Voices In The Wind

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

What an interesting week it’s been, politically speaking. A liberating week, if we’re of a mind to read between the lines. It hasn’t been a good week for the control freaks, nor for those who need surety in the form of absolutes to comfort them, or confirmations to guide them. So much remains unresolved, unbaked, up in the air. So much is still in play. If we look around it seems clear that most of the world is flying by the seat of its pants, a study in improvisation. Still, some of the opinions out there seem no longer to carry the same weight as they once did, disproving that old saw about belly-buttons: everyone has one, innie or outie, they’re all the same (I cleaned that up nicely, eh?).

Yes, there are voices in the wind, the kind we may or may not have been mindful of in the past few months. In foreign affairs, the Crimea has been formally “annexed” by Russia. “Annexed” is an interesting word, dripping with whitewash and smelling faintly of natural gas. We might say that this is only what (the 58% of Russian-speaking) Crimeans wanted, but that doesn’t address the emergency push within Ukraine to beef up its military, hoping to stave off the possibility of future headlines suggesting that Ukraine had really wanted to snuggle back under Putin’s sheltering arm as well. Distancing from Obama, Hillary has suggested Putin’s behavior to be Hitler-like, sparking memories of Blitzkrieg, but I doubt Vlad has any interest in bombing Europe, just in starving them of energy should they raise a ruckus. When this began, I figured it was mostly about the oil. I still think it’s a fight over control of resources and the power that bestows. Isn’t everything?

Despite the anguished wails of family members, the hesitancy of governments to share what they know, and the willingness of an international community to endlessly search, still missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 remains a mystery, except perhaps to Courtney Love. Courtney, like many of us, finds it inconceivable that — despite big government’s ability to listen in on our every conversation, track our every footstep and profile every citizen down to a gnat’s eyebrow — something that big and that visible could simply vanish without a trace. If you think that’s even remotely possible, you haven’t watched a full complement of CSI episodes tracking down serial killers by analyzing a single speck of spit. Or — hinging on the sudden realization that almost all television, including news, is fantasy — could it be that Big Brother isn’t as infallible as it likes to think itself?

This was the week when students and faculty continued their shit-fit over the possibility that Condoleezza Rice — previously exalted as Bush cohort and international whiz kid, yet now considered a Neocon war criminal — will not only speak to the graduating class at Rutgers, but receive an honorary law degree. At this writing, the invitation still stands, but we shall see. Despite their fall from grace, the Neocons are the true zombies of our time, still licking their lips over the possibilities in Iran, Syria and Russia, old school with a vengeance. Condi, leaning on her expertise in all things Soviet, has been quite vocal in these last days, criticizing the Prez on his mild response to Putin. It’s interesting that even as war weary and underfunded as we find ourselves, Americans still approve a response to any threat by sticking out our chins and putting up our fists (’cause we’re all that and an order of fries, a meme that is finally dying a deserved, if remarkably slow, death).

In fact, even as Condi called out Barack for wimpiness, Rand Paul called out Ted Cruz for trying to split the party, and — responding to DiFi’s outrage that she, rather than the American people, had been spied upon — Senate Majority Leader Reid called out the CIA, entire. Give Harry a B+ for sniffing the wind and having the balls to join Feinstein in pointing a finger at The Company. He’s ordered a probe into the hacking of computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee, writing to Attorney General Holder, “The CIA has not only interfered with the lawful congressional oversight of its activities, but has also seemingly attempted to intimidate its overseers by subjecting them to criminal investigation.” This is a separation of powers issue, but it’s also a clear indicator that the CIA has gotten too big for its britches. The Company can flex its muscles on foreign soil, but once it’s been found messing around in hometown business, it’s gone too far. That’s FBI territory.

In financial news, the Koch brothers are doing a bang-up job of buying the mid-terms, even though facts on the ground clearly suggest that the Republican party has little to offer any but the elite. One sonorous voice attempting to cover that in smokescreen is that of Ted Cruz, whose standard stump-speech line — “Let me tell you now about the single biggest lie in politics: It is that Republicans are the party of the rich. What complete nonsense.” — has received an impressive three Pinocchios over at the Washington Post Fact Checkers blog (indicating “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions,” to be topped only by four Pinocchios, which is defined as a whopper). Doesn’t matter. Pubs don’t rely on facts, they have faith in their world view.

Which brings me to the 600+ pound chicken from hell (and reminds me that with meat prices soaring, and with groceries at their highest since 2011 and due to rise a projected 3+ percent as the year progresses, that’s a lot of pot pies).The bones of a North American oviraptorosaur discovered in the Dakotas have given us a glimpse of an ancient critter, 66 million years old, weighing up to a metric ton and described by National Geographic as both fierce and fluffy, another example of bird-like raptors from that early period. That time frame is 65 million years, plus change, older than the 6,000 years the creationists believe the world to be, even though they seem to have reconciled their narrative to have Adam and Eve co-exist with dinos. Worse, I suspect, was news of a tiny zircon crystal found on a sheep ranch in western Australia, the oldest rock identified so far, coming in at 4.4 billion years old. These anthropological discoveries routinely make fundies wince, as has the extremely entertaining and informative new television series, “Cosmos,” starring personable astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson. If you haven’t had the opportunity to watch an episode, you can find one here.

