By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
I have a confession to make: I’m easily embarrassed. It’s almost impossible for me to watch reality television, to observe people making fools of themselves while others snicker. I first noticed this problem waaaaay back in ’70s television when the Gong Show was all the rage. People of modest talent were booked, their shtick running the gamut from unusual to absurd and broadcast to all America while a panel of celebrity judges, reportedly enjoying a coke high, responded to them with snickers and jeers until finally cutting them off with — yes, you guessed it — a gong.
Hilarity ensued as the judges tried to outdo one another, and a grand time was had by all, except for me. I was cringing. After you watched the show once, you knew the drill. Within a few seconds of a guest launching an “act,” the camera would pan to the judges, whose response was evident on their faces. Their next moves were predictable, you could see it coming like a train. The occasional “winner” softened the often cruel rejection of those who came before. The Gong Show was the beginning of “mean” television, which has now evolved into an art form.
A sensitive sort, I began performance at an early age — music, writing, yadda — and because of it, I’m a “good audience,” sometimes to a fault. All you’ve got to do to impress me is to show up and try hard, and I’ll give you my attention and a heartfelt hand. But not when the show is all about demeaning someone, and to the point, the debates have devolved into a race to ruthlessly demonize the POTUS and each other. So my real confession is that as a political writer, I’ve not sat through a single Republican debate, and since they seem to pop up like dandelions on the lawn, that’s a lot of word-salad to leave off the table. In defense of my emotional well-being, I prefer the crib notes.
I catch up with the candidates’ gaffes, their pronouncements and posturing, their attacks and outrageous commentary, after the fact, reviewing cable news, video clips and articles. Seriously, my avoiding what Andy Horowitz has called the “historic whoppers” of the latest debate is for the best. Listening to the ratcheting hysteria of their rhetoric and the spontaneous cheers or catcalls of an audience of right-wing sensibility would only make me think less of my fellow humans, and that’s dangerous; even more dangerous, in my opinion, than the nonsense proposed by the radical candidates.
I don’t have to tell you the absurd degree to which the right-wing has demonized Obama. We can always trust Jon Stewart to do that for us, and brilliantly. If their accusations ring hollow to those of us on the left, be cheered that they also ring hollow to many in the middle. Those playing to the radical base have become Jon Lovitz-clones. Lovitz played “Tommy Flanagan, the Pathological Liar” on Saturday Night Live. As he wove a tale brimming with self-aggrandizing exaggeration, he’d stumble over an even more outrageous claim and announce, “Yeah! That’s the ticket!” Anyone watching knew what was going on in Tommy Flanagan’s imagination, his vulnerabilities and ego-need on parade.
Think George W. Bush when his pitch changed from “find the wmd’s before they land on our heads,” to “God wants to make the world free.” Think Rumsfeld’s “known known” speech when he dazzled with confusion. Think a floundering John McCain when [he announced] Sarah Palin as, “… exactly what I need.” Yeah — that’s the ticket! Many of those with the stomach to watch the Republican debates know what Newt is doing when he tells us that Obama is the most dangerous president in history, or when Rick tells Glenn Beck that Obama’s plan to increase affordable college education is all about robbing our children of their faith, or when Mitt declares he was always a severe conservative governor — yeah, that’s the ticket! It’s red meat to a base craving blood, as the candidates attempt to claw their way into favor.
I’m sure these candidates would tell us in an unlikely fit of candor that it’s not really lying, it’s just politics. But once begun, it’s hard to stop. Remember Tommy Flanagan, Pathological Liar. Key word? Pathological. When these people start to talk, they’re like the Gong Show judges, each trying to outdo the others in a drunken frenzy, and you can see the train coming on. The First Amendment protects speech, of course, and these folks have a right to be embarrassing, cloddish clowns if it suits them and their followers.
