By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Well, it’s hit the fan now. Both the right and the left are coming to a boil on the triple threat of Benghazi, the IRS scrutiny of the Tea Party with a magnifying glass, and the DOJ manhandling AP‘s records. The problem is that fan blades are equal opportunity distributors.
All sides are getting their share of schadenfreude, heated talking points and chest-thumping self-righteousness, punctuated by hysterical chatter and/or outraged “I-TOLD-you-so” ringing through cyber-halls, and loudly discussed in coffee shops across the nation.
Three scandals all at once is a perfect storm of Gotcha Politics, causing tongues to cluck and hands to wring, and at the center of all this is Barack Obama, seemingly the last calm person in the nation. Oh, and me. Maybe me. I’m just standing here, watching the shitstorm turn in the fan blades and wondering how it is that so few people saw this coming.
We’ve talked for years about what it might take to get people involved as citizens, how close to the bone it would have to cut before politics became personal enough to arouse the sleeping giant of public outrage. Is this enough to get our attention? (I mean, let’s face it: on at least two fronts, it’s taken determined Pubs to blow copious amounts of helium up the ass of these events to make them fly.)
The last time we dozed off, early in the Seventies — leaving the rubble of our draft card-burning, tear-gassed and blood-soaked Pluto/Uranus transit behind — we must have made some kind of decision. We must have looked back in exhaustion at the years of protesting an immoral war, the killing fields at Kent State where children murdered children, the down and dirty street fight in Chicago where 10,000 anti-war demonstrators were met by over 23,000 of Mayor Daley’s baton-wielding cops and guardsmen. We must have taken too small a measure of satisfaction in Nixon’s eventual removal and decided we needed a break from politics, entirely.
That didn’t really work. We were marked forever by scars from our struggle, losing our innocence, some of us far from home on foreign adventures, some in betrayal at the hands of our very own. We tried to be apolitical, but we couldn’t hide our shaken belief in government or renew our trust in our fellows, so we allowed art to remind us where we’d come from. We bought tickets to movies that exposed the dark underbelly of humanity: All The President’s Men, Chinatown, The Candidate, Network, The Deerhunter, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Godfather. If we’re looking for tracks of our most recent distrust of government and rejection of authority, we’ll find signs of our homegrown dissatisfaction in the movies of the Seventies.
But we’d had enough of the streets, enough head-busting and chaos, we were looking for a softer ride. Cue the diversions that changed the culture, that gave us the mythos of Star Wars and Superman and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Cue the disco ball and John Travolta’s strut, the rise of cynicism and street drugs, a yearning for heroes to rescue us, while issues of civil liberty and feminism became more a (safe, but boring) legal wrangle than a march through Georgia.
In the self-reflecting Seventies, Jonathan Livingston Seagull offered a toe in to alternative philosophy that didn’t smell of patchouli, and Roe v. Wade changed the way the world worked for both sexes. Technology captured our attention even as economic growth began to slow, and in order to “keep up,” more and more women entered the workforce. “Stuff” quickly became more valuable than character, and Jimmy Carter’s warning of excess in all things was quickly ignored as he was laughed out of office. In a frenzy of isolationism, the Me Generation was born, and cable television began its early experiment in 24/7 mind control. In such a social climate, the darker forces were studiously growing a fledgling Orwellian future in their petrie dish, to be fully transplanted into the fertile Bush decade.
Frankly, I’m not sure what we’ve been doing since the Captain and Tennille crooned Do That To Me One More Time, enchanting the Reagans and scandalizing the religious. Perhaps we spent too long babysitting our inner child. We seem to have slugged down the equivalent of a big ol’ cocktail of Prozac laced with Ambien to have to wake up this hard, a 21st century version of Orwell’s soma, purposefully distracting from reality while encouraging sleepwalking. A friend who has had to return to Prozac recently wrote to tell me she couldn’t get the pin number on her credit card to work at the gas station. She eventually realized she’d been entering her zip code.
THAT’s the kind of soma-coma I’m talking about. We saw but we didn’t see — we knew, but we didn’t know. The edges stayed fuzzy until Pluto/Uranus slapped us awake again. And now, suddenly, we discover that establishment politics comes at the pleasure of its corporate overlords, that the president — no matter who s/he might be — has very little wiggle-room away from the expectations of the corporate agenda, that the very worst fears of those in power is that we, the people, actually DO awaken and realize we’re being sucked dry. This was a surprise? Really? Where have we been all this time?
