a Muse?” I hear you ask,
it’s someone with a magic mask!
They sing and dance – they’re never tame,
’cause Inspiration is their game.
The entry fee to this new land
is very highly in demand-
it’s everywhere, but seldom used
since people are so darn confused,
about the basic rules of Life
and cause each other endless strife.
This ignorance just makes things worse-
a never-ending, passed on curse.
A lot of people just don’t care,
the ones that do seem very rare.
So if you want to live in Peace,
this insane game has got to cease-
Remember what it’s all about
To Love ourselves without a doubt.
Bkoehler,
I’d have a little question. Can I contact you ‘privately’? If I can, you can drop me a line at paolamaya[at]virgilio[dot]it. If it’s not ok for you, I perfectly understand.
Thank you!
Dear Jude,
You had me in the beginning when you said we Americans are “obsessed with things that aren’t real”. But it’s when you asked “WHAT exactly has trickled down besides despair and growing inequality?” and “if you can answer that question rationally”, I knew I was going to have to think, even befor my coffee and oatmeal; even before I fed the birds; even before 6:30 AM on a Saturday. But that’s okay, I’ve nothing against thinking rationally, some of my best friends are thinkers. But first, let me address the obsession-with-the-unreal.
There has been much said about the Lunar Eclipse at 14 Sagittarius conjunct the Great Attractor on June 4, and just as much said about the Venus occultation of the Sun the next day that was opposite the Great Attractor. It was brought to our attention that Mars would square all this action in Gemini and Sagittarius from Virgo, but I don’t believe anyone (including me) made much about the fact that Borasisi in Pisces was also squaring the Occultation and the Eclipse. Borasisi was also opposite Mars in critical thinking Virgo, yet Borasisi represents the Unreal like nobody’s business, unless it’s the Banksters and the rest of the 1%.
It isn’t just the cheesehead voters in Wisconsin that can be swayed by unreal claims in million dollar ads either. That was June 5, but Eclipses and such have a shelf-life so Borasisi will remain square those sensitive points, the G.A. and the Moony eclipse, for a while longer and that’s not just Wisconsin or the USA, it’s the whole wide world.
So now it’s daylight and rational thinking is acceptable, and my answer to your question is: what has trickled down is Consciousness, and I do mean trickled down. Slowly but surely as the saying goes, we are gaining a greater understanding of universal truths. Our perspective is going deeper and wider and higher – we the “masses” who have been brainwashed into thinking greed is good. It must continue to gain, this growing consciousness, and only because of you and others like you who continue to present the truth, painful though it sometimes is, over and over til the dawn of a new day and a new world, will it penetrate enough of us to make the leap. Think with the heart. Isn’t that what Venus is showing us with her twice in a lifetime daylight, conscious message, bold as gold before the Sun? Think with the heart.
be