By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Where did it all go wrong, I wonder? When did our parents become hard-nosed bigots and religious freaks? Did we simply refuse to notice which All In The Family jokes made them laugh loudest, secret admirers of Archie Bunker’s candor? Did we fail to note their growing interest in televised evangelical promises to double and triple their income with regular tithing to the likes of Jim and Tammy Fay, Oral Roberts and Jimmy Swaggart, who fleeced the rubes in the name of Gawd? Were they social and political closet cases long before The Times™ swung that door wide, allowing a lifetime’s collection of racial bias, insecurity and fear to come tumbling out? Oh, I know — I’m generalizing — but seriously, what exactly WERE they discussing during those Friday night card parties, and why didn’t we know about it earlier?
And how did so many of our kids turn into Alex P. Keaton? Did we watch one too many episodes of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” with them, activating errant DNA that overrode their ability to put perspective on how much is TOO much? Did we cater to their wants and misinterpret their needs? Did we give them too much stuff without understanding it to be the gateway drug to a lifetime addiction to rogue capitalism? Did the Gordon Geckoes of the world take on all the luster and sparkle of baseball heroes, morphing greed and hubris into a new brand of ‘cool’ that even the Fonz couldn’t compete with? As for the many who did not measure up to an almost-mythical blend of cut-throat competition and cold-hearted calculation, why are we surprised they’re now living in our basement?
A fine generation we Boomers turned out to be. We started out working for the Peace Corps and ended up retiring from Morgan Stanley. We marched in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in union strikes and anti-war protests and ended up more envious of Mitt Romney’s 100 million dollar IRA than distressed that union membership is in the crosshairs, or that political protests are being relegated to appropriate ‘zones,’ out of sight and mind of those who should be subjected to them. And even now, with the nation in tatters and the future dicey, the Pluto in Leo generation is more concerned about “looking good” in their retirement than making sure the whole of us have a roof over our heads and a meal in our bellies. We started out a “we” generation and ended up concerned about “me.” We devolved.
I don’t want this to be a Boomer-bash, that’s not my intent, and in fact I still have high hopes for us. I had anticipated writing a piece on Romney and what’s so egregiously unthinkable about installing this passionless know-nothing in the Oval Office, but I stepped off the edge of the reality-cliff pretty quickly when I studied the candidates’ poll numbers. Obama is ahead of Mitt this week by five points, some say as a direct result of the lift he got from Robert’s decision on Obamacare. By Monday that should all be behind, with today’s unemployment report indicating dismal numbers and painfully slow growth. Yet given that the majority of the country is eager for the policies that the GOP has pledged against — oversight of the banksters, taxing the rich, putting an end to war and its expense in blood and treasure, overturning Citizens United, ending income inequality — how is it that the Republican candidate is still so close?
A recent headline told us that the winner of this election will be challenged by job numbers well into the future. Big duh! Like we didn’t see this coming, but, remarkably, at least some didn’t, and still don’t. Obama has been in the legislature and on the stump, trying to put forward some stimulus to break the deadlock. Meanwhile, criticized for lack of details — not to mention leadership — Mitt has revealed that he has a 59-point plan for our economy. He let us in on the first point: push through the Keystone pipeline so we can offer all the energy possible to business. Really? Is that it? Is that the CEO’s answer to everything, just an echo of George W. Bush? Can’t wait for the other 58!
The mantra that the free market will take care of all these problems if allowed to function without oversight or restriction, is the prayer of the conservative American faithful, drinking from the communal cup of manifest destiny and the Republican surety that they, and only they, have been ordained by Almighty Gawd to lead the worthy into a profit-driven future. The unworthy? Well, there’s 99% of them, including most of the faithful themselves, but that’s what faith is good for, right? We shall march steadily forward — led by the clergy and the politicos, the think-tanks, the corporations represented by canny PR firms — awaiting the next big bubble, sure to be “trickled” unto, amen and amen (either that or Armageddon, whichever improbability comes first.)
This is, without doubt, the mantra of plutocracy, our 21st century religion of take-the-money-and-run, and nothing in our broken system has been fixed precisely because they do not want it fixed. It’s high times for the 1%, profit has never been so good, and if Romney is a wild card, they aren’t showing it so far. In their world, money wins and presidents are disposable.
