{"id":75055,"date":"2014-03-15T07:35:14","date_gmt":"2014-03-15T11:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=75055"},"modified":"2014-03-16T23:54:26","modified_gmt":"2014-03-17T03:54:26","slug":"moral-framework","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-judith-gayle-2\/moral-framework\/","title":{"rendered":"Moral Framework"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

If you’ve kept your head down this week, vowing to ignore news and just keep the lid on tight, you’re in good company. Most folks are loathe to crowd their full plate with anything else at the moment, lest it\u00a0drop like a rock\u00a0along with their emotional well being. With the explosive 2012 energies the ones\u00a0throwing the bones, searching the patterns and particulars has brought up more questions than answers in the last few days, and while it adds little to our comfort zone, that’s probably a good thing.<\/p>\n

\"Political <\/p>\n

Even overwhelmed by the glut of information, there are gems of wisdom out there for inquiring minds and the only way to find them is to keep a look-out for the universe to offer them up.<\/p>\n

One of the questions on everyone’s mind has to do with a missing jet carrying 249 souls, four of them American. Everyone loves a mystery, but this is ridiculous. New search areas open every day or so, giving up sea-trash but little else.\u00a0Did someone just\u00a0want a Boeing 777 so much they took it, or\u00a0might the Greys have snatched an entire group of abductees? The suggestion that the plane was highjacked to North Korea or elsewhere remains a more realistic possibility, but such talk results in a nervous tic for those who have any “friendly sky” phobia.<\/p>\n

As suggested by Eric in Part II of Planet Waves FM this week<\/a>, we may get major clues or even a resolution to this question by the weekend Full Moon in Virgo. Meanwhile, try not to succumb to fearful propaganda, and if you’re scheduled to hop a plane for some long-anticipated event, (breathe in peace, exhale fear,\u00a0and …) be mindful that you, your shoes, your toothpaste and shampoo remain suspect.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It’s been a strange news cycle, kind of fluffy, kind of dark. As always, some of it has amused me. Wee Southern lawmaker, Lindsey Graham — hawkish buddy to Arizona’s McCain, and rabid\u00a0critic of Obama’s “girly” position on foreign affairs (because Benghazi, yadda)\u00a0— is being primaried by a candidate on the right who has called him “the ambiguously gay senator from South Carolina.” Stephen Colbert, a faux-furious South Carolina native, has\u00a0demanded that\u00a0Graham\u00a0release a sex tape proving his heterosexuality. Those of us who have scrutinized Lindsey over the years will not be holding our breath. I suppose the Senator is\u00a0verklempt<\/em>\u00a0about this apparent outing, especially since I\u00a0assume the entirety of his Benghazi\u00a0mantra\u00a0is designed\u00a0to endear himself to the right-wing and\u00a0appease the rumor mill.\u00a0Ahhhh<\/em>, but we are well into the 21st century now, and so are the Days Of Our Lives.<\/p>\n

Colbert’s buddy Jon Stewart had a\u00a0brilliant week, giving us\u00a0Samantha Bee weighing in<\/a>\u00a0on a topic\u00a0regarding Medicare coverage which has long pissed me off: how is it women’s health care, and specifically contraception,\u00a0is fought tooth and nail\u00a0while men’s wood meds are covered as a matter of course?\u00a0It appears that 172 million penis pumps have been provided to the limp among us by the Fed at $360 a pop, not to mention the staggering price of Viagra, but women in\u00a0Michigan\u00a0are being\u00a0forced to consider buying separate\u00a0“rape insurance” to\u00a0receive\u00a0termination services should the worst happen.\u00a0Bee does\u00a0a funny bit, poking this topic with a sharp stick.\u00a0Also, Jon has gleefully discovered that Mitch “Turtleman” McConnell has\u00a0the perfect face to fit any song: for a lark,\u00a0go here<\/a>\u00a0to spend some bi-partisan creative time\u00a0#McConnelling.<\/p>\n

There have been surprises of the good sort too.\u00a0This week brought a possible breakthrough in unemployment extension for the roughly two million people dropped several weeks ago. If passed later this month, the temporary five-month measure will come too late for some and just in the nick of time for others. Five Pubs have to step up to break the filibuster necessary to get the measure onto the floor for a vote, and Reid thinks he has them, although politicians are as feckless as wild hares, and the vote is very close.\u00a0Once past the Senate, the House will have to approve, of\u00a0course, but the mandatory cuts\u00a0have already been sacrificed to keep the natives calm. Only time will tell how this works out.<\/p>\n

