{"id":48350,"date":"2011-11-05T03:11:16","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T07:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=48350"},"modified":"2011-11-05T03:12:02","modified_gmt":"2011-11-05T07:12:02","slug":"where-theres-smoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-judith-gayle-2\/where-theres-smoke\/","title":{"rendered":"Where There’s Smoke"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Awakening is the name of our game these days, politically, personally. It’s what we desperately need and what we studiously avoid. It’s what most do reluctantly and only a scant few accomplish with enthusiasm. Awakening is going to happen whether we like it or not, so it would be easier if we’d all just get on the evolution train, but that’s not how things work. Fear goes before us, as usual, and keeps many of us from contemplating anything that might discomfort.<\/p>\n

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Most everything is designed for self-exploration, if we’re willing to let go of our absolutes. Everything around us will reflect us truthfully if we’re willing to look in that mirror. That degree of honesty creates conflict, of course, both personally and politically. Awareness requires us to inventory our belief system, release our limitations and embrace new possibilities. All this, you won’t be surprised to learn, equals “change.” Lefty organizer and people’s philosopher, the late Saul Alinsky, put it this way: “Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.”<\/p>\n

The whole question of conflict interests me, since I see mainstream media pummeling us with the notion that any kind of emotional outburst is somehow inappropriate to our current social and financial situation. Oh, it’s fine to #occupy as long as we remain all Gandhi-like and respectful. So long as there isn’t any property damage, any violence or conflict, a frictionless occupation will be reported in a small column, second page. Should any of these things occur, what began as a peaceful protest has now become chaos and anarchy, proclaimed a mile high on the front page, and must be corrected immediately by the authorities. But who polices the authorities? When enough of us ask that question, we’ll finally be #occupying the right spot for our coming evolutionary journey.<\/p>\n

“History is a relay of revolutions,” wrote Alinksy in his 1971 how-to handbook for political organizers, Rules for Radicals<\/em>, granting us permission to embrace our inner dissident in the name of forward motion and progress. For those who need a patriotic viewpoint, this is the American way. For those mindful of our global footprint, a quick scan of the news tells us we Americans are not the first to the party this time around. Each perceptual shift opens us to the possibility of a new experience, hopefully one of healing and growing, thriving and blooming, but one most likely tested in choppy emotional waters first. We humans resist even the necessary changes, kicking and screaming as we give up our comfort zones for the quickening power of self-awareness.<\/p>\n

That awareness is intruding on our lethargy, now, asking us to reinvent ourselves in a new iteration of experience: Humanity 2.0, I suppose — or, if you’re a student of ancient mysteries and civilizations long gone, 5 or 6.0 or more. The enormity of this project is not lost on readers of Planet Waves, I think. We’ve taken this 2012 business seriously for quite some time, collectively resonating with the building vibrational shifts bombarding planet Terra and the astrological energies orchestrating them. When we can acknowledge that the change we’ve longed for will require us to surrender our old ways of thinking, all of this will be less painful. When we can acknowledge that the new things perking in our brains, bubbling in our hearts, ARE the change we’ve been waiting for, the joy will begin to build.<\/p>\n

If we look around us, we will see how easy it is to identify those who are arguing for their own limitations. They look old and tired, like yesterday’s dog-eared newspaper. Although we sometimes call that “stuck” consciousness, students of this time-frame are beginning to understand that the one thing not allowed — although you’d think it was, given our continued political inertia — is the attempt to exist in a vacuum. Inaction of this sort is like a ticking time bomb. So while the two American political parties circle one another, growling and sniffing each other’s butts, energy keeps building for an explosion.<\/p>\n

You know my mantra about consciousness is that we can’t go backward, so it’s best to admit that going forward might initially look like the recent rout in Oakland. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to breathe a little fire, this time around.<\/p>\n

What is interesting to me, at this juncture, is who gets the inevitability of this growing social movement and who seems downright oblivious. Those who have existed on the far left of establishment thinking are overjoyed by #occupy because the internal rot of the corrupted system is finally being exposed. Those on the right of it, like Ron Paul and his followers, have a bit of empathy with a system gone wrong but little skin in the game. Once again, the left wishes to engage while the right wants to withdraw, but sitting out the game, wagons drawn in a protective circle, won’t do this time around.<\/p>\n

It’s money driving the conversation, money insulating the elite from having to care about the great unwashed, money that keeps the mythology of class divisions in place — it’s all about money. And money isn’t real. You know that, right? We write pieces of paper, sign cyber-drafts, bank numbers not backed by anything tangible, and there actually isn’t any THERE there. It’s all symbolic. Of all humanity’s agreements, money seems the oddest to me. And — honest — money isn’t going to protect anyone when the heat gets turned up.<\/p>\n

And the heat IS growing in intensity, despite the cold fall weather. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Watch this YouTube and you can feel that heat licking at your heels:<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, the establishment itself appears pretty much bewildered by the whole thing. It’s hard to believe, I know, but those on Wall Street not only don’t think their competition for maximum profit is in jeopardy, but they don’t seem to consider their way of life threatened in any way, even as the financial centers of the world tremble and quake under the load of internal corruption. Obama — a student of Alinksy’s radical tactics — seems tethered to the banksters and big money, even as his base looks on in disgust. His persona as leader of establishment politics becomes smaller as the populist movement against government corruption continues to grow. It appears that our president, like Saul Alinksy, believes that political change, while receptive to dynamic movement, takes time.<\/p>\n

I fear that is not the case this time — I think it’s too late in the game for gentle turnings. Even my favored economist, Robert Reich<\/a>, did a bit of prophecy, this week:<\/p>\n

The disconnect between Washington and the rest of the nation hasn’t been this wide since the late 1960s.<\/p>\n

The two worlds are on a collision course: Americans who are losing their jobs or their pay and can’t pay their bills are growing increasingly desperate. Washington insiders, deficit hawks, regressive Republicans, diffident Democrats, well-coiffed lobbyists, and the lobbyists’ wealthy patrons on Wall Street and in corporate suites haven’t a clue or couldn’t care less.<\/p>\n

I can’t tell you when the collision will occur, but I’d guess 2012.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’d guess so, too. That’s less than 60 days away. Smell the smoke? Me, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves Awakening is the name of our game these days, politically, personally. It’s what we desperately need and what we studiously avoid. It’s what most do reluctantly and only a scant few accomplish with enthusiasm. Awakening is going to happen whether we like it or not, so it would be … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1744],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}