It’s even all right for Lou Dobbs, long of CNN and newly resurrected by Fox Business Network, to pronounce the new Dr. Seuss movie, The Lorax, to be Hollywood’s attempt to indoctrinate our children in an anti-capitalism propaganda campaign. Earlier in the year, the network went after the newest Muppet movie, declaring the casting of an evil oil baron foiling our Muppet friends to be a leftie vendetta against oil providers. One of Dobbs’s guests, from rightie radio, declared that the left is trying to create “occu-toddlers.” This came after Dobbs compared The Lorax to #occupy, which “forever tried to pit the makers against the takers.” Let me first note that Dobbs’s mention of #occupy in the past tense is remarkably naïve and then comment that yes, all this foolishness is protected speech, but we can see the train coming on, can’t we? Playing to their elderly demographic, FOX has more agenda than Newt Gingrich on a Sunday talk-show.
There is, of course, nothing fair and balanced about this “news” conglomerate, and their insistence that they are is the hypocrisy that keeps on giving us fits; it’s also the epitome of right-wing projection. Here’s the rule when discussing projection: when accused of something you wouldn’t dream of, look into your accuser’s past to find the presumption, the fear, or the actual incident. When allegations have no reality whatsoever, then you can find them in the mind or experience of those pointing fingers. And it’s difficult not to go to war with our accusers, but time is a great equalizer, if we can afford to wait it out.
Take the supposed war on religion Obama is accused of, in mandating contraception for women. I’d be truly surprised if real religious war didn’t erupt if Romney takes the nomination. You may remember his John F. Kennedy speech during the last election primary, proposing that he would never put the wishes of Salt Lake before the good of the United States. This election period, any mention of Mitt’s Mormonism is considered an assault on his religious freedom, but there’s chatter in the back rooms and prayer meetings. The evangelicals already have long knives awaiting Mr. Romney, believing that his version of Jesus Christ’s post-resurrection appearance to America’s indigenous people makes him and his church both cultish and blasphemous.
Should Mitt win the nod despite all this, I trust the fundies will actualize his handlers’ fears and undercut hopes for a large Republican turnout in November. It’s difficult to warm to Mitt, as proven by his consistently lukewarm numbers, and I personally find him to be what Obama is presumed by the right, an “empty suit.” His money isolates him from reality, much as his temperament makes him a shape-shifter. A series of articles about the Romneys suggests that Mitt’s erratic and secretive persona is written into his DNA, and that’s bad enough, but, believe it or not, I have concerns about Mitt’s religious intention. JFK’s promise to put America first wasn’t compromised by his being a prince of the Catholic church or by Rome promoting the prophecy of one of its own taking the American presidency to save the world from Satan and establish a working theocracy.
Long shot, you think? Remember how the divide between church and state has closed in the last dozen years and think again. According to Robert Altemeyer, a Canadian psychologist and author of the book, The Authoritarians, religious fundamentalists of any stripe are a serious problem to reality-based politics:
Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result…. And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away.
Altemeyer adds that while 25% isn’t enough to swing an election, it is certainly enough to skew the results. For example, think about California’s assault on Proposition 8, thanks largely to Mormon money and activism. All this is speculative, of course, should Mitt be the lucky winner of a seriously split electorate that is leaning now toward Santorum. Mainstream Republicans are doing all they can to slow Santorum’s rise and eliminate Gingrich before he sours the milk. Neither are considered electable, but realists doubt Romney’s chances as well, so behind the scenes, it’s super PAC money, gerrymandering and vote suppression that count. So it isn’t the dimwits telling whoppers that are really the scary ones; it’s Norquist and his like, working behind the scenes to repeat their questionable success of 2000 and 2004, that should concern us.
This is Republican territory and they’re skilled at it. They’re counting on holding the House and making inroads into the Senate and hoping against hope that that they can, as Grover Norquist suggests, just get somebody elected to sign the bills and allow Congress to lead the country. I believe such a notion could be considered an assault on the power of the presidency as encoded in the Constitution, but then, Norquist has never had problems mincing words. He’s no Tommy Flanagan, seeking that next big ego-boost. Norquist proudly owns his egomania, decades ago pledging to “make government small enough to drown in a bathtub” and never giving up his lethal activism. With Tea Party cred, he’s succeeded in twisting all this season’s rightie candidates’ arms to sign an oath against raising new taxes. A crashed economy might drown pretty quickly, yes? Seems likely so far, with many of us breathing underwater. Yet we rarely hear about how the Republican candidates’ economic plans would swell the national debt and create even more plutocracy than we now endure.
