Regaining our Balance

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

What can I say about what happened this week that you haven’t already heard? Planet Waves has done an insightful job of following the details and shaping the content of the election result, so that story is already told. I suppose we could talk about the manipulations and fears around our pocketbook issues, the coming “grand bargain” that has us spun up over the possibility of gutted entitlements, as opposed to dire projections that we are about to throw ourselves off a “fiscal cliff.”

We could look at the civil war in Syria, with some 8000 refugees fleeing over the border to Turkey, who appears to be less than thrilled to host them. We could ponder the ramifications of Iran’s downing an American drone, thumbing their nose at a nation already anxious to punish them, and leading to even harsher sanctions by the international community, but I don’t want to. I’m not ready to move on yet.

There it is, then. The nation has been in campaign mode for at least eighteen months — roughly the equivalent of the period Obama enjoyed as a new president before the 2010 Tea Party campaign stalled his progress (and often without the edge provided him by the ailing Senators Byrd and Kennedy.) That’s a long time, too long to simply move forward without a glimpse backwards at where we started, and seeing where we finished, closing in on these shifting energies of 2012.

I have need to review the bits and pieces strewn on the convention hall floor, examine the empty cups and crumpled confetti, feel the remnants of both elation and disappointment that still crowd the ether. I want to rethink the hot air, now that it’s gone from shrill and desperate to accusatory and despondent. With such an extraordinary historical juncture as the 2012 presidential election — an energetic turning point — just behind us, there are energy strands that need to be tied together, as it were, a narrative to be summed up and put to bed.

Confusion can lead us to false equivalencies, for instance. To those who say the balance of power is just the same, that nothing changed with this election, I’d say that’s not only an unrealistic reading of this shifting energy but another version of the kind of limited thinking — truthiness, if you like — that created the gigantic bubble of cynicism and absolutism that has crushed the expectations of so many Republicans this week. We aren’t just four years older; we’re four years wiser.

On the face of it, we can say that the Pubs kept their firewall — the House of Representatives — which will continue to set the agenda and obstruct political progress, but that’s much too simple a reading of the clear-eyed awareness that appears to be pushing the nation forward. We can argue that the gerrymandering and redistricting that created much of the parochial regression we suffer reveal a system as thoroughly broken as ever, making progress impossible. But is everything the same? It seems to me that nothing is the same. There have been plenty of changes over these last four years, and, if you will, some are changes we can believe in.

It can’t be a surprise to look at the color and texture of the puzzle pieces on the table and see the growing vision of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation that is no longer comfortable bullying the world or locking one another into a one-size-fits-all social construct. We have said NO to a future invested in war, actual or cultural. Those who say there is no mandate in this election misread the energy. The mandate is rejection of what is small-minded and hateful, as enumerated by the Ostroy Report:

So what is the real takeaway of the most expensive, vitriolic, polarizing election in political history? Last night wasn’t just a victory for Obama and Joe Biden. It was a victory for all of America and the world. It was a huge win for the poor, the sick, the needy, the middle class, and yes, the rich, even if they don’t see it this way. It was a victory for education, for the environment and for decency. But most important, it was a victory against ignorance, intolerance, racism, misogyny, reproductive extremism, religious fanaticism, birtherism, homophobia, xenophobia, war-mongering and partisan obstructionism. A victory against the kind of ugliness that defies logic, reason and everything that our great nation truly stands for.

It is very clear to anyone willing to face facts and rethink ideology that we have turned a page in this country. We’re looking at a future that is broader, more tolerant and more diverse. We’re demanding a nation that will welcome anyone willing to work for the common good, to link arms in co-creating what the Prez calls a “level playing field,” and what some think of as a resurgence of the American Dream. Mitt’s 47% saw through his narrow-mindedness to dramatically reject his elitist plan for the future, causing a FOX News commentator to ruefully suggest that, “You can’t just dismiss 60 million people who voted for Obama as dependency people.”

SIX BILLION dollars went out of the hands of political operatives to assault our airwaves in this election. Over 300 million alone went to Karl Rove’s Super PACs along with marching orders from wealthy corporate overlords to stop this president in his tracks. Rove’s return on that money was less than one percent, a result he could barely bring himself to acknowledge and one which left Mitt hanging until well into the evening, unable to wrap his mind around such a thorough thumping. His campaign has since admitted that he had written an acceptance speech but not a concession — it did not occur to him that he needed one — which explains how painfully clipped it was when it finally came.

I could go on for hours about that bubble of delusion, the Truthiness Patrol that’s responsible for a good deal of this heartache. It’s called FOX News, but it’s aided and abetted by every corporate business plan that puts profit over national good. It was obvious, even before the Pubs began vetting candidates, that their sheer hatred of Obama — not just racism, but elitism as well — put reality in the cross hairs. Pinging off of the Tea Party movement, which arrived armed, locked and loaded, there was overt racism at play that conservatives, on the whole, seem unable or unwilling to recognize within themselves, but frighteningly evident to those who witnessed their coming. It played out in e-mails and billboards and televised conversations that were disrespectful to the president and to those who elected him; shameful as witnessed by a world observing the darkest portion of our American immaturity and hubris.

