We watch the news; we follow the politicians. We argue, we debate. We rise up, we sit back down. Every now and then we vote but where, if not going exactly to where we don’t want to be, has any of this gotten us?
I see that Marianne Williamson has announced her candidacy for president and I would think that non other than Vermin Supreme will soon be hot to join her on the campaign trail… to boot!
Though I’m sure that it doesn’t matter to anyone else, I personally am really glad to see Marianne (and Vermin) out there spreading their messages as they try to wrangle in some support in a run for the worst job on earth. I hope that people will take the time to listen to Marianne instead of being juvenile in their manner as they attempt to smear and discredit her with snide remarks about crystal balls. (For the record, crystal balls are just not even part of Marianne’s “crazy” ways or political philosophy).
However once the main stream talking heads come to rest on some ridiculous narrative that seems to work for them they are, again a little like naughty school-children, loath to give-it-up and move on to a higher education. They want us to think that Marianne or anyone else, Jill Stein for instance, who believes in the possibility of an evolving political narrative and more importantly politically, an evolving political reality is being “crazy”. This is applied especially in the case of anyone who might be so dread as to try to introduce a little “heart and soul” into our cold-cruel world of intentional poverty for the “under-class” and endless war for everyone.
Well, I suppose from the lofty heights of the main asylum it could be said that going against “the conventional” and thoroughly entrenched establishment is a little crazy, but that wouldn’t be because the ideas of these unconventional candidates aren’t worth considering or that the desperate need for a new political reality isn’t there, it certainly is. In the shadowland of convention, I suppose, the ridicule aspect is mostly based on the idea that anyone would be “crazy” enough to take on this beast. I mean imagine the audacity of the woman who runs on a campaign of spending less on war and spending more on the health and well-being of the actual people themselves! Outrageous!
Surely those who went to other battles, the likes of David, St, George, Joan of Arc, “The Founding Fathers”, Geronimo, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Edward Snowden, Juliann Assange and a host of other heros were thought of in the same “crazy” vein by the worried and unimaginative yet, on they went to face their Goliaths, dragons and governments. So, I say carry-on Dear Marianne. Bless you on your journey! May you make a difference and not fall to the false image of yourself that they will turn against you.
But speaking of crazy, we all know the definition of what is really crazy because we read it on bumper stickers and internet memes, that is, doing the same thing over and over again while wishing for, expecting that is new and different outcomes and results. (Thanks A.Einstein)
Now this piece is of course, not an endorsement for Marianne Williamson for president and I by no means consulted her before writing it. I do hope however that if we’re going to bother with having elections and debates and all those things that there might be a speck of decency, respect and a chance for serious contemplation regarding what the candidates say and do. With an open and unbiased mind put to the conversation we might find that it is some of the fringe “crazy” candidates who have the most interesting and pertinent things to say and that it is the old-shoe conventional players and their off-spring who sound insincere and somewhat out of touch with the better path forward for our country and indeed, the world.
Of course, with the debates themselves firmly in the grips of the Republican and Democratic Parties the debates aren’t much help as they appear, to me anyway, like trying to pick who I will have to run my house for the next four years from a congress of baboons. (Sorry baboons). However, if they can be heard through the jungle of noisy sounds and flat out lies we will hear, we might find that some of those fringe candidates have actual well thought-out ideas of how not only these debates and voting systems could easily be improved but how to see through to problems solved throughout a range of troubles from war to homelessness. It might be found that the real ideas of a more compassionate government really do make sense but who’d of known it since these candidates are generally only allowed to talk within very small perimeters and even then for only a minute or two before being interrupted.
Now what is really scary to the “godless American capitalist” is any talk of something that might resemble some kind of spiritual revival here in our “godless American society”. That kind of talk really stinks in the ears of “godless Americans” but hey, without trying to force anyone into picking sides in that ouroboros maybe those new age folks have a point!
I remember well those Glory Days of the 1970’s when I myself, along with several million others, realized that without some kind of “spiritual awakening” that nothing in this country was going to change at all except perhaps the pace of the downhill slide.
We have reached some amazing depths in the here and now, not far from that hot spot in the center of the earth that I was warned against as a child. The combined effects at the convergence of global climate collapse and all out nuclear war would certainly bring home that place we thought was reserved for those down below.
But hope springs eternal (as they say) and I am buoyed by the simple knowledge that I am not alone in my thoughts, hopes and dreams of a better world. I am not alone in understanding the need for a shift in our attitudes and methods so extreme that it does take on the form of a “great awakening”, something so awesome in its scope and social turn-around that it does take on practically religious significance.
I am relieved and renewed by the thought that there are actual candidates who can run on something that we haven’t already heard, and tried, and heard and tried without improvement. I am grateful for the candidates who have some real respect for life, this world and its inhabitants, a candidate that isn’t afraid to say the word “love” when saying what it is we need more of.
I am strangely encouraged in seeing also that it really can’t get much worse around here without going into total melt-down at which point we won’t feel like talking about it at all. I’m encouraged because as has been said, it is often at the last minute, the eleventh hour, the darkest point of what appears to be the place of no return where this “crazy” species of humans actually does rise to the occasion of their evolution. Optimistic yes, but whether we will survive or not remains to be seen.
I am even optimistic, at times, in knowing quite well that there are millions of others out there just like Marianne and me and, if I may be so bold as to say, just like you who believe that there must be a better way and still, that there is still that last minute chance of making the change!
At the speed we’re going, at some point soon, it really will be our last chance to save ourselves. Now that is a crazy idea.
