By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
It happens every time. Give ’em an inch, they’ll take a mile. Radical conservatives are doing what they’re famous for: pushing their own personal agenda up the arse of everyone else in the name of “American values” and their conviction that all people must join them in obedience to their religious convictions or there will be hell to pay. I know what you’re thinking: OMG, she’s going to bitch about the Republicans again. Yes. Yes, I am. And it’s not because I’m warring with my neighbor or judging some cross-section of humanity or furthering an us/them agenda; it’s because radical Republicans — bless their bony heads — have become the impediment against which we must all push if we are to stop our downward spiral, restore our civil liberties and knit up the nation’s wounds.
Admittedly, I have a bias. I was raised in a socially liberal, politically conservative household. That gave me a foot in both worlds. If I turned out politically and socially liberal, it’s because I found conservatism to be incestuous, mean-spirited and sclerotic. In my opinion, it’s downright un-American! Read history and you can only call the marriage of religion and government odd bedfellows, merging their authority in an uneasy arrangement of divided control over the citizenry, with absolute obedience to each required upon pain of death.
This nation purposely separated religious from governmental power for the very reason that liberty could not survive their combined influence, but as a lower vibrational philosophy, it’s hard to snuff out. Religion has never given up trying to pull us back into servitude. Listen, in your heart of hearts you know Pope Ratz would love to have that power again, impressing us willful little peons who oppose his message of straight, unprotected but absolutely married sex with his own version of the wrath of Gawd. It was as recently as 1908 that the Vatican’s Congregation of the Inquisition was renamed the Holy Office, which in the 1960s became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Perhaps you recognize it as the Vatican office that Cardinal Josef Ratzinger ran before he became Pope Benedict XVI? See? Incestuous, mean-spirited and sclerotic, not to mention a tad sadistic.
But the days of kings and queens and popes are gone, and I’m an American, which is why — especially as a female — I could turn my back on organized religion in my youth and adopt my own version of morality without being imprisoned, tortured or killed. That still isn’t possible in some countries today. Our liberty is not accidental. This nation didn’t just “get around” to declaring its democratic underpinnings, it was “born” that way. Since its founding, America has been a grand experiment in secular liberalism. What was implied but never implemented in its infancy — racial equality, gender equality — is slowly making its way toward solid footing now, and it must be so, if we are to live up to our promise.
The guarantees espoused by our Constitution and Bill of Rights were radical at the time. They still continue to be a moving target for those who want us to fail, and they are no picnic to administer. Never before had a citizenry been promised this level of equality and opportunity, free speech and common good. It’s no wonder we were considered rowdy upstarts and shiftless outliers by the properly civilized of the day, who relied on monarchy, class consciousness, colonization and slavery to fill their coffers and further their ambitions. It took us awhile to sort that out; in fact, we’re still sorting out that influence, hoping to leave it behind. We’re still fighting to fulfill the promise of democracy, and the examples of freedom-fighting in the Mideast illustrate how lazy we’ve become at defending our own — not counting the #occupy, of course; they’re showing real courage.
Acting as a counterweight against runaway liberalism, the conservatives have had their place in the social fabric since the country’s inception. Our brief period of middle-class comfort lulled us into believing we all had similar populist values, but that was never actually true, and it should be obvious by now that there is no actual purpose for conservatism, which makes no pretense of governing except to impede liberalism. In America, where exploiting natural resources was our forebears’ principal industry, keeping ourselves from falling back into either theocracy or corporate dominance has always been a tricky balance. Ben Franklin pointed out that we had a Republic, if we could keep it. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we’re having a bit of trouble keeping it, and we won’t, if the conservatives get their way.
How bizarre is it that the flagship country of global progressivism is having an internal conflict with the principles of modernity? Blame the end times: no, not the end of civilization, the end of tyranny. That’s what we’re fighting for now. With the Republicans turned manic, their numbers including our most racist, most religious and most obstructionist citizens, there seems no end to their determination to take us back into old alliance with ruthless authority and power. Still, there seems to be some wobble on the right of the political spectrum. Conservative nonsense can suddenly be pointed out, pushed back, and countered. The mood of the country is still polarized, but common sense may be making a comeback.