Have we asked ourselves the right questions during this last perilous decade? When corporate entities hold sway over campaigns with gigantic donations of anonymous money, state-approved and encouraged, is it an error to carefully screen for the possibility of corruption or criminality? When sexual assaults in the military come from the top, what can we expect from enlisted personnel? When we see hardcore military vehicles driving down the streets of Boston, do we connect the dots to a militarized police force, flush with federal money? When we choose ‘safety’ over justice, do we not understand that the price we pay is our liberty? When we encourage our politicians to be disrespectful to those who thwart them, can we trust them to behave decently on our own behalf?
What did we think those 230,000 Homeland Security employees were doing with their time? And when we hear about Barack Obama’s devotion to “big government,” do we remember that those quarter-million hires came from the George W. Bush brain trust? Do we recall that while all the Dubby’s czars have been long forgotten, the expanded security capabilities that beefed up our ability to war here, there and everywhere, continue unabated?
I suppose you’d be forgiven if you don’t remember. Apparently crusty old war hawks like Lindsey Graham and John McCain weren’t aware just how much power was shifted to the Executive, either (although this hurts my brain to consider). Seems there’s this little scrap of Congressional law called the Authorization to Use Military Force, established in 2001 and good for — well — eternity, looks like. As I’ve said before, as long as we’re “at war,” all bets are off, as are, apparently, all restrictions to aggression. Say what you will about Obama, he respects the law: if he does it, there’s a law that supports it.
With a trifecta of political scandals taking up the oxygen, we aren’t paying attention to things like the Great Disappearing Deficit, with Obama presiding over the most rapid deficit reduction since World War II. How will the Pubs sell us austerity now? And is our president sufficiently beaten up to buy into it anyway? That chained CPI business for Social Security lost him a lot of credibility. And here’s another expansion of power to watch carefully: you’ll want to read this worrisome article from AlterNet, titled Military Quietly Grants Itself the Power to Police the Streets Without Local or State Consent. When you read this stuff, you KNOW there are factions within factions within factions and you’ve got to wonder who — if anyone — keeps track of them all. So far, looks like nobody.
In this three-headed hydra, there were no laws broken, but — say those who think this United States they live in is the same one they remember from the Wonder Years — it’s all very, very inappropriate. Inappropriate? Know what’s wrong with that? I’ve waited thirteen years now for a Republican politician, ANY Republican, to put country before party. Not a single soul has stepped up. Every Pub I see holding forth on these “scandals” — Issa, Boehner, McConnell — thundering like Puritan minister Cotton Mather from his podium high above the congregation, warning about the evils of witchcraft while dressed in pride and prejudice, is wearing a George Bush mask. Every one of them is waving hypocrisy so proudly, announcing it so loudly that when I see or hear them, my eyes roll back in my head and I begin to mutter, darkly. The only relief I got this week came at the tender mercies of Jon Stewart, who soothed me with this, along with confirmation that I was not alone in screaming “NO, NO, NO!” at my television monitor.
There is no evidence that the White House — specifically, Obama — had fingers in any of the three “scandals” we’ve heard about. Deeply conservative philosophy created SuperPACs, people with a problematic track-record, like Karl Rove, established them, and big money boys, like the Kochs, financed them. In 2012, a group of Dem Senators demanded that the IRS specifically examine those requests for non-profit status, suggesting that they deserved careful scrutiny. Was that profiling? You betcha. Good thing, too. I’d expect the same with Dems who had history of finagling.
Was Benghazi a major fuck up? Seems so, given the result, although twice before the attack the ambassador himself refused additional security. The resulting problem with talking points was discovered to be fallout from a turf war between the CIA and State Department. We’ve seen inter-agency wrangles before. Hopefully, studies will show this competition to have only impacted after the fact, not before.
The situation with AP is the one that seems most problematic to me and bears more scrutiny. The Attorney General apparently feels that there is nothing more to see, thinks we should move along. Again, no laws broken, although it surely seems there should have been. This is what happens when we take our eye off the ball of democratic legislation: the legislation is no longer democratic when we need it. So far, this is having a chilling effect on press coverage, calling attention to the administration’s war on whistleblowers. Momentum is building now for that conversation, one we desperately need to have on a national level.