Knowing all this should make us hypervigilent against this kind of manipulation, not frightened witless, but I’m seeing signs of people reverting back into fear. I pray that’s just a last retreat before the light bulb goes on over their heads. Still, it amazes me that when religion becomes part of the conversation, people lose their minds, and again, I blame our religious institutions for mining human ego without a thought to soul damage. Ego cannot be the loudest voice we listen to without creating chaos within and without.
The Kaballah reminds us that what we do for ourselves is in service to ego, what we do for others fills our soul. A Course in Miracles tells us our ego is that bit of us that thrives on fear, that protects itself at all costs and will do anything — tell any lie, manipulate any fact — to take the lead position in our consciousness. The Tao calls our ego a false face, out of balance with our authenticity. The ego sees in black and white, its livelihood dependent on its keeping us in separation from each other and all that is. Ultimately it’s ego that promotes war, that feeds on fear, that insists on stringent authority to keep us all safe, that really does wear the mask of Mitt Romney’s “severe conservative.” Yeah, that’s the ticket!
If we need to identify ego voice, all we need do is go to our hearts and find that sense of discomfort and unease, see how we’re directed to step on someone else’s neck to get a bit higher, and recognize defensive energy coming on like a train, ready to roll over us. Once we recognize the source of that discomfort, we do not need to fear, especially when our soul stands as witness to another way.
Our connectedness, our commonality, our service to the whole, all of these are soul signatures. We cannot fail to find blessing and growth, balance and redemption, when we make it our business to care for each other, even, and perhaps especially, “the least of these.” This is the season to put that intention forward even as some of our brothers and sisters drag their feet, call us names, and do all they can to keep us ego-centered. They may project all they like, the left must not respond in kind. We are not black/white people, we must not offer tit for tat and deepen the darkness. We must be agents of light, ambassadors of sanity and converts to reality, and if — given what we know of polarity — that’s just the other side of the coin needing to come to balance, then let me play my little part in tipping the scales and say: light, sanity, reality? Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Thanks, Judith for your response.
My husband just heard on NPR that the GOP are using a point system to look at folks. If you go to church you get so many points and if you watch NASCAR you get points. There were other catagories. They then match those folks (with the most GOP-and Conservative-leaning points) with the voter registration rolls. If you have high points but are not registered to vote, they go to your home and ask you to register to vote. I don’t see Dems doing anything even remotely similar; why aren’t we?
BY “their own language” I was talking about some of the campaign talking points which the GOP reduces to polarizing issues to get people all fired up. One such way of changing the game with people went like this: the people who thought banning birth control was good were told that if we ban all birth control, “all you men would have to PAY for all the babies your sex partners would have had; are you SURE you want to ban birth control?” I heard it was rather effective; too many states have laws which force males to pay child support for babies they made before allowing the mothers to get state aid.
When the GOP says Obama is a socialist, Dems should be screaming “GOP wants to get rid of Social Security!” loud and often.
When some conservatives were wanting government to prevent the Muslims from building a center near the Twin Towers area in NY, instead of saying how freedom of religion is fair, some folks reminded these folks that if you give government the power to tell one religious group where they can and cannot build, soon any church could be kept from purchasing any property if a local government didn’t want to allow them to do so. Suddenly many of the local protesters backed off the issue fast. Reframing it in a way that caused them to fear THEIR OWN FREEDOM TO HAVE WHAT THEY WANT instead of seeing it as granting freedoms to others worked well. That’s what the Right is so good at and what the Left needs to get better at, fast.
See what I am getting at? Those kinds of things are in their language and it gets them to see the issues in ways that may harm THEM instead of as doing social good. These people are not about doing social good; they are about “what’s mine is mine” and that’s their language so we should use that to reframe things so they go the direction they need to go instead of obstructing freedoms we should all have. That was what I don’t see the Left doing very well.