It would be all right with me if we retired the parties and started over. Republicans are ridiculously compromised by money and privilege, while Democrats seem completely cowed by years of compromise and fiscal obligation. But even if we changed the names, we’d still be some level of progressive or conservative at heart, all Americans with different degrees of social awareness. Each of us is engaged in personal politics of some kind, so pick yer poison, citizen, come down on one end of the spectrum or another. The far edges are, supposedly, socialism and fascism.
If you Google those options, you get some interesting possibilities. The opposite of socialism, say some, is “degenerate economic conservatism,” otherwise known as “capitalism.” Another listing calls it the “economic feudalism of Ayn Rand” and an unfettered free market. My favorite? Socialism is “practical Christianity,” the kind I was taught as a kid. Still, somewhere between socialism and fascism, between liberalism and crony capitalism is a moderate place we might all meet: Ben’s republic, if we can keep it.
Plainly, until we can open up the minds of those who keep them shut tight, fearful of outside influence, there can be no spirit of cooperation that might lead to a middle ground. Obama, announcing the ambitious drawdown of troops in Afghanistan next year, seems intent on pounding swords into ploughshares, to the amazement of all but his own countrymen. Here’s where the rubber hits the road, as regards the parties — the liberals are skeptical that he’ll do it, while the conservatives are horrified that he might! The hungry Gawd of Rogue Capitalism cannot live without the spoils of war.
The GOP is deaf to the voice of reason, dull-witted to the possibility of collaboration or peaceful co-creation. This is the infamous black/white thinking we’ve learned to identify after long years of Bushie tutorial. This is what thrives on fear and tribalism and what has caused science to question the intelligence of those who hold conservatism dear.
Yes, give them an inch and they will try to shove you off the bus, and likely, under it. Ask Karen Handel, the anti-choice vice president of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation who lobbied — successfully — for the largest breast cancer philanthropic organization to withhold grant money from Planned Parenthood. Some $600,000 was diverted away from PP, which provides underserved women with breast cancer screening. Although no Komen money has been used for abortion services — which are, I might add, legal in this country — the anti-choice Komen founder, an ambassador under George W. Bush, quietly approved this move. Pleading the action, which effectively withholds mammograms from millions of women, as a response to the investigation of Planned Parenthood initiated by House Republicans caused several high-ranking members of their organization across the nation to call bullshit and resign.
Surprisingly, Komen quickly found itself in hot water. The public rushed to Planned Parenthood’s defense. It received $400,000 in donations in the 24 hours following Komen’s announcement, and Mike Bloomberg pledged $250,000 to help make up the loss. To his credit, he nailed this issue in his statement, saying, “Politics have no place in health care.”” Oh, that it were true, given what we know about big pharma and for-profit medicine, but now that Bloomberg has given us the slogan, and the public has our back, we must come together to MAKE it true.
Today, Planned Parenthood is $50,000 to the good, and a clear message has been sent to those who seek to punish women for taking control of their own bodies and future. A news alert, as I write, tells me that Komen has retreated from its position and has apologized to the American people, but it hasn’t mentioned if it will fund next year, saying only that it will “preserve PP’s eligibility to apply for future grants.” That tells us it has covered its ass from a barrage of condemnation and done no more than capitulate to pressure applied. And, lo — a star in the heavens! It also tells us that the radical-right is now vulnerable and that populist pressure works.
So don’t stop pressing on the gas pedal, my progressive friends. That’s the liberals’ Achilles heel, thinking that because they’ve won the day, they’ve won the game. The game of citizen activism, my dears, never ends. If the conservatives are simply in place to see to it that liberals DON’T win the day, then they’ll not stop no matter how much is won. Consider that once Obama took the Oval Office, the first speech from the opposition dedicated the next four years to tossing this dark stranger out of it, no matter the cost to party or country. They made good their promise, didn’t they? We must make good our promise, as well, that the Enron era is over and that racism, sexism and austerity have no place in civil society.
A blogger over at Huffington suggested that we send a donation to PP and indicate that it is “in honor” of Karen Handel. She’ll get cards from Planned Parenthood informing her of our contributions “in her name.” Not only will we have the pleasure of supporting a service vital to the community and our needy sisters, we’ll be putting the anti-choicers on notice that they are NOT the only game in town.