Most of us on the left believe George W. Bush to be a war criminal for sending the nation to war for subjective reasons. The notion has legs. Dubby had to cancel a recent speech in Switzerland to avoid citizen’s arrest by Amnesty International. Meanwhile, respected leftie pundit and academic, Cornel West, asserts that Obama is also a war criminal, given our drone program, neglect of due process, and presidential hit list.
If what is true of Bush is also true of Obama, then we must accept the harsh truth that America is a rogue nation, flush with military power and influence but subject to failing systems, predatory capitalism and moral equivocation. Every establishment president is a war criminal, each one a tool of colonialism, in service to the empire. If the next president is a Republican, they will find themselves right at home with the power mongers and shape shifters. If the next is Madam President Hillary, she will join Big Bill as a tyrannous despot and fellow Bilderberg member, and on it will go into the future unless we demand that the policies and behaviors change. We do that with our voices, our votes, our pocket books and our intent. What we know, we cannot “unknow,” and that makes us war criminals too. What we know we must take responsibility for.
Cornel West also warns of growing authoritarianism, which seems something of a no-brainer, given how it dovetails with what we know about Pluto’s journey through Capricorn, and what we’re seeing more frequently in local incidents of police brutality across the country. I don’t believe we’re any closer to fascism under Obama than we were under Bush; in fact I think we’re less, but let’s face it: we’re too close for comfort, period. Unrestricted capitalism and unshakable militarism offer us few other options. The capitalism that defines us, brands us, owns us, and if we have given it all our power, we are powerless to defeat it.
But listen — that’s their game, not ours. If we engage them in kind, we lose the battle. If we get lost in this silly overblown hyper-hysteria being purposely fed into the pipeline for political gain, we will have lost our way again. That is NOT how we want to spend this deeply malleable energy we’re (hopefully) using to imprint with our intent to lift ourselves up and out of this old paradigm dance. This is the time to briefly screen everything through our intellect, take it to our intuition and then on into our heart. We will FEEL what isn’t right, HEAR what rings false, SEE the insincerity on the faces of those with much to hide.
Now is not the time to hide truth from ourselves or, in truth, hide anything at all. Now is the time for “coming out” as whatever we know ourselves to be and make plain our demands of those who lead us, our desires for a restored nation and government. We will never regain our trust in government unless we learn, once again, to trust ourselves.
Stay calm. This is an old game, we’ve played it before and we recognize it. Don’t give yourself away to the news loop. It’s Chicken Little, selling us a sky-falling policy. It’s hype and hysteria we don’t need. This is the time to search our values for what we want, to demand of ourselves, as well as others, what is right, loving, and healing to our wounded nation and planet. You never know. When we move together, empowered, we might just get it.
Thanks, Judith.
Not one to chase windmills, I have been fortunate enough to see my ideas come to fruition. As a professional woman, I have participated in meetings with some of the men who make decisions for all of us and have had my ideas listened to and my suggestions followed. One is example ARTWALK NY which raised one million dollars annually for Coalition for the Homeless in Manhattan and has been duplicated around the country. It demystifies the art world, making the creative process more accessible to the public. I have several projects in the works that will do that and more, incorporating the concepts of sustainability and equality. A little creativity goes a long way. When the impulse strikes, I take action. Always have. Honor is a personal thing. We each define what the word means for us.
We have many twists and turns to go through before we see the Promised Land. We have not hit bottom yet and it is entirely possible that we will not hit bottom in our life times. This may be a very long, drawn out process for everyone on the planet that requires all of us to become accustomed to endless pin pricks to our psyches and souls.
We cannot afford to be fooled by Democrats versus Republicans. No doubt there is plenty of poop on Obama. The reason why Bernie Sanders can get away with the things he does is his 75% approval rating in Vermont. Both parties love him in his home state and both vote for him because they recognize he is speaking the truth.
The remote viewers are predicting a global coastal event right around now, today. I have met the man who discovered the mass graves of 1,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forests executed at the end of World War II with the use of remote viewing. The world was told the Germans executed these men when in fact it was Russia with the complicity of the U.S. William Sloane Coffin was part of this as a young military man, long before the days he taught Divinity at Yale University and preached from the pulpit of Riverside Church. We have many secrets yet to be revealed but I have no doubts they will come out in time.