Thanks for your additional comments, Jude, so helpful. Why is it we behave as though we think that all human brains are evolving at the same rate, in the same way? We seem to have stumbled into an important moment of disparity in said evolution, doesn’t it seem? Santorum and I do not think in the same way, do not process input in the same way. I’ve no schooling in this, but it feels obvious. We act like we’re trying to play ball on the same field against another team, but truly we are on different fields with different rules and a different game. But then, we’ve known that for a long time, haven’t we?
Be, very interesting astro insights as always. Thanks!
I understand your desire not to just roll over, Carrie, but to find authentic communication with these folks. I’m just not sure it can be done. In the plethora of current reads about the different brain/behavior of conservatives v. liberals — and there are literally a dozen or more out there now — I read one today that shows stats proving that the more educated the righties are, the more strongly their refusal to accept scientific proof of climate change; extrapolate to include all their favorite bias.
The problem with our using their code and jargon is that we are not absolutists; we’re nuanced thinkers and that extends to our solutions. Even if we were able to push our position into a single sound-bite, the right-wing persona does not want to be convinced of anything but their own correctness, which is why they only listen to one another. We DO NOT SHARE THE SAME FEARS. That’s the ballgame.
For instance, Obama apologized for the accidental burning of the Koran in Afghanistan because their primitive culture cannot accept that this is just a book being burned, not the Prophet himself or the faith of Islam. It’s like the blood-lust over the cartoons. Easier to keep the country from going up in flames and taking our soldiers with it by offering a sop. Santorum (of all weenies) sez that shows weakness and must never be done. You know — the George W. Bush school of international affairs. This is more of that “Obama as apologist” business that is moldy-oldie from this fading paradigm. The left does not speak “war” in the same way the right does, and if it tried, the right-wing would smell blood in the water like nobody’s business! Rush and Hannity and Rove would be swinging from the trees in glee.
I could go to a right-wing political meeting or fundy church service, sit in the front row and not only understand what they were thinking/saying, but pass as one of them if I kept my mouth shut. I have major doubts they could do the same, most of what they’d hear would cross their version of reality so squarely they wouldn’t be able to deal with something so alien to their understanding. I once took my Baptist mother to a service at a large Unity church — on the way home she informed me that it had been very pleasant, but she was going to “stick with original sin.” Shocked, all I could think of was a passage from “Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah:”
‘Argue for your limitations and they’re yours.’
Talk isn’t going to sway them, but I think what WOULD work would be some creative ideas from our side that are so compelling that the moderates of both parties — increasingly desperate –might jump on and help them to succeed. Build a better mousetrap, as it were. And that might BE an answer if enough of us began developing those ideas, offering them up and superimposing them over the top of so much that DOESN’t work!
Thank you, be, for additional wisdom in this conversation. Again … in embarrassment … I think the world see’s the empire in its nakedness and hubris and so do we; but the Pub’s don’t. They haven’t got a clue we’re no longer the leader to follow and would argue to the death that “right” is always on our side. They still think we found the WMD’s and offer the worlds best health care. How do you argue with those who want government to keep its hands off their Medicare? Or considers single-payer healthcare Socialism when that’s what Medicare actually is? As you say, growing up … and facing our own arrogance and hubris. Ouch, in spades!
Dear Jude and all,
When I first read your article the best I could offer was that I too embarrass easily and I too can’t watch a whole Republican debate for the same reason as you, and that, as usual, you wrote a great article. However, after reading your commenters comments and your own, I thought you might be interested in a wee little piece of astrology I feel is appropriate for the discussion here.
