By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
We live in a time of serious crisis, and it’s a damned good thing we’ve finally noticed. We’ve drifted so far away from our integrity and essential humanity that standing with our toes over the edge of the abyss, staring down into the fearful void of civil chaos, offers the only chance to break our lethargy. The decline started out slowly, unwitting slip by calculated compromise by deliberate allowance, as noted by Paul Krugman who asked this week if the GOP has lost its mind. After years of courting this meltdown, we’re finally on the downhill slide. Dennis Kucinich is another voice decrying the deliberate transfer of the nation’s wealth, not to the underprivileged or government workers or union members as the Pubs suggest, but to a jaded corporate culture fronted by Wall Street.
If we needed a crisis to slap the hubris out of us, we’ve surely got one, so let’s get on with it. Scaring ourselves witless seems to be the way to proceed into this new era, and now people are waking up to painful and unwelcome truths, trying to clear their heads of collective fear, social confusion and political conditioning. Oh, I know it doesn’t always feel like it, but I believe the majority of us are well-meaning, decent people willing to rethink our way forward into this new century. A smaller number are reaffirming their narcissism and nihilism, intent on fighting the headwind of evolution. They seem to wield an inappropriate amount of power, don’t they?
Our differences are stark, but here’s happy news: the outcome is a done deal. We cannot enter the Aquarian Age without the collective ‘We’ taking precedence over the self-interested ‘Me’ of the egocentric Piscean Age, but timing is important, and this moment really is critical. If American citizens insist on sleepwalking right over the cliff, it’s going to happen with a growing Greek chorus of us standing with arms linked, lifting our voices for a return to sanity and common sense.
This week saw increased hysteria over the debt ceiling deadline, and with good reason. In a game of congressional chicken, party leaders opened with entitlement cuts, raised with tax increases, bluffed with high rhetoric, and eventually threw in their cards, miffed. Meanwhile, the clock ticks and the world anxiously awaits the outcome of the game. Baggers argue that dire predictions such as those issued by the Treasury Department are just fear tactics, which leaves me astounded at what jackasses these people truly are.