If life is truly all about exploring the many options available — throwing ourselves headlong at experience to discover not only what love isn’t, but what it is; what God isn’t, but what It might be — we Boomers have done a damned fine job of it. And while we have to fight against our human penchant for small minded self-interest, we’re not unfamiliar with the greater good. We knew about it, once upon a time, flush with altruism and egalitarian truth. We’ve had all the experience we need to draw some conclusions now, and I think it’s time to write that term paper: What I Learned About Life While Busy With Other Plans. It would be helpful now to distill some of that experience into wisdom. Good to give it away, not continue to take notes well into our dotage about the pros and cons of face lifts or the art of gracious assisted living. In that spirit, here’s a couple of points I’ll share.
1. Money Does Not Buy Happiness
It does not, but there are a lot of other things it will buy. Rich people are certainly more comfortable than the masses, they have more options. But their life of privilege allows them a level of comfort that too often invites them to look away from others in need, deflecting any residual guilt over excess by deciding others are undeserving of plenty. It’s a good thing that only 1% of us are so terribly rich as to be so cavalier; unfortunately, another 49% or more wish they were and are willing to let go of ethics to achieve it.
Money buys convenience, just ask someone who has to make everything from scratch or recreate the wheel on a consistent basis. Here in the Pea Patch, folks know how to do all those time-intensive things that their forefathers did, but they also know it takes all their energy to do it. There’s a reason convenience sells and “quality time” looks so attractive. On the other hand, there is quality time to be found in real accomplishment, not just the collecting of a paycheck. We too often forget what “satisfaction” feels like, and it is seldom found in the convenient choice.
Money buys favor and access: just ask the billionaires who are stuffing Republican SuperPACs with gigantic checks the way eager ladies stuff dollar bills into the G-strings of hotties in the new chick-flick, Magic Mike. The ladies are looking for proximity, and so are the billionaires, although they expect their influence to last a good deal longer. Using our checkbooks to buy favor and access may be the Ol’ Boy way forward but it reminds me of the lyrics to Billie Holiday’s God Bless The Child:
And when you got money,
You got a lots of friends
Crowdin’ ’round your door
When the money’s gone
And all your spendin’ ends
They won’t be ’round any more
No, no, no more
Of course it would take a good bit of doing to divest the Billionaires Club of their ill-gotten gains. The Kochs and others like them have “stupid money,” and their only intention seems to be to bulldoze anything in the way of getting more of it. We shall see in short order if all their money can buy them a flailing superpower and install a lackluster president. I’m betting they can’t, but not that they won’t continue to try.
Money can buy a sense of security, although we can’t count on that lasting, especially in an economy vulnerable to what Matt Taibbi calls the “Holy Fucking Shit!” factor (which we are experiencing now, on the down-low). My advice during these shaky times? Keep the batteries in your emergency kit fresh and a bit of cash under the mattress. You never know what’s going to happen next, but you can sure smell the smoke in the air, can’t you? Something’s on fire besides the West.
Although we fancy that the planets revolve around the US of A, international monetary issues hold more sway than we think. Here’s where we see Tom Friedman’s flat earth concept, a free market certainly not free nor in any way fair, its twisted and incestuous hedge funds and investments spreading tentacles across the globe. And we can see the tell-tale signs of epic failure in this nation, as well. Scranton, PA, just announced that all of its public workers are now being paid minimum wage, since the city fathers pronounced themselves broke. If fireman or cops — necessary to the workings of the community — can’t consider their jobs secure, who can?
The love of money, the Bible tells us, is the root of all evil, but the love of happiness is without apparent pitfall, unless we misunderstand that real happiness is a wholly harmless prospect. If we have a purpose in life, if we have friends and family that we are able to give to, we’ve got the essential ingredients for happiness with or without a big bank balance. And if we can’t seem to find that glimmer of purpose within ourselves, we need to go find a place to give ourselves away. We must volunteer to do something that will make a difference in someone else’s life if we want to make a difference in our own. Call this human capital, if you like: we cannot fail when we invest in one another
2. All [Wo]Men Are Created Equal But Choices Make The Difference
I never understood how the Pubs could call Obama “an empty suit” until I carefully examined Mitt Romney, and now that I know what an empty suit looks like, I still don’t understand. I suppose this is one of those differences in how we see the world, defined by those we admire. If money is the whole of our desire, then Romney’s our man. Forget how unAmerican betting against US funds by depositing in a Swiss account is. Ignore how many jobs were dissolved in pursuit of those riches, how many were outsourced and sent overseas. Forget how many of the ‘little people’ lost their livelihoods, investments and pensions so that Mitt could add to his IRA, or how much of his gain has found its way to an off-shore account.