Using the 6 charts for the 3 outer planets (Pluto, Uranus and Neptune) twice-made entries into their (relatively) new signs (Capricorn, Aries and Pisces) has been revealing a lot about the times we are going through as well as our future times. Starting in January 2008 when Pluto entered Capricorn the first time and ending with Neptune’s second entry into Pisces earlier this month, there was something in common between these two charts. A small astral body called Borasisi was quite prominent. Both charts were set in Washington, D.C. and in the 2008 chart Borasisi was opposed to the planet Saturn. We know Saturn can represent lots of things but mostly we think of government or Dad, but it can represent any structure (or person) that gives form to something and resists attempts to topple or crush it. Not too much is considered common knowledge regarding Borasisi though. If you are familiar with the novel Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut you are familiar with the word Borasisi.
Borasisi was a symbol in a made up religion consisting of all lies, primarily to make a specific population feel good about itself. It was the name of the Sun for a made up religion created in order to control the people of a made up country, not too unlike Haiti, in a made up story – a novel – that began with the notion that one of the creators of the H-bomb was quite callous and uncaring about the destruction he had let loose on the world. If you think of something solid and real opposing something that is based on lies then you can look back at 2008, the year President Obama was elected and see the various possible manifestations of this aspect.
Borasisi shows up again in the Neptune ingress chart this month set for Washington DC on the midheaven; in astrology this is the symbolic point of achievement, reputation, and in this case the government. Borasisi is half-way between the north node and the south node of the transiting Moon, meaning he squares the nodes and is “at the bending”. There is a north bending that represents a position where a “planet” located there is able to recieve incoming energy and has the ability to express its nature with ease. The opposite south bending is a point where a planet located there is unable to express its nature and must give away or throw away its energy. Borasisi is in the north bending. It is thought that any planets found at the bendings needs to be integrated into the life of what the chart represents in order to find balance. As this is a chart that represents Neptune entering the sign of Pisces, and because it is located in Washington D.C., the U.S. government, then it means that this integration needs to happen sometime before the end of January, 2026. It is a clue as to how the rest of the world sees this country’s government. There is a lot of phoniness associated with any government in general, but the U.S. has reached a point where it is hard for anyone to believe anything coming from its capitol city. Did I mention that Cat’s Cradle is quite funny at times? If we are to accept the challenge of integrating the meaning of the symbol of Borasisi it will take courage from its citizens to face the truth, including those truths that shatter the long held beliefs that they have built their individual lives upon. It will require that we all grow up and get real.
be
“They may project all they like, the left must not respond in kind. We are not black/white people, we must not offer tit for tat and deepen the darkness. We must be agents of light, ambassadors of sanity and converts to reality, and if — given what we know of polarity — that’s just the other side of the coin needing to come to balance, then let me play my little part in tipping the scales and say: light, sanity, reality? Yeah, that’s the ticket!”
I agree, we cannot be tit for tat with them. Yet I do think the Left needs to get better at commnunicating to those on the Right than we have been doing. If we were in Iran and everyone there spoke NO English and we spoke no Farsi, would we still insist on using ONLY English to get through to the people there? My point is, one of the Left’s biggest failings is to misunderstand the audience (the Righties) and the language the audience (the Righties) understand. Go ahead, keep speking in detailed, intelligent, compassionate words to people who only understand the language of small, short, fearful soundbites. We will get just as far as that English-only speaker in Farsi-only speaking Iran: nowhere. We have to stop thinking that to use their language means stooping to their level of thinking; it isn’t. It IS using their language to get them to see the light; the change will come later because though we use their language, we don’t DO their actions. That’s where we diverge and that’s why using their language doesn’t make us as bad as they are.
I am not saying we should give “tit for tat’ but we should be using their language to get to them, as distasteful as that is for us. Lefties keep using the language of intelligentsia and compassion and the Righties don’t understand that anymore than I understand Farsi. It is too complicated for them and as adrenaline junkies, it doesn’t create a response in them. Their language of fear and extremes DOES create the desired adrenaline rush they are so addicted to. Those who wish to elicit change will need to “sell” the change to those who resist in a way that will remove their resistance; this means using their language (and inducing that fearful adrenaline rush only in the direction that we need them to have it) until they become enlightened enough not to use it anymore. I just thought this should be said.