Other happenings have, as usual,\u00a0outraged and amazed, including a continued inability for good sense or even bite-you-on-the-ass truth to penetrate the conservative brain pan. For instance, the Koch brothers\u00a0have\u00a0embraced national unease with the Affordable Care Act as the lynch pin of their hopes in 2014, assisting the GOP camps to demonize the program.\u00a0There have been a reported 66,000 TV ads for the House and Senate races so far, more than 30,000 of them ripping Obamacare. Seventeen thousand of them are from the Kochs,\u00a0targeting Dem legislators. Eight months out,\u00a0conservative money is flying around like\u00a0monkeys in Oz, and if you haven’t got an in-box full of progressive pleas for your spare change, I’ll eat mine.<\/p>\n

Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed advocacy group, is running an attack ad starring a woman who asserts that her cancer treatments have become unaffordable under the new law. Every time\u00a0I hear one of these stories, I wince and hope someone will vet the situation. In this case, the Detroit News did just that, finding that the patient will save more than $1,000 a year\u00a0on comparable\u00a0treatment for leukemia with her new insurance carrier. When confronted with that news, the woman — not an actor but obviously a dyed-in-the-wool Republican —\u00a0insisted that it simply couldn’t be true, that she personally did not believe it.<\/p>\n

This is not stupidity, it’s ignorance. This is abject refusal to connect the dots to something other than dearly held, if erroneous,\u00a0belief. Remember the rallying cry from the wingers, back in 2008, warning government to\u00a0“keep your hands\u00a0off my Medicare?” What can one do with that level of density, of denial?\u00a0I live with that all around me here in rural Missouri. Reading the consensus of thought\u00a0on the opinion page of the little local newspaper (4 folded pages) is to weep. It isn’t a matter of not hearing the truth or\u00a0investigating it. It’s a matter of rejecting it.<\/p>\n

In those states whose politicians refuse to accept Obama’s Medicaid assistance, some thirty million of their\u00a0citizens will fall between the slats,\u00a0condemned to\u00a0go without\u00a0health care\u00a0for the foreseeable future, which\u00a0means\u00a0an estimated\u00a017,000\u00a0Americans will die unnecessarily (without preventative care or maintenance of chronic conditions). As Missouri\u00a0has joined that Southern block, unable to convince its Bagger-highjacked state congress to accept federal monies, I find that I know and love a number of these endangered folks. Indeed, I would be one of them without Medicare, which is still a stretch for my modest income. So I can’t help but ponder the ethics of condemning\u00a0one’s neighbors and friends to such a dramatic\u00a0outcome, especially\u00a0among those of\u00a0the — loud and pushy, here in the Pea Patch — religious community.<\/p>\n

How is civilization served by those who would deny food, housing,\u00a0and medical care<\/a>\u00a0to those in need? How can that be right action for democracy when we have spent several hundred years advancing out of that kind of very self-serving arrogance? Our cherished notions about the soundness of American character are stretched thin by the actions of voters being pumped up with fear and loathing of the black guy, of “mentally ill” liberals who want to turn their children gay, of a world waiting to pounce upon them from under the bed, around the corner, and obviously, from the sky. We need to learn how to talk to these people.<\/p>\n

As someone\u00a0intent on\u00a0reducing the space between “me and thee,” as it were — dedicated to the establishment of a healthy and respectful “we” — I have\u00a0been interested in the theories\u00a0of linguist George Lakoff,\u00a0professor of cognitive science at\u00a0UC Berkeley. Lakoff came to my attention during the early days of George W. Bush, as progressives ran into the disinformation wall\u00a0erected by the Neocons. You may remember that breathtaking moment when\u00a0they\u00a0proclaimed themselves\u00a0the originators of all “reality,” whether we liked it or not.<\/p>\n

Those of us on the left looked at each other, stunned, wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the arrogance of such a statement. It was Lakoff who was\u00a0first to decode that power-play by telling us about “moral frames,” the way in which language engages our\u00a0emotions rather than our intellect.\u00a0Every two years since then — as elections loomed —\u00a0he’s put out opinion pieces attempting to\u00a0teach\u00a0logic-loving liberals\u00a0how to get their message out. Today, Professor Lakoff tells us with regret and growing concern, we’ve failed his class miserably.<\/p>\n