As well, not politically correct but certainly pertinent, let’s not forget that Mitt’s religion requires him to put his church — NOT his faith — first in any circumstance, and that should he, as suspected, select a woman VP, she will never be more than window dressing as are all women in both Romney’s religion and political persuasion. I don’t think religion should play a role in an election unless it supersedes a candidate’s loyalty to the nation, but in Mitt’s case, I can’t be sure. He’s no JFK, no matter how many speeches he makes, and the Mormon model puts more emphasis on the next life than this one, while strict adherence to Mormon principle in this one defines the next.
When the separation of church and state presented a hard line in politics, a candidate’s personal faith was less an issue. We no longer have that luxury. How we live our lives is a choice. What we think is a choice, as is — to cut fine — what we believe. Who we are is a choice. We are, each of us, connected to the Cosmos by invisible threads of Light, spirit inhabiting a human body for a time, creating reality with one another in a divine experiment that bets we won’t forget, ultimately, who we really are. As Thich Nhat Hanh tells us, “We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” And — oh! — I wish we’d get on with it.
Yes, you, me — part of one another. You, me and Mitt, the same; and when I look at him I can FEEL his unhappiness, despite all that money, his big family devoted to the campaign, a church of supporters thrilled to see their End Time prophecy coming to life. I’m not sure who Mitt Romney actually is, but I think it’s a safe bet that he hasn’t got a clue either. Etch-a-Sketch? A damning word-picture for a man who wishes to assume the power of the free world.
I can feel Romney’s soul confusion, if not his political aspiration, and his party feels it, too. One Pub politico, concerned about Mitt’s slow and bumbling response and lack of passion, asked, “I mean, what the hell does Mitt care about? What does he want to do? I don’t know.”
Despite Romney’s excess of wealth — the $250-million fortune we know about, and his various overseas accounts, reminding all but the most privileged Americans that such an excess of riches almost never comes without the victimization of others — he has doggedly tried for the presidency for eight years, and spent millions on the attempts. But when you look into his eyes, you don’t get a sense of why he wants this — you have to wonder if his heart is in it.
The Boomers are retiring now, they’re becoming the village elders. Old passions cannot help but activate again in this Pluto/Uranus square, kicking up potent memory and deep feeling, and I wonder how we’ll do, meeting the challenge of this moment after a lifetime of chasing our personal dreams. We once had a common vision, brief though it lasted. We once had each other’s backs.
While Mitt was chopping off the hair of an unlucky classmate, some of us were marching with the Panthers, burning our draft cards; some were learning about war in the jungles of Southeast Asia, or stuffing demands for the release of MIAs into envelopes to Hanoi. As we hearken back to those earlier times and the visions that drove us, the desires that animated our choices, we’ll have to examine our lives to see what skills and values we brought with us into this new century.
I can’t help but think Mitt brought all that money and all that dogma with him, waiting for a chance to make them work for him. And I can’t shake the feeling that he’s still that school bully, deep down, wanting to prove himself worthy of a famous father but unsure how (Dubby echoes, all around!).
And me? What can I bring to the awakening of 2012? I remember it all, every remarkable moment, and I’ve got the human capital to prove it. I’m ready to spend myself in service to the whole of us, to help lift up our anguished nation and planet, and I’ll bet you are too!
It’s time for the Boomers to give ourselves away, to offer up some gratitude for such an amazing life and adventure, to break an old paradigm of ancient mythologies with our passion and purpose! Time, again, to be “we, the people,” and get on with a more perfect union, here, and across the face of our beloved planet.
It’s funny, the Fire This Time is about how the plutocrats discovered they can get rich by exploiting other species, and Nature herself. In they past they just exploited other humans — in Dickins’ time, it was the workhouse poor, the orphaned, those could not defend themselves. In the lead-up to the Great Depression it was the subsistence farmers, the factory workers.