I still don’t “understand”* fully why I have gone through hell to learn to hear lies. (Let’s rephrase as * “accept that I had to go through the particular lessons”.) But it’s pertinent all right. A sadly necessary um skill.
and lol, Jude — I find myself reading your post/s in a mode similar to how Austin Kleon creates horoscopes – trying to find your gems without touching the crap. Repugnant indeed (the crap not your gems 🙂
Additionally appreciate your mentioning often of tidbits from The Course in Miracles. Helpful (I typed “hopeful”) to those of us who’ve not gone.
Thanks Jude and All.
Thank you.
Pertinent comments, BAnthony, pointing out where I need to clarify. We are not at odds on what the ego is or why it’s vital. Ego is a critical portion of us — a self-definition, if you will — and that’s why it must evolve, as it DOES evolve in astrology from the “I Am” of the first house to the “We Are” of the seventh, and beyond.
But let me draw an analogy between, say, corporations and ego. In our current discussion of corporations, we are outraged by the amount of profit they take in. That’s because corporations have become voracious, their only function to strip as much money from consumers as possible — we talk of profiteering as the problem, but profit isn’t the enemy. Radicalization of function is the enemy.
Same with ego. When ego is not moderated and policed — hopefully by our life experience and intention — it can become radicalized and seduced to personal gain. THAT’s the ego issues I’m talking about and I want to thank you for your lovely last sentence about hair and clothes because it pitched me into one of my “ponder” moments, where I discovered an entire other article waiting to be written; perhaps next week. So many wrinkles, so little time, eh??! Thanks for your contribution this weekend.
There’s more than a bit of Neptunian signature in our examination of the statement, “It’s not a lie if you believe it,” and I think we’re going to have to constantly be courting the big picture so we don’t fall into the darker seductions offered. Making sense of anything happening today requires a deep examination of our own culpability in both allowing and/or believing what we hear, unexamined or commented upon, and allowing things to be sold to the public that are patently untrue. If we aren’t speaking up against this kind of mind-crime, then shame on us. This is the job of a free press, long ago abrogated and leaving us vulnerable. WHY it’s important became clear in 2000, 2004 and again in 2010.
Thanks for the question MambyPamby: do I still think there’s any difference between red/blue? Oh yes, I absolutely do — a vast difference in temperament and expectation. As the nation has moved left and the liberals with it, government and the right has become radicalized to the point of near-extinction and that’s NOT good for a future of political balance. That both parties feed at the same corporate trough doesn’t change my mind about their intention. I don’t think liberals are interested in policing my sex life or my reproductive rights. I doubt if they think I’m the enemy because of how little I earn. I’m pretty sure they’re not afraid of “European” models of government, education for all Americans and solid worker and civil rights and I don’t expect them to ask me what God I worship. In short, the political party that takes an election defines a direction. I do NOT want that direction to move any further backwards.
And of course, you’re right that money leads this parade but humankind is schizophrenic about money, especially in this country where it’s our real religion. We turn to money to solve all problems and soothe all discomfort. The difference between the right and the left is that the craven lefty Congress would probably find it possible, perhaps even a relief, to no longer deal with a 24/7 fundraising cycle; their song is weak and stilted but it contains a number of different notes. The right only sings one, and without fundraising and money manipulation it would suffer apoplexy. Without profit, where’s their platform? The common welfare? I don’t think so.
And we could be going after Obama’s inconsistencies if we didn’t have to fight the absolute dead weight of inertia on the right, obstructing any movement at all including the budget. If American politics was a body, the entire right side of it would be non-responsive; I have a friend with this problem, it’s called a stroke. Fighting the black hole of Republican non-cooperation is crippling and limiting us while the rest of the national body is under attack by a system gone rogue. But that’s what the “not right, not left” public voted for in 2010, linking their arms in tizzy-fit and creating an impasse based on anger.