Our\u00a0moral framework is part of our cultural and religious upbringing, part of our social contract and part of our political understanding. Unless those on the left are providing a clear progressive concept for\u00a0youngsters, giving them reason to think that fairness and integrity are worth the trouble — that acquiring\u00a0“stuff” is less important to\u00a0global well being than feeling that\u00a0they are contributing to the good of others, as\u00a0well as themselves —\u00a0we are failing to keep up our end of the moral equivalency. The conservatives have unquestioning faith in their point of view,\u00a0yielding no ground.\u00a0And while progressive thought is a much more creative and messy business, our inability to articulate a\u00a0solid secular position continually gives ground to the right, allowing them to magnetize the fearful and\u00a0threatened into their camp. If we are to learn to talk so they will listen, we\u00a0will have\u00a0to\u00a0do our homework<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I hear all the time that there is no difference in political parties today and I gotta say it, I think that’s nonsense. Of course there’s a difference. There may be very little difference in politicians, in political activity fashioned by power brokers and lobbyists. There may be little difference in the face off over the failing system we call representative democracy today, but there is surely a difference in the energies of those on the right of the political spectrum and those on the left. Conservatives do not conserve so much as self-protect and seek to keep authority with desperate, and often hateful,\u00a0measures. Liberals no longer seem to have the stomach for the inner-battle that takes us from self-interest to commonwealth, let alone the political battle that puts ethics above\u00a0status quo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We are\u00a0prisoners of our standard of living,\u00a0here in North America. Having suffered the shock of loss, we’re fearful unto feeble at the thought of losing more,\u00a0seemingly unable to sustain our appreciation of what is simple and good in life. No wonder our children are obsessed with a zombie apocalypse overrun by soulless, empty creatures constantly hungry, consuming\u00a0life-force in an attempt to fill themselves. What do we offer them to fill their souls, their aspirations and dreams? But this problem of left and right is not ours alone. It’s global.<\/p>\n

The lefties of the world\u00a0used to have a firmer sense of self, at least enough\u00a0to keep\u00a0from slipping so far to the fearful, self-absorbed side\u00a0of the spectrum. Here in the U.S., we had the integrity of the constitutional separation of church and state,\u00a0with our differing notions of God —\u00a0one as strict disciplinarian, the other as loving nurturer —\u00a0kept out of the political arena. We had the hard-earned power of the unions to provide a fair workplace, the moral intention of the liberal\u00a0churches to impact social concerns and encourage civil rights.\u00a0We had an educated electorate.<\/p>\n

The years between then and now gave us a Third Way movement (for which we must\u00a0thank Bill Clinton, a president acceptable to\u00a0a nation already turning back from modernity) that moved us farther right, promoting\u00a0free trade rather than\u00a0fair, a\u00a0reworking of matters of meritocracy and monopoly, along with a monetized point of view. Who sez love of money ain’t the root of all evil?<\/p>\n

It\u00a0isn’t money itself\u00a0that’s the problem, of course, but the coveting of it, the anointing of money as the highest form of reward. Where is the emotional epicenter of such a notion? Seems to me that the true Christian ethic of ‘love thy neighbor as thyself” wasn’t new back in the good old days of Roman occupation. Aristotle said it best when he told us that “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”<\/p>\n

And tending to the body, to the appetites, to the obsessions of humankind without minding the soul is the difference between inauthentic and authentic behavior. There comes a time when we have gathered enough experience\u00a0to understand that there is\u00a0as much\u00a0pleasure in giving as in receiving, that what is mentally productive falls short of what is emotionally healing, that what we\u00a0must allow\u00a0to impact\u00a0is not the antithesis of love, or its shadow, seeking some return in kind, but only love itself.<\/p>\n

Having, getting, doing are all teaching aspects\u00a0in the\u00a0evolutionary goal of being. Human being. If we cannot welcome others into the fold, care for them and promote their growth and happiness, then we have not yet become a fully realized human. Love has been around a very long time, and our ability to offer it to one another has already gone through so many revolutions that surely by now we can get it right.<\/p>\n

We cannot come to this\u00a0turning of an era\u00a0without finding a way to both listen to and hear one another, without discovering we are invested in the same hopes and dreams, that loving one another is the only way to break the spell of darkness keeping us in a cycle of\u00a0fear. And love is, above all, fearless. To go where we want to go — to get back to the garden — so must we be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves If you’ve kept your head down this week, vowing to ignore news and just keep the lid on tight, you’re in good company. Most folks are loathe to crowd their full plate with anything else at the moment, lest it\u00a0drop like a rock\u00a0along with their emotional well being. With … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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\/75055"}],"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\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}