FOX newsies called Obama incapable, an empty suit, a weakling, a socialist, communist, Kenyan, whatever, everything but legitimate president. Limbaugh called him ‘boy,’ Coulter called him ‘retard.’ To every Pub pundit, he was the ‘worst president in our nation’s history,’ which to even a tin ear is absurd on its face. The network put all their weight behind bias and opinion as certainty, forgoing news in favor of propaganda, and FOX viewers locked in like a heat-seeking missile, hearing what they wanted to hear along with lies and tall-tales that served the corporate entity. When none of it turned out to be true — when even the Pub candidate himself could not accept that the actual polls were more accurate than those created out of sheer truthiness and wishful thinking — they were stunned and devastated, and remain so.

You can read some of their reaction here and here, worth looking at, since the push to keep the faithful at the trough will continue unabated. With the president feeling newly energized, the internal implosion within the conservative party has only just begun. Mitt is thunderstruck, Karl is compromised, Rush is despondent and Speaker Boehner seems to have one foot in political quicksand. The radical arm of the party blames a ‘liberal’ Romney while the moderate wing thinks the extremists lost the day. Altogether, reality has only just begun to seep in, an ongoing project that may or may not bring the Republican party into the 21st century. There has been suggestion internally, for instance, that the Pubs lost the women’s vote because the ladies really wanted that free birth control. Really, people? That’s your analysis? The Pubs may well be goners. Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, there’s much to celebrate and while you’ve probably heard these stats already, indulge me as I repeat: our first openly gay senator is lesbian Tammy Baldwin from Illinois (and let’s also note that Barney Frank was not initially elected as a gay man, but he’s retiring as one, newly married to his long-time partner.) Double-amputee, Tammy Duckworth, beat out Tea Party heavy Joe Walsh to take his seat in the House of Representatives. She joins new Hindu Senator, Tulsi Gabbard as a fellow-combat veteran in Congress. Tulsi will take her oath with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita. There will be twenty women in the Senate this season, a new record.

That makes three states — WI, HI and MA — that have elected their first women Senators; Mazi Hirono is the first Asian-American woman in Congress, a Buddhist born in Japan. New Hampshire has elected not only a woman governor, but an all-female congressional delegation. And the woman whose presence has reverberated across this nation as the conscience of populism, Elizabeth Warren — hotly rejected by Congress as head of the Consumer Protection Agency and consequently encouraged to run for Ted Kennedy’s old seat by enthusiastic admirers — now joins the ranks of lawmakers on the Senate floor.

Might I suggest that democracy was well-served this week and that Goddess is pleased? Working on local elections here in the Pea Patch, I made buttons this summer that read, “When women vote, Democrats win.” This election proved that true, although I’d change the word to ‘liberal’ if it was my button machine. With 54% of the electorate female, the gender gap broke records at 18%. At minimum, we can all agree that balance is served with new talent that not only shatters the glass ceiling but the religious and cultural barriers that have long limited fully-realized leadership as well. We have a way to go yet, but person hood, as opposed to gender, has broken through to the other side.

Nothing can stop us from inhabiting our male/female energies, from coming to balance within each of us. Why? Because this could not have out-pictured into the political arena if the need for balanced energies had not already taken root within us, opening us to vast new possibilities and emotional maturity. This is a vision that retires the old militarism of the codpiece years, rejects ‘greed is good’ mentality in favor of a new template, bearing witness to a wounded patriot, facing her would-be killer with uncommon courage, and a sitting president long criticized for aloof detachment and cool, choking out his thanks with tears in his eyes.

The great outlying planets — those we used to call the malefics — have come together to create this petrie dish of energy we think of as underpinnings of the Shift: Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, Neptune. Saturn solidifies and eventually makes brittle; Uranus explodes, shatters; Pluto unearths in order to transform; and Neptune performs alchemy before it dissolves the remaining traces. As Neptune stations direct this weekend, I get the sense that, as when we give birth, we will soon forget how sharp these labor pains, how difficult, arduous, and heart-clutching this political season has been. There is healing now, for our discouragement and cynicism if we reach out to take it. It’s our choice, of course, whether to focus our creative energy to rebuild, or nurse our disgruntlement to hinder progress.

That’s the blessing of bringing forth the next new form, the natural order of creation, minimizing the discomfort of the process in order to continue the heartbeat of life. To fear the shattering, to resist the transformation only brings us further pain. Courage in the face of change offers us a new understanding of the necessity to allow what is old and no longer of use to dissolve away. The gift of Neptune is a lingering essence of hard-earned wisdom, ushering in love and Light and bringing a new design into focus.

Looking back at the last four years — the ins and outs, the in-fighting and disagreements, along with painfully slow progress that sometimes seemed regressive — let’s acknowledge how far we’ve come, how much we’ve changed, how many have awakened. And let’s remember, as well, so close to the end of a decisive and pivotal year, that it’s what we’re holding in our hearts that has authored this journey and will continue to do so.

For the plutocratic bullet we’ve just dodged, then, for the social awakening we’ve witnessed and the strong hearts and political will of women across America, I can only offer gratitude that the old paradigm no longer holds this nation hostage. And while we’re giving thanks, let’s acknowledge that what we’re seeing is more than merely the work of four years, or forty, but an era of patriarchy and fear-consciousness finally, and gratefully, coming to a close.