Then we got all humanistic on they ass, twentieth-century style, and they said, okay, we’ll manufacture stuff and instead of making it cheap by exploiting workers, we’ll make it cheap by ravaging the environment — we’ll shit all over Nature to make our dough!
And so they have. They have triggered the greatest calamity humankind has seen — climate change — and baby, humanity has seen some real doosies when it comes to calamity. They’ve triggered the greatest die-off in the natural world since the end of the last ice age, 50,000 years ago — all with their insatiable, relentless greed, that they sing hymns to and offer human sacrifices to.
And “they” in this narrative, I am sorry to tell you, is primarily those little fellas with penises and balls. It’s true that the are some objectionable females, but the folks who have institutionalized and ritualized the killing of nature through greed is, I am sorry to say, those critters who carry penises around with them all day.
It’s time to say no, time to seriously change the course of human events. It’s time to put to women in charge.
When you’re a quarter-billionaire, you probably don’t even KNOW how much money you’ve got, Brendan — and considering how highly Mitt is placed in the church [and he is] they likely don’t bitch about the share they get, too busy pushing him forward as THE Great White (Mormon) Hope. Still, your point resonates to most egalitarian Americans; he’s pretty secretive for a guy that is supposedly all personal sweetness and light. If you’re on the Left of the political spectrum, you can recognize a predatory capitalist when you see one. There really ISN’T more that needs saying if you’re an ethical sort.
Remember how everybody wanted to have a beer with Dubya? We won’t hear about that THIS time around — not even a Coke and a smile! And especially not from a man with 12 off-shore accounts and his own investment company in Bermuda (transferred in a blind trust to his wife’s name when he ran for governor.) Schlepping him to the public is a really hard sell. If he was MORE than just a product of his upper-upper class, we’d intuit it … he’s not, we can’t, and there it is, there.
I gave myself the evening to ponder your remarks, be, and the Goddess energy represented by Luna. You had me stumped for a bit until the word ‘alchemical’ began to shine brighter than the others and that pulled me from the head to the heart, where I connect with all those things my left-brain avoids. It seems almost counterintuitive that the “invisible” energies of combined Pluto and Luna would produce a potent impact in the coming months, but that appears to be the Cosmic arrangement.
It feels as if we need a direct assault against so much of what ails us but that’s not Luna’s way, nor is it visible in Pluto’s transformative — and subtle — hot-pot. This is the polar opposite of “top down” movement in politics; it’s [w]holistic stimulus, “bottom up” and that feels Just Right to me. If we factor in the dreamy nature of the Neptune transit and Chiron’s presence in deep-diving Pisces, it seems to me that a LOT of what happens next will be happening INSIDE us, a product of our imagination and feeling, and that makes [in]obvious sense. That’s where we COOK change, that’s where it begins to agitate itself, eventually seeping out our pores to create an itch that MUST be scratched. Unless it happens within us first, it won’t happen at all.
Given the entirety of the moon phases, we will get a complete representation of the subconscious REFLECTION of Goddess that will illuminate — and hopefully counter — all the illogic going on around us, and help us build a platform of balance, authenticity and self-esteem. I don’t think that needs to be slow-moving, time-consuming. It can be achieved by a potent a’ha moment, or a series of them. It is my affirmation that the internal territory unearthed by these combined transits is where compassion lives, where we will remember ourselves. And like Len, I will use that as a template to continue to grow my awareness! Thanks for the stretch, kiddo.
Always the poet, Len, reading your comments soothe me, like listening to gentle music. You bring everyone you touch a gift of validation, of appreciation. I only know one other person who does this so unselfconsciously, a potent healing modality, more valuable than we know. So today, please accept my gratitude for yours. A touch, a smile, a kind word heals, and if we pass it on, we can heal the planet.
Ahhhh, Mystes– I sense your weariness with holding up the world, with marking the years and conserving the remaining energy. I recognize the Achilles Heel of strong women, and I share it. Art, yes. If only we MERGED with it instead of standing outside, thinking it something other than our collective self-expression. Art has offered us every answer we need. I am often astounded when I watch old movies, re-read classics, listen to music from long ago how SMART we are, how WISE, how FAITHFUL to what is true and heart-felt … and then we pretend it’s just “entertainment.”