Liberals have a big tent, they’ll stand up for everybody’s rights. Ask the ACLU, who serve the legal interests of the hateful, as well as the hated. That’s just common sense, because some day — if you will — they’ll come for you; we must stop injustice wherever we find it. “We, the People” includes everybody in the nation, not just those who have passed some tribal test of deservedness. While that may be too much democracy for some of our citizens, too much liberty for others, that’s just how it is. That’s how we were designed and there’s no going back, despite the systemic numbing of our national expectations. How we EVER came to the place where we allowed our constitution to be ignored and our privacy invaded still befuddles me.
Ultimately, we’re taking care of the Pubs’ children and grandchildren, the ones who won’t have sufficient sex education or health care, who won’t be taught critical thinking or ethical studies because their version of church/state has been surrendered to visions of apocalypse, anachronistic programming and self-hatred. We’re saving them from themselves, and somewhere down the line, when they clear the cobwebs of cowboy capitalism from their heads and detox from decades of merchandise glut, who knows — they might even thank us!
Until then, we’ve got to love this union so much that we preserve it for the generations ahead, the true conservation of our national blueprint and resources. For love of country, and our neighbor as our self, we can’t give an inch until we’ve driven a stake through the heart of rogue capitalism and nihilistic religious practice. With love in our hearts then, not another inch! Not one!
Just wanted to share this clip with you as a reminder of the high seriousness the US has been capable of
http://youtu.be/MruG888gH50
Bless you x
I quoted Ken Carey’s Return of the Bird Tribes extensively a couple of weeks ago, CNS, and those are the universal wisdom principals that I attribute to this nation. If interested, you’ll find that in the comment section, here:
http://planetwaves.net/pagetwo/by-judith-gayle-2/our-core-values-piss-on-em/
With seven of my ancestors on the Mayflower — two that survived to produce many children, among them one who married into the Mohawk tribe — I have a DNA signature in both of these worlds, and I’ve researched carefully to see what “mine” contributed to what you reference as the “lost opportunity.” It appears that for that first generation — the “getting to know you” period — things went pretty well, but sheer greed won out, as it’s prone to. (And as an aside, you just can’t trust 2nd generation affluence — like Mitt Romney’s, for instance. Seriously!) Me, I’ve always thought the g-grampa that disappeared into the forest had the right idea.
As we enter this new Neptune signature, encouraging us to FEEL our way forward, public anger is finally going to surface. As a catalyst for change, anger has a straight-forward, cleansing effect but it needs direction. Shotgunned out, it’s chaos — focused cleanly, it’s laser surgery. We need to remember what it is we’re reaching for as we find that expression; we need to “remember who we are,” and by that I mean in the American experiment and more importantly, in the spiritual context.
It is in the end of “separation,” that we will find responsibility, honor and ethical livelihood — to understand we are all part of a larger fabric, connected to one another and everything around us. The native cultures had that — the Europeans missed the mark. It’s a mistake we’re still paying for. Thanks for your comments.
And Rob44, you’re right, the paradigm shift IS without borders, which means it will take the majority of human-kind in cooperation with a “new” way. Yes, that seems unlikely, but we didn’t think we’d see an Arab spring, either — we didn’t think Wisconsin, of all places, would turn into the heart of the heartland. The shift we’re seeking is away from patriarchy and authoritarianism, and into wholeness and balance. It all seems dreadfully difficult to accomplish, but I’m trusting that it will unfold naturally, without a Costner movie (Postman, Waterworld, Dances with Wolves) context.
To have nation-states truly collaborating for the good of a global citizenry means that old agreements for profit and power are done, and cut-throat competition takes a hike. THAT’s the end of separation. (And I hate to mention the end of competition on Super Bowl Weekend, but I doubt if our delight in “send in the gladiators, bread ‘n circus consciousness,” however distracting and amusing, is as benign as it appears.)
Oh, and the planetary vision, of course, is love. REAL I-want-your-good-as-much-as-I-want-mine love. All-inclusive. Nothing less. And here’s the saving Grace: it won’t take all of us to get there, just ENOUGH of us to swing the paradigm.
Pizza, GaryB?? EXcellent! Count me in!
Another compelling read, Judith. It prompted me to further explore more recent online discussions on the viability of the Republic in the face of growing internecine conflict.