Needless to say, this has put climate deniers, and those who consider any discussion of the planet’s warming a liberal plot, on high alert. Tyson does not pound away at climate change in this beautifully produced series, although we’re early in. Just charting the universe, he’s throwing a monkey wench into the creationist ethos, moving the dial from the Big Bang up until the appearance of humankind (or, as Tyson tells it, the most recent 17 seconds of recorded history). He can’t help stepping on the creationist toes when he says, “The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact.” Interestingly, this series is being carried by FOX (not the news division, of course). It’s the return of science to mainstream conversation and it comes with all the bells and whistles, production values and special effects needed to illustrate what we can only imagine. No, it’s not Mr. Wizard. It’s better by miles! Take time to watch, you won’t be sorry.

There are voices all around us giving us a different way to look at things, another view of what we think we see. Listening to other voices isn’t a bad idea, given where we’ve been in the last few decades. The majority of us can no longer pretend civilization is a zero sum game, winner take all. Things don’t work that way any more, if ever they did. Life is nuanced, even if the sub-stratas of our culture can’t relate one to the other. In a Salon article titled, “The ultimate guide to debunking right-wingers’ insane persecution fantasies,” Robert Boston points out that Christian fundies — indeed, all religions proclaiming themselves the one true faith — have no choice but to play zero sum, it being unthinkable to their practitioners that doctrine should fail. As long as we isolate ourselves within the strict limits of such religious thought, unable or unwilling to entertain any opposing ideas, we will be ill equipped to survive the challenges of the future. Zero sum is becoming increasingly obsolete.

From the fundy viewpoint, science cannot win if the Bible is to be believed, but from the humanist’s point of view, science and spirituality, if not religion, have enough awe in common to discover any number of ways to co-exist. It isn’t 21st century impetus that seeks to make peace between these two concepts; this is old business in our nation, enduring another — let’s hope final — face-off. Said Einstein, “The scientist’s religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.” Earlier by centuries, George Washington told Congress, “There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.” To deny scientific thought is to embrace ignorance. To deny it in the name of God is a kind of self-deluded blasphemy against the concept of life itself. To deny it in the 21st century is absurd.

Much like the televised Maya that infects us all, there is a culturally imposed religious connotation to many of the things we believe. One — my pet peeve — regards deservedness. We might say our religiosity is part and parcel of our Pilgrim heritage, our roots deep in institutional Calvinism, and some of that might be so, but the very rebellion that birthed us onto these shores has solidified in our national persona to constantly struggle against our better instincts in this American passion play. As much as we believe in opportunity for all, we find every reason to withhold it. As much as we admire a good success story, we’re constantly on the lookout for a way to best it. As much as we tout the charities and compassion of our religious faith, nationalism and now consumerism trump it at every turn. Social safety nets, judicial integrity, educational opportunities, voting privileges, all of these have become worthy sacrifices to the religion of capitalism.

The fundies, in tandem with their personal political party, have convinced us that money and substance, security and privilege, are only due those who deserve them because of right-thinking and acting as observed in church dogma. This leeches out into the larger social fabric as a sense of entitlement due those who, as our president irks me by constantly repeating, “play by the rules.” What if we screw that up? Are we discarded, like the millions serving ill-deserved prison sentences? Forgotten, like the vets who have come home from an unnecessary war without the financial security or the medical assistance they require? Invisible, like the millions of single mothers working more than one job, while earning an unlivable minimum wage? Yes, perhaps.

In what can only be described as cramped, restrictive consciousness, we’re infected with the litany of the fundamentalists who consider riches a perk from the Almighty but only if primed with tithes, or political theorists who swear that only those who make their own way to wealth without the help of others (especially not the government, except in issues of business tax law and corporate welfare) are due the respect and assistance of their own kind, i.e., the “makers” vs. the “takers.” Which of us, needing a hand, would hold one out to either of these usual suspects?

I’m including this because, if I’m reading the chicken entrails correctly — the astrological, the channeled, the intuited — we are due some sharp economic adjustments in the coming weeks and I think it’s important to realize that not only have we already “been there, done that,” but that there are other voices to hear other than the traditional ones who will scream the loudest should that happen. There are voices reminding us that there must be a re-think of not just our flawed economic theories but scrutiny of those who have been allowed to administer them, and the reality of that will come as a jolt. There are loving voices telling us that not every public emergency has to blow out our adrenal glands and create chaos in our lives. There are gentle voices asking us to suspend judgment and depend on one another for good advice and loving assistance. Those are the voices to listen to, every time.

Our love/hate relationship with money — with perceived good — is too often entwined with our personal sense of self-esteem. Whatever occurs in these next pivotal months having to do with finances is less about us individually than about a system long out of balance seeking a new set point. What we bring to the table as this nation, this planet, finds its balance will make all the difference in our personal lives as these energies point us toward what we must resolve. Take some time to hear the other voices this week. Take the opportunity to thank those voices that are always there for you, helping out and lightening the load. Better yet, take some time to reconnect with your own.