We all see what we want to see and disregard the rest.
What I do see is the woven fabric of our lives, separate and together. Like the film, “Slum Dog Millionaire,” each event gives a gift as it takes something away. It is up to each of us to be mindful and use our experiences to attain the ultimate prize of balance between autonomy and Oneness.
Mia
Over fifty years ago Martin Luther King sat in the Birmingham jail, writing a letter to his fellow clergy on the margins of a newspaper. When it was published — 50 years ago today (Sunday) — the things he told us galvanized many of us into action. He was the conscience of his country … in many ways, he still is.
I recently saw Django Unchained and, gotta say, it’s effective in revealing the raw side of our horrific history. Tarintino knows how to create comic book effect, tell tall tales that ring with a certain disturbing clarity. King’s candor in that letter flashes with the same kind of pain Tarintino made plain on film; not necessarily of body, but surely of soul. We all share in this classism, we must all rise above it. Read the excerpts over at Political Waves.
Pleased to see that the Pubs can’t seem to make their charges of scandal stick. This kind of diversion works for FOX News but isn’t impacting elsewhere, looks like. The public really IS ahead of the politicians, on so many levels. (That’s not just fact, it’s affirmation!)
On other fronts, a friend sent a link to share from Forbes. It’s an app for your smartphone that lets you boycott the Koch’s, Monsanto and other offenders by scanning stuff in your cart. Talk about handy! Read about it here.
Thank you, Mia for all the input. Honor is a biggie for me too. Not honor that the world bestows, but the honor that blooms in our hearts when we’ve done what we know is right. We may share a kind of Don Quixote thing, although I have confidence that windmills CAN flip right over, given the right set of circumstances. I just know I have no choice but do what I do and I suspect you feel similarly.
Bless you Miss be, for the very kind words. I thought of you today as I watched Mitch evade question after question on Meet the Press. I could say I’ll see your Mitch and raise you my Roy (Blunt,) but honest — they’re a pair to draw to, leading their parade of the stuck and fearful. Gosh!
I AM encouraged by the Vesta info — and generally impressed with how peoples minds seem to be opening to new information lately. These cosmic patterns and combinations of planets should remind us that there IS purpose under Heaven, and that everything is arriving Right On Time in order to rediscover what is truly valuable. In case we need to bounce it off something, we’re sure seeing a lot of BS that’s NOT!
GaryB — how could I have forgotten?! Bluto went on to be a Senator, didn’t he? Or was it Otter? I think I’m pretty long in the tooth for a really futile and stupid gesture (although I think about that from time to time, especially when I’m writing these articles) but surely someone else will provide one I can get behind. It’s tricky though. Futile, stupid AND funny? High camp and full-blown art!
Thanks for checking in, Strawberry, and thanks for playing this weekend, all you readers and poster’s. Blessings on each of you.
How interesting, Be. I’ve been watching 11 Cancer, as I have Juno at 11 Libra natally, turning this Uranus-Pluto square into a Cardinal Grand Cross with what feels to me like the big boys opposite some determined feminine energy. When Ceres transited 11 Cancer I found myself letting go, with hard-worked-for pieces slipping into place, and filled with a grace I’ve longed for. As Vesta now moves into this position, I’ll look at the Full Moon/Eclipse/Pluto-Uranus square through this lens of Ceres’ grace and Vesta’s integrity–allowing them to shed some light on my ongoing Juno-Uranus opposition. All four asteroids are pretty powerfully lit up for me right now, natally and by transit–this should be a significant full moon.
And thank you, Judith, for refusing to perpetuate the lies that come at us from all quarters.
Thank you for the T-square piece. I was getting a little lost among all the details.
Jude,
Re-read your piece today – so much to take in – and the trust part, “we will never regain our trust in government. . . ” brought to mind Vesta (Hestia), whose name was used by the Greeks to seal oaths and social contracts because she signified honesty and faithful dealings. This Friday’s lunar eclipse features Vesta (11+ Cancer) opposite Pluto (11+ Capricorn) and square Uranus (11+ Aries).
