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Wednesday, June 4, 2014

WHAT'S REAL TO US AND TO THEM


More of us seem to understand what the REAL bare necessities are: clean air to breathe, clean water to drink and with which to cook, wash and irrigate. Unfracked land which can be worked and built upon and doesn't shake alarmingly at the least little tremor and to keep healthy so that we can enjoy these things!
Then there comes the need to put our contribution into the common pot and to be able to MORE than earn a mere living--to be able to make a LIFE by both giving and receiving with our talents and knowledge. Friends and family; living creatures and/or people to love and care about and who care about us. To be able to freely honor the God in each of our hearts and to respect how others honor God but also to assert that in NO case can God be honored by murder, rape, suppression of anyone, or religious coercion or heedless destruction of the natural world. We seem to see more of the world's colors, perhaps in more ways than one.
They don't. What they see boils down to a set of questions, to which I'll return in a bit. But first, let me say these things: they make a great but hollow show of religious devotion regardless of their 'religious' labels and they're all the louder for their emptiness but the god to whom they are truly devoted is known either as Ba'al, Mammon or just Moo-Lah.
Even so they are loud and hollow about their devotion to Family but what they really want is to preserve an iron and UNGODLY hierarchy of power (NOT love) within their families and the relatively freewheeling culture of today has them TERRIFIED of losing that. Which is probably why they seem to include a growing number of ammosexuals as well.
And here's where I return to the questions that seem to sum up how they see the world.
1) What you got to trade? What's your currency and how much?
2) Does it match mine and/or do I want it? (If not, it and you are both worthless to Me)
3)If I want it, how much is it? (Usually 'too much', whatever that might be)
4) Since I don't want to pay for it but I want it, how can I steal it without him/her knowing it? (This is where race-baiting comes in; see what LBJ had to say about it)
5) What can I get for me and mine RIGHT NOW? So long as it's legal, I don't care who or what else is hurt by it. It's a dog-eat-dog world and it's not my responsibility to make it better.
Go back far enough and almost everyone's narrative involves some oppression. One thing which does NOT come under that heading, however, is the humbling of those who had been oppressors. Right now, Europeans are who most of us think of first. But this narrative has also been played out in the Orient, in Africa and even in the native American cultures (anyone remember how the Tlaxcalans helped Cortez because they were fed up with their sacrificial tribute to the Aztecs?) and is now also seen in the Middle East where Jacob has rightly humbled Ishmael,who is still furious and who still doesn't really want peace.
Let's just be clear about THAT before I wind things up by mentioning that we accept the reality of how others see things, including ourselves, and at least make efforts, however mortifyingly laughable they may be, to integrate or at least make connections between our different stories and outlooks. They don't. To them, it's their way or the highway. Anyone like that, be they Dominionist or Islamist or Randian, is dangerous to democracy and should be pointed out as such. We strive for clarity; they seek to fog up and confuse. So insist on 'plain' speech, brothers and sisters!
I hope this rather rambling post helps at least some of you out in the field during this election year. Maybe this summing-up is better: we are the ones closest to the real basics, who recognize we can be wrong and others can see things differently than we. We are inclusive; they are exclusive. They acknowledge no errors on their parts and see money as the only REAL measure of anyone and never mind how it's obtained!
Clear enough, brothers and sisters? Then let's go!!

Monday, June 2, 2014

TIME TO USE 'WRITE-IN' CAMPAIGNS?

Thinking again about campaigning and ways to avoid going hat in hand to millionaires and billionaires. Also thinking about 1) the ambivalence (at best) many people have about real change. A lot of people are worried about what they MAY need to give up and 2) those of us who want real change but don't see a vigorous enough attempt to deal with the things coming down the pike directly towards us!
Allow me to ask the first set of people (you know who you are) this question: can you tell that, whether we want them to or not, things (with the climate first and last) will change, yea are changing before our very eyes? If you can't see it, refuse to acknowledge it or are preparing to be 'raptured' and, thus, don't care--then I ain't talking to you! Stick your heads back into the sand (or back up your hinder end) and stay there. But know this: having your heads stuck up your other end does put you in the most convenient position to kiss your a** goodbye, as the old poster from the 70s instructed!
To those who CAN tell and do know, let me ask you this: are you ready to do what needs doing NOW or will you palm it off on your children and/or grandkids? If you're a 'palmer', you also have no business as a free citizen of a democracy but need to go somewhere which will welcome docile subjects, because that's what you really are!
For those ready to act but still ambivalent: you want to do right by posterity, right? You say that's the most important thing to you? Well, pardners, now's the time to step up to the plate and walk the walk: support what looks most likely to ensure that posterity the best type of life we can leave them--and don't be sloppy about doing your 'homework' in checking that out!
Last but possibly most important, I speak to my fellows who are impatient with the pace of change: in the primaries last month, I wrote in my own name to be a committeeperson, just because. Then, lo and behold, I'm told I've won a spot!
I think, in those areas where progressives are 'shut out' by the apparatus of major parties, maybe encouraging 'write-in' campaigns might help. Either find people who we know to favor real, noticeable change or, if not, write our own names in and ask our friends to do so. We badly need, and I still hope for, an all-levels progressive tsunami this fall. Nor can we expect, and I for one feel we shouldn't solicit, large-scale donations but find out whatever we can do WITHOUT big money!!
I suspect not many of us, myself included, are ready to enter the goldfish bowls and/or snake pits that public life and governmental assemblies have become, but if we don't, how will they become any less of those things?
It really is up to us to do whatever we can. Even if we mostly lose, at least this is a start. We're rolling a snowball and time will tell how big it gets and how quickly. We can only do our own parts--so let's step up and do whatever we can right here, right now!