I keep an eye on the politics linked at the alternative sites, Alex Jones and others, and I keep a file on the growing police state. It’s worrisome and it will have to be addressed, most likely in the streets; and yes, I’d like to know what was so critical to our safety that Barbara Boxer would vote to institute armed drones in the US, but that doesn’t mean I think the entire political class is in cahoots with shadow government or that establishment politics aren’t important to the times. I think politicians are, on the whole, more likely the product of the environment we’ve allowed them to create with our lethargy and cynicism. “Evil” is so mundane as to be boring, one flawed, selfish decision following another until there is no Light left in the eye. If — WHEN — we get the money out of it, then perhaps only those who are driven to serve our national betterment will show up to apply for the job.
Pluto in Capricorn is provoking transformation in systems, in government — first we’ll find out how flawed they are, how much is built on sand and institutionally corrupt, and then they’ll be forced into profound change. But transformation isn’t always glorious — Tsarist Russia became the Stalinist Soviet. In my mind, our transformation must be about balance and finding common creative ventures in which to collaborate.
Oooooh, Gary dear — I’m sure you know there’s a good reason why so many wrestlers find a second career in acting. No accident that they all have AFTRA cards and Hulk and the Rock, Andre the Giant and even Rowdy Roddy Piper had to join SAG. All the worlds a play, sweetheart, and this weekend you’re playing Horatio.
Great article Judith, one thing I disagree on however is the references to ego being a completely bad thing. I would agree that an unhealthy ego is an undesirable thing at best but a healthy ego allows us to learn about a balanced sense of autonomy, even if only while in our learning experience on this earth.
My south node is in Pisces conjunct Chiron in Pisces in the 7th and NN is conjunct Pluto and Uranus in the 1st. Astrologically I take that to mean that I am balancing out my past lives of being too compliant to others, and finding my identity in others, and balancing it with a healthier expression of ego. So yes, I believe no ego at all is unhealthy in the physical dimension. After all, we really do have an ego to some degree or another if we are in a body as the body represents the ego (1st house, Ascendent) and of course if we had no ego at all we would’t bother caring if our hair was messed up or our clothes didn’t match! : )
Here’s another ticket for discussion:
Look who voted for attack drones in the us.
The List OF 75 US Senators Who Voted To Let 30,000 Drones Shoot Americans In The Streets
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/senatorsvotedfordronesagainstamericans12feb12.shtml
Still think there’s any difference between red/blue?
Judith,
It appears you’ve forgotten Ron Paul in all of your recaps regarding the elephants. Have you too become reliant on Fox news for your info? I’m surprised you think there’s really a divide among people, and that too is not something that’s been created by this media manipulation. The left vs. the right. That has become something, hasn’t it? The last I checked we were not part of the Lorax crowd with stars upon thars. This whole divide about being right or left, liberal/conservative is pure manipulation, even the mere mention gets people worked up – hello, doesn’t that seem like some sort manipulation? Why would people be getting so upset, doesn’t make sense.
I feel sorry for you being a political writer, because, yes, they are all liars. Wasn’t it Eric who claims this on one of his podcasts? They all working for whomever bought and paid for them to do so. I voted to change, and guess what, it never happened, in fact, it stayed pretty much the same. Doesn’t it seem like a good tactic to divert attention away from real issues by bringing up ridiculous arguments and using religion as a platform? Doesn’t it seem the whole thing is so far from reality we’d have to be fools to believe this baloney.
A co-worker said to me once ” there’s an old form of mind control, it’s called lying” Yeah, that’s what’s going on here, and both sides are working from the same platform, they just wear different colors. And war isn’t about ego, it’s about money, and stealing what the other party has. You don’t solve your problems by using force do you? How could this ever be a useful solution? If you disagree, you don’t start planning battle, you talk it out, unless of course you plan to steal, destroy or otherwise keep a fight alive. Hmmm, what advantage to keeping a war ongoing could possibly benefit a nation? Or, is it individuals it may benefit? Blame whomever you want, we’re all fools for believing any or it!
OK Judith, next I bet you are going to do an expose on WWE Wrestlemania and tell us it is not real– Oh wait– it’s Grover — and Nowww in this corner wearing red — Mitt “the Morphenator” Romney– Yeah, that’s the ticket!