For years I’ve been seeing the possibility of a breakdown in the composition of what we now know as the US. Though it may seem unthinkable to some, I think we may see some states–or regions– make various efforts to secede from the Union, in our lifetimes. Certainly a serious cultural and political civil war can be said to be underway in various sectors, to a level unimagined during the era of presumed national solidarity perceived during the heigh of the American middle class. Is it a far a reach to see these growing conflicts move into the realm of state-federal alliances themselves? Perhaps not.
Beyond that, I think there’s a larger context to be introduced to the conversation. That being the impact of digital communication between peoples across the globe. While we’ve seen growing efforts by state and corporate entities to throttle that freedom of discourse and information exchange, there’s also evidence to suggest that ultimately, the genie may be out of the bottle. Hacktivism isn’t going away, at least as long as the web infrastructure stands.
Which gives rise to a greater possibility. Will people begin to self-identify more with those sharing like values and views, outside of national boundaries–to the point where the power of the nation-state begins to erode? Clearly, corporate powers have already achieved this on a scale of hegemonic elites. They owe no real allegiance to state or state law anywhere, in practice. Will the same phenomenon occur among the growing wired masses, in a different way, and to more humane effect? Might we be seeing, as Neptune enters Pisces, the beginning of a radical shift in global social organization? And is such a shift the next step in planetary evolution?
Perhaps so. Such a shift wouldn’t, in my view, occur peacefully or without sacrifice. Truly, there’s a war already raging in cyberspace between state and non-state actors, factions of corporate-military entities, whistleblowers and anarchists, and multiple tentacles of shadowy intelligence services. And within it all, legions of unknown tech nerds who are in the process of dramatically redefining what the term ‘nerd’ means.
If the Jesuit mystic-philosopher De Chardin was right, the next step in our collective journey is the rise of what he called the noosphere, a realm of human thought catalyzed by ever more complex forms of social organization. The web has been seen by some as a nascent manifestation of this potentiality.
While the noosphere’s achievement via technological means depends on the survival maintenance of an admittedly vulnerable physical system, I wonder if a higher mind might emerge to transcend its physical scaffolding. To quote Shakespeare, ’tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. If a fragile one.
But as I ponder your astute analysis of the plight of the republic, and the fractured state of the US body politic, I can’t help but recognize that this domestic crisis reflects a global schism. Between the lower vibrations of religion, and a higher resonance of universal plurality. Between the way we’ve done things in the past, and the way we could do them. A new paradigm of cooperation over competition, and awareness over ignorance. Of unity over separation. Ken Wilber dives deep into this process in his work, describing a universal evolutionary impulse toward an integral state.
I have no belief that everyone will move into an integral state. Perhaps only a minority will. And if the collective doesn’t, how can a real shift occur? I don’t know. But then, there are factors and futures I can’t yet perceive either. I do believe however that if progressives here in the US are to survive along with a higher vision, we can’t do it alone. We need others of like mind and values globally to help us. For the nation-state can be a prison as much as a possibility. And I suspect we’re outgrowing its usefulness, and its capacity to serve a higher evolutionary function.
So it seems to me at least that the fight must be engaged globally, in ways that would have been unthinkable in the past. Or at least in ways that were proposed, but soon demonized by elites, and crushed. Crushed because those elites saw the real power of humanity engaging in true parallel processing. If ever there was a threat to hegemony and its beneficiaries, transnational collaboration is it.
I respect your passion for the preservation of the grand experiment here. But it must be a grand experiment everywhere now, if it is to truly thrive. Without a planetary vision and effort, all peoples everywhere will see its demise.
Judith,
Simply the Best piece of writing on your blog! Congratulations!- pizza party at Ben’s republic-at the light near the end of the tunnel.
Thanks Judith, I love the bit about religion being a “lower vibrational philosophy.”
One thing to consider is the lost opportunity of the folks leaving Europe to start the new experiment in freedom in the US. When they got here there were many people already here whose cultures inherently included the freedoms that the Europeans were seeking, yet instead of embracing this freedom the colonists destroyed the cultures they found because they were not yet truly free from their own lower vibrational philosophies.
Our country is based on freedom, but honor, integrity and responsibility are not enshrined virtues in our thrust towards human greatness. Imagine if our Constitution contained a “Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.” Imagine if our national ethos forced our politicians to operate with honor and integrity.
Thanks for bringing your thoughts forward on this first full day of Neptune in Pisces.