I thought you might find this a hopeful sign regarding this 3rd square (of 7) between Pluto and Uranus in that (I believe) Vesta will provide a reflection back to Pluto (power) in this T-square as she is the symbol of trust as well as dedication and focus, and she’s in the sign of the family. This will only intensify her image as the Eternal Flame; the center of every home as well as the center of every community. She is the epitome of feminine energy (she was associated with the Mother Moon Goddess in pre-Hellenic times) but doesn’t present a threat to masculinity. She is a cohesive force, bringing different factions together. In the following weeks, and not just in the U.S., her reflection (of Pluto) will impact everyone, courtesy of Uranus’ breakthrough revelations.
This cycle between Pluto and Vesta started with their conjunction in February, 2011, and they were joined by Venus. It symbolized a coming transformation of values and, in my opinion, trust. Now Vesta will stand opposite Pluto, clearly showing where this cycle has failed and where it has endured, but that’s not all. In addition to the T-square between Pluto and Uranus, Vesta is part of a grand water trine between Chiron and Saturn. It gives her added strength, not just of her own convictions, but the emotional clarity of Saturn in Scorpio and the spiritual healing and awareness of Chiron in Pisces for her part of the equation.
The full eclipsed Moon itself forms a T-square, being opposite the Sun and with Neptune squaring them both. Astrologer Stephanie Austin (Mt. Astrologer, Apr-May 2013) says this “underscores the theme of the power of the mind and the power of belief”. As you say “we will FEEL what isn’t right, HEAR what rings false, SEE the insincerity on the faces of those with much to hide.”
And if that ain’t enuf, Venus (value) will be conjunct Mercury (mind) in Gemini (communicate) in the same degree that Jupiter (big picture) was in at the solar eclipse on May 10. The magic elixer of these eclipses will empower us, in no small part, thanks to Vesta.
be
Thanks Judith,
It sometimes just seems too much to overcome but it is time.
With all the movie references of the last few decades I noticed one omitted and a renowned quote from it.
Take heed it is time to reclaim our future:
D-Day (Bruce McGill): War’s over, man. Wormer dropped the big one.
Bluto: Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter (Tim Matheson): [whispering] Germans?
Boon (Peter Riegert): Forget it, he’s rolling.
Bluto: And it ain’t over now. ‘Cause when the goin’ gets tough… [thinks hard] the tough get goin’! Who’s with me? Let’s go! [runs out, alone; then returns] What the **** happened to the Delta I used to know? Where’s the spirit? Where’s the guts, huh? “Ooh, we’re afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble.” Well just kiss my *** from now on! Not me! I’m not gonna take this. Wormer, he’s a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer –
Otter: Dead! Bluto’s right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.
Bluto: We’re just the guys to do it.
D-Day: Let’s do it.
Bluto: LET’S DO IT!!
Levity in the face of Danger!
Can’t watch these clowns anymore!
LET’S DO IT!
I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!
Oh wait, that was then, this is now. In the early 70’s Neptune left the deeply emotional waters of Scorpio and moved into the political rhetoric of fiery Sagittarius. This week PBS News Hour is featuring, every night, a segment on the Watergate Hearings as an observation of the 40th anniversary of the original event. The old war horse newsmen, MacNeil and Lehrer, who provided the gavel to gavel coverage in 1973, now provide a retrospect of what was going on behind the scenes, along with juicy clips of testimony. They are having fun. Nobody does deception better than Neptune.
And you are a telepathic astrologer Jude. Along with being a great writer, I mean REALLY great, you honed in on that inner child we baby-sat for too long. In a flash I understood what the trifecta of Pallas-Athene conjunct Sedna, conjunct Child meant. I found that transit group yesterday and wondered about its meaning, and now you have made it clear. We must create the strategy (Pallas-Athene) that moves us beyond our self-absorbed (Sedna) inner child (Child) and “make plain our demands of those who lead us”.
Your writing today also makes clear the meaning of the whistle-blowing Askalaphus, transiting at 6+ Leo, conjunct the U.S. Sibly North Node (forward path), and why transiting Hybris (trying to get away with something) is conjunct the U.S. natal Sun at 13 Cancer. You speak for the gods and goddesses who speak through the language of astrology.