Thanks for the book report, a good reminder that political difference is nothing new. Every so often I read an article about what politicians wrote about one another a hundred years ago, two hundred, and have to acknowledge that this is “same shit, different day.” But a different day with some punch, given how far humankind has pushed the envelope …
Here in the Pea Patch we have had blistering, record-breaking heat for endless days — last night, there was a sudden thunderstorm that instantly dropped the temp over 20 degrees and gave everything a desperately needed drink. When it ended I stood in the yard, watching moonlight glisten off the leaves, and HEARD the sighs of relief from the plant Deva’s all around!
Medicare is a nut to crack, alright. I have just recently been added to the rolls and while there are a few health-related things — long ignored — I would like an opinion on, I hesitate. It’s like standing too close to a live volcano, you might get sucked in and consumed! Being advocate for our own wellbeing and consumer of what is offered is a drill most folks don’t have time, energy or good-sense for. But, given where we are in body consciousness, how would the majority cope without it? Some say better, some say not. One more time, we’re looking at a lack of balance and a misunderstanding of what “health” means. We surely have a ways to go and I’m affirming a “fast track.”
Hey Jude (I love writing that) …. if it helps, I just finished reading Julia Child’s memoir, and one of the chief ‘knots’ in the story was her relationship ~or lack thereof~ with her Republican, anti-European-anything, McCarthy-lovin’ father. She was born, you understand, in the 20s, participated in WW2, was of a much earlier and in certain ways, more innocent generation. And yet, her lament is ours. I have to say, although “Pop” loathed his daughter’s politics, he did *not* withhold the family money. Perhaps that’s the new twist.
But when I search for the roots of selfishness in myself, I find that I withhold when I sense that gaining economic advantage spent some integrity along the way. Might just be the lens I am presently wearing, but it seems to be the structural trade-off right now. I shill for Medicare, a program that *in theory* is just great, in fact has naturalized a medical style that I find abhorrent.
I puzzle over the apathy (from our kids)/fear (from our parents) continuum. Surely we were meant to create a different zone. As my physical vigor wanes, I realize that the time to hold that space is growing thin, may have to devolve from a robust, social manifestation to something more concentrated and portable. Like art.
So. Back to the writing board. Love the report… many thanks.
M
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Jude: Thank you for not only what you wrote (which hangs together in a triumphant manner), but for what you led me through while reading this piece today. My thoughts progressed from feeling the mental equivalent of my fingers and toes getting a firmer purchase on the ascent to getting a second wind of inspiration just before the summit. Absolutely bracing, leaving me the better for your every word.
paola: Thank you. Seems to work rather well with either word.
Brendan: Excellent point. You are very probably touching on, what for the Ken Dahl candidate, is an inconvenient truth.
be: You are be-autiful every time. My own interpretation of the occultation marathon is taking shape, but so far is not nearly as substantial as yours (or Eric’s). Your invocation of the “many faces” of The Goddess is an inspiration unto itself. Thank you.
Always illuminating, always inspiring, always forgiving of human fraility yet always encouraging us to overcome those weak parts, you, Jude, are amazing. As much as you tempted me to retreat within myself and contemplate the art of gracious assisted living (good one!), you also pushed me to consider more closely how, if not where, it all went wrong.
It was in the “looking back” at the way we were. Like you said, we are not unfamiliar with the greater good. “Marching in solidarity”, “working for the Peace Corps” and other forms of caring can be thought of as Moon functions. More instinctual than the Sun functions of self-identity, consciousness and growth, she reflects the pre-birth and early life feeling of being part of something greater than self.
Something I’d not thought of regarding the bevy of occultations that the transiting Moon has and will continue to make to the unseen-with-the-naked-eye Pluto, is that she will be in various modes and forms when she does so, depending on what her relationship to the Sun is at the time. This month she was totally full, totally visable and provided some manifestations that just could not be missed. Two will suffice to make a point.
On the one hand, the Higgs’ boson research news was an expression of the Sun’s achieving ability through “man”; a tribute to the patriarchical quest of never-ending expansion. On the other hand, the Colorado fires that left people without homes and firefighters risking their lives to save communities brought forth the Moon qualities of caring and protection of the Whole, the Family of Man. Neither energy symbolized is totally good or bad, unless one is sacrificed for the other. As your story today attests, that’s where we went wrong. We lost our balance.
