Tarot – Meditation – Reiki – Books – Lessons
I’ve been meaning to start a series of book reviews / recommendations. Seems like I’m always giving my Tarot clients homework….books I’ve read that come to mind that speak right to what’s going on with them. The whole book may not be the whole answer, but the book that intuition plunks down on the reading […]
via Tarotbytes Bookshelf: “Going Beyond the Little White Book” — Modern Oracle Tarot
“In the end we will remember not the words or our enemies but the silence of our friends” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
In these times, it would not be right for even a tiny blog with almost no readership to remain silent.
When life here in the U.S. regains some measure of sanity, then I’ll go back to talking about Reiki, Taoism, Brewer’s Yeast and making your own beach wave hairspray.
In the meantime, there are some things I am compelled to scream into the void, simply because it serves no purpose NOT to scream them. I don’t know if any of this will do anything, except maybe document a certain (I believe widely shared) point of view of the current zeitgeist, but I have to try. If I can change one mind, or move one person to action then the effort was more than worth it.
I like calling it a zeitgeist. German seems appropriate as we are being overrun with fascists. Seriously. No exaggeration, no hyperbole, I am for real and properly afraid that a coup may well be in progress, and if you voted for Donald Trump it is your fault. If the worst happens, the blood of Americans is on your hands as much as the buffoon you helped put into office. The only way Trump voters have to redeem themselves is to resist the changes, and do everything a private citizen can do to oppose every single thing he does. No matter how you voted, now patriotism calls you to oppose Republican and ineffectual Democrats in Congress, and vote for more compassionate, inclusive replacements as soon as possible, including off year Congressional, local and state offices.
Yes, it does sound partisan. Yes I AM partisan-sort of. Partisans are technically enthusiastic about some party or another. Living in a closed primary state, I’m only registered Democrat in order to be allowed to vote in state level primaries. Except for primary “super-delegates” and their tendency toward a certain general spinelessness in congress, I generally agree with Democrats, especially the more progressive wing such as that represented by Senator Sanders’ platform. I started my adult voting life as an Independent and am about a hair from re-re-registering back to Independent. I AM highly partisan for a defacto “party” of independent thinkers in favor of reason, science, compassion and basic human decency.
Yes, the Democrats fucked up big time when they had a thumb, four fingers and an asscheek on the scales for Clinton against all comers before Sanders even declared his candidacy.
Yes, the Russians hacked e-mails and used leaks to weaponize our domestic stupid against us.
Yes, I just called half of America stupid. They are gullible too. Unless they are evil. Or some combination of all three. You’ll have to decide which for yourself if that is how you voted.
But the first are just symptoms, an actual vote for Trump was the root cause. Here is how you connect the two.
I’ve been watching politics since Carter, voting regularly since Regan….
Who has always favored the rich and a”trickle down” economic policy that in decade after decade of has yet to trickle anywhere? Republicans.
Who has manipulated a large, gullible, vulnerable evangelical christian population by manipulating their innate, native biases (against reproductive privacy, against separation of church and state, & and against marriage equality) again and again for decade upon decade? Republicans.
Who has touted populist economic change and/or possibly manipulated oil policy / oil supply to win popular favor? Repulblicans.
Who has been militaristic and quick to go to war? Republicans.
Who has been obstructionist, failed to serve the American people (government shut-down)? Republicans.
Who tacitly, through their silence, supported Tea Party racist & “birther” rhetoric since 2008? Republicans.
See a pattern?
The only thing to clean the American landscape of the Republican shit stain is
“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” – Edmund Burke
More opinion….just so you know
When are we all going to learn?
Maybe this is why older people are less flexible in their opinions: we’ve been around this block. A bunch of times.
Personally I’ve had it, and I’m not willing to make another lap. I’ve listened to the right wing ad nauseam. I’ve tried every way I can muster to hear them and look at their view with fairness and compassion. Hell, I’m related to them. All of my blood relative are conservative christian right wing republicans….every. last. one. I have a real motivation to be careful, kind, and tolerant – in spite of their narrow, often bigoted, often racist, theocratic point of view.
The problem dealing with fundamentalist christians and other such conservatives is the way they are…to a person…utterly unable to separate themselves from abstract ideology. I’ve been around these people for over 50 years now. It isn’t just that one uncle at Thanksgiving. It’s all of my family, all of the time. Trust me, they think that if you disagree with their right wing politics, then you disagree with their total individual person. If you disagree with their religion, then you are a bad person whether they say it to your face or not. If you reject their views, then you reject them individually, as a person, and they take offense at that – no matter how kind and rational you state your different point of view. No matter how calm and rational you are, no matter how logical your argument may be, no matter how much you reassure them it isn’t personal, they go into some iteration of apeshit over anyone who doesn’t think like them no matter how kind or or calm or reasonable you may be.
I know. I’ve tried. For decades.
Lately, when it comes to national events, I try to fit what is being said into the biggest picture I can. Fitting all the pieces together helps me see when a fair point is being made, which I’m more than willing to acknowledge when it happens. Big pictures help us consider other perspectives a little easier than narrow views in my experience.
My big picture looks like this:
I’ve been watching American politics and political news (via a high school civics class) since the Carter administration, voting regularly since Reagan.
Donald Trump is the Republican wet dream. Donald Trump is every single Republican rooster rolled into one and coming home to roost. Donald Trump is the Republican’s gift to America wrapped up in a big gold bow.
There have been insidious threads of theocracy, of civil rights violations based on religious beliefs (anti-reproductive rights, anti-lgbtq rights, anti-science, anti-intellectul) ever since Jerry Falwell crawled out of the slime, maybe earlier.
Trump parrots all the (now proven to be baseless) claims against the Clintons and against Democrats that all the right wing Republicans spewed in the 1990s.
Trump explicitly and openly speaks all the racist, bigoted ideas that the Tea Party and their ilk implied in the 2008 race and since.
Remember the signs portraying President as an African “witch doctor”?
WV voted almost unanimously for Trump. Remember WV? They are the same good folks who voted for Clinton almost unanimously in 2008, with little old ladies railing against “the Hussein” who was “a Muslim” (I grew up in WV, and still visit family there frequently. I’m here to tell you the Daily Show with Jon Stewert captured the situation better than any of us would like to admit. The women in his clip could blend in to the family reunion un-notied. Hell, we could be related for all I know)
If one were to think of the Trump administration as being a mindless puppet of both Russia but more so of the far right, all the pieces still fit seamlessly together. Remember, it was Mitch McConnel who said their top political priority “should be to deny President Obama a second term” before leading that party to obstruct Congress from doing the people’s work for 8 years.
When are we going to learn? Time and time and time again there have been calls for bipartisan cooperation. Time and time and time again the Republicans have punched us in the face. Time and time and time again the right wing base has been nothing but obstructionist. Time and time and time again the Republicans have punched goodwill in the face.
How many bloody noses do we have to endure before we begin to protect ourselves from a skull fracture?
#WagePeace #FierceCompassion