You are a national treasure Jude, and you belong to us.
be
Here is a relevant video on the psychology of authority:
http://stormcloudsgathering.com/the-psychology-of-authority
I cannot write about Elysium without Ezra Pound’s Cantos:
______
libretto
______
Yet
Ere the season died a-cold
Borne upon a zephyr’s shoulder
I rose through the aureate sky
Lawes and Jenkyns guard thy rest
Dolmetsch ever be thy guest,
Has he tempered the viol’s wood
To enforce both the grave and the acute?
Has he curved us the bowl of the lute?
Lawes and Jenkyns guard thy rest
Dolmetsch ever be thy guest
Hast ‘ou fashioned so airy a mood
To draw up leaf from the root?
Hast ‘ou found a cloud so light
As seemed neither mist nor shade?
Then resolve me, tell me aright
If Waller sang or Dowland played
Your eyen two wol sleye me sodenly
I may the beauté of hem nat susteyne
And for 180 years almost nothing.
Ed ascoltando al leggier mormorio
there came new subtlety of eyes into my tent,
whether of the spirit or hypostasis,
but what the blindfold hides
or at carneval
nor any pair showed anger
Saw but the eyes and stance between the eyes,
colour, diastasis,
careless or unaware it had not the
whole tent’s room
nor was place for the full EidwV
interpass, penetrate
casting but shade beyond the other lights
sky’s clear
night’s sea
green of the mountain pool
shone from the unmasked eyes in half-mask’s space.
What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world.
Pull down thy vanity, it is not man
Made courage, or made order, or made grace,
Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.
Learn of the green world what can be thy place
In scaled invention or true artistry,
Pull down thy vanity,
Paquin pull down!
The green casque has outdone your elegance.
“Master thyself, then others shall thee beare”
Pull down thy vanity
Thou art a beaten dog beneath the hail,
A swollen magpie in a fitful sun,
Half black half white
Nor knowst’ou wing from tail
Pull down thy vanity
How mean thy hates
Fostered in falsity,
Pull down thy vanity,
Rathe to destroy, niggard in charity,
Pull down thy vanity,
I say pull down.
But to have done instead of not doing
this is not vanity
To have, with decency, knocked
That a Blunt should open
To have gathered from the air a live tradition
or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame
This is not vanity.
Here error is all in the not done,
all in the diffidence that faltered . . .
“If what is true of Bush is also true of Obama, then we must accept the harsh truth that America is a rogue nation, flush with military power and influence but subject to failing systems, predatory capitalism and moral equivocation. Every establishment president is a war criminal, each one a tool of colonialism, in service to the empire. If the next president is a Republican, they will find themselves right at home with the power mongers and shape shifters. If the next is Madam President Hillary, she will join Big Bill as a tyrannous despot and fellow Bilderberg member, and on it will go into the future unless we demand that the policies and behaviors change. We do that with our voices, our votes, our pocket books and our intent. What we know, we cannot “unknow,” and that makes us war criminals too. What we know we must take responsibility for.”
The question we need to ask ourselves is, when the situation presents itself (which it will) where will we stand? Will we follow those who inspire or remain mute? Our actions need to be consistent with our beliefs.
These events are keeping the focus away from hot spots elsewhere in the world that need our attention such as the escalating war in Syria. Senior Editor Gordon Duff at Veterans Today writes that a nuclear bomb was dropped on Syria by Israel and the video clip he shows sure looks like a nuclear device. Russia has moved ships into the area and will not sit by watching the U.S. and Israel manipulate the situation in Syria as a means of getting at Iran.
The truth is every aspect of our lives is being monitored and recorded. Our purchases at the grocery store, drug store, our energy use at home through Smart Meters. Those discount cards come with a price tag, a lack of privacy, not to mention the micro chipping of the population that Obama has already signed into law.
All roads are leading to a particular point in history. The phrase Russell Crowe’s character in the Ridley Scott film “Gladiator,” and his men repeat to each other before entering into battle is food for thought:
Strength and Honor!
MAXIMUS (before battling the Germanians):
“Fratres… three weeks from now I will be harvesting my crops,
imagine where you will be and it will be so. Hold the lines, stay
with me. If you find yourself alone riding
in green fields with
the sun on your face, do not be
troubled, for you are in Elysium
and you’re already dead!!!
(The men laugh.)
Brothers, what we do in life echoes in
eternity.”
I do not suggest picking up the sword, but words and actions are just as powerful, more so really.
Thank you, Judith.