In their book “The Luminaries” authors Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas wrote “The differentation of the self from fusion with the world of mother, nature and collective allows us to develop reason, will, power and choice – and in historical terms, this has generated the remarkable social and technological advances of our 20th century Western culture.” (this was written in 1991)
“Yet perhaps we have gone too far, at the expense of heart and instinct; and our blind brutalisation of mother earth has led us to the brink of an ecological abyss. With our eyes on the brilliance of the solar light, we have mythically dissociated, rather than differentiated from, mother; and where we were once at her mercy, now she is at ours – and so too are our bodies and our planet.”
The balance between the masculine and the feminine is vital to life on earth, or anywhere in the universe it would seem. When we-the-people lose sight of that principle we head down the slippery slope of devolution. As the Moon takes different forms – waxing and waning – in her cycle, when she arrives in Capricorn she brings a different perspective to her occultation of Pluto. As Persephone or Diana (Artemis) in crescent form, Ceres (Demeter) when full, or Hekate when dark, she will receive Pluto energy for dissemination to the “people”. But I’m now thinking that she will also release her own fertile power to the transformative Pluto in some alchemical process. I’ve yet to figure that one out, but would welcome you or your readers’ thoughts on it. The objective must be the restoration of balance, but at a higher level of consciousness, and for that the astrology community will have to increase the utilizaton of the newer feminine symbols found among the asteroids and other bodies and points.
As Greene and Sasportas said we “dissociated” rather than “differentiated”: it can’t be either-or, it has to be both-and. In some cases, we will be forced, even by mother earth herself, to learn this lesson the hard way. From inside I smile as I watch baby birds outside being taught by their mothers how to find their own food (even when it is right under their beaks) and eat it on their own. This requires that mom momentarily turn her back on her youngsters, in spite of their cheepings and flutterings of distress, in order to make them conscious and independent. Imagine the Universal All watching mother earth turn her backs to her children when necessary, so that they can learn and be strong, learn what is of value, and grow up for Pete’s sake. I like your expression Jude. . . “And -oh! – I wish we’d get on with it.”
be
Jude, thanks as always. Very thoughtful and on target.
I’ve been mulling one idea in my head for several days now, and that is this: does Mitt have far more money than he wants to admit to? What if he’s been scamming not only the press, the public, but his own church as well? The LDS takes 10% monthly, thank you very much, and if he’s got far more than the guesstimated $250 million, he owes them. I think he’s certainly deceitful enough to do this, but does he have guts to admit it? It’s not just the image, but the reality of being a lying Croesus that may be bothering him (and keeping the tax records hidden). Okay, maybe not ‘bother’ him, but keeping him dishonest before his Maker. Hee hee. No magic underwear is going to keep him safe for doing that, even if the Apostles give him dispensation after the fact, at least not if his version of God remains true to the Bible.
I think I’ve been hanging around Daily Kos too much lately… 😉
And Paola, yes, I think all of us are re-defining Western civilization as we go forward. If we don’t, we’re all screwed.
Yes, good thought, Paola — and good observation that we’re FINALLY looking to see how this happened. Actual cause and effect is, unfortunately, the last thing we get around to examining (until recently,) proving that pain is a potent stimulus and that the political MUST become personal if we’re to pay attention: the human condition, I suppose. And when you read that the Texas GOP has … supposedly by error … forbidden the teaching of “critical thinking” in schools, and combine that with failed Pub candidate Santorum’s insistence that higher ed robs Christian kids of their (simplistic) faith, you can see why this is exactly how the Overlords WANT things to continue; and why it’s critical that we connect the dots now. And yes, if America would lead on policing rogue capitalism and establishing fair trade as opposed to free, it’s likely the rest of the world would fall in line. We have great responsibility in this nation, for good or ill, which makes our failures abysmal on many levels.
Trips is a mistake – I meant guts.
Reading the article, I just got this thought: Americans are thinking and thinking and re-thinking about their politics and economy and how they goyt to this point…. Hey! But if *they* get to the point of really understanding that capitalism isn’t the answer, *they* will pull the rest of the world after them, as they always pull the rest of the world after them nearly on everything… So, brothers and sisters, go on with self analysis and thinking and reasoning and feeling all this in the trips… Thank you!