Well, here we are, closing in on a mid-term election that has everyone either smirking in anticipation or wringing their hands in angst. One way or another, it will be over in a few days and we’ll all have to learn to live with the consequences.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

As you know, in our last mid-term election, we suffered “a wave” that produced enormous fallout in the political arena and serious ramifications for any progressive legislation. Mid-terms typically produce rebellion, given the probability that a president’s record will have sufficient holes in it halfway through a term to cause buyer’s remorse among the populous.

Since youth and minorities seldom vote in mid-terms, elders lead the charge at these junctures, especially those with a conservative train of thought. You may read that as misinformed FOX News followers if you wish, because that’s generally who they are these days, and may I say that those who frequent that media source do not see the hyperbole in its by-line, “fair and balanced,” nor in its coverage of news.

That should tell you much that you need to know about the coming election: yet another riff on George W.’s remaking of reality, a project still being assisted by an increasingly hostile Karl Rove, the right’s money manager. Down to the wire, Karl has a new super-PAC at his disposal, with millionaire contributors throwing caution to the winds by allowing their donations to be made public. There has never been so much money given over to the political process, here in a mid-term election that much of the public doesn’t even know — or seemingly care — about. Begs the question, what inconceivable amount will be spent in 2016?

Things have surely changed, here in this new century, haven’t they? The first eight years took progressives through the rabbit hole and spit them out on the other side of a reality that had stripped them of much that they’d worked for most of their lives. They faced the election of 2008 with a rampant case of PTSD and longing for the return of sane, informed and substantial leadership, but that’s not what they got. The reality-based citizen was treated with a Punch and Judy show on the right and a run-off between race and gender on the left.

It was during this period that we met a fledgling generation of new politicians entering the ring This became obvious when old establishment favorite and occasional ‘maverick’ John McCain allowed his people to select aggressive, attractive — and Pub-approved MILF — Sarah Palin as his running mate. She was a shooting star, flashy and compelling, a complete unknown, to McCain, as well. Knowing what we know now, it was a no-brainer that Sarah’s ambitions would take her off the reservation in no time, but despite so many clues dropped by the previous administration, nobody in McCain’s camp seemed aware of the morphing of religious fundamentalism, hawkish neocon principles, corporate loyalty and hatred for government that had kissed George W. a reluctant goodbye while finding a new home under Glenn Beck’s big tent of malcontents.

Although McCain pledged to work across the aisle whenever he could, Sarah had no such intention. The last of the respectful political interactions pledged by the likes of McCain and his senatorial pal, John Kerry, were already as cold as the embers from your Memorial Day cookout. Sarah represented the ascendency of mundane intelligence and religious bias, along with questionable lifestyle options that time has exposed as narcissistic and self-exploitive. If we want to know what “dumbed-down America” looks like, witness Sarah and her most recent family adventure, described by a witness as “just like a Jerry Springer episode.”

Two years later, mid-term backlash to the Kenyan in the White House [sic] gave us the Tea Party and produced what I think of as the solidifying of anti-intellectualism. Think not? How about the likes of this election’s Iowa senatorial candidate Joni Ernst, asking voters for a job in government while defending her right to carry her Smith & Wesson in order to stand tall against intruders or “the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.” Joni distinguished herself earlier this year with a television ad in which the public finds itself on the business end of her gun muzzle, Joni herself squinting down the barrel at them and promising to “unload on Obamacare.”

In addition, Joni proposes — in Rand Paul and Paul Ryan fashion — to help the American public learn to treasure the joys of self-sufficiency by eliminating educational spending, food stamps, unemployment insurance and Medicare, for starters. Furthermore, she has every intention of privatizing Social Security and forcing the needy to suck up to church charities for assistance. I don’t have to explain her ‘pro-family’ particulars, do I, or her heavy funding by the Kochs? Now that Michele Bachmann is retiring, we will need to crown a new lady Repuberterrian righty extremist. Should Joni win in this close election, dashing the hopes of all reasonable Iowans, we will surely have our new Princess of Pain.

Now, none of this particular brand of lunacy is new, you might say. But it hasn’t withered on the vine, either, which, by evidence of deprivation and need (most of which are blamed on Obama as lack of leadership but more accurately illustrate a lack of funding for the public good, backing policy choices that protect mainstream Americans or concern for any but the rich and powerful) it should have by now. In fact, although the odds still seem to be that Pubs will ride their attempts at voter repression and many-many-million-dollar Koch infusion to Senate victory, the fact that Dems are doing as well as they are speaks to the concerns of the multitude. And those concerns are legion.

Unfortunately, while concerns are piling up, solutions seem elusive. Yet with so many congressional races still evenly split, it should be clear that the consequences of a media conglomerate more interested in ratings than vetting political positions have crippled the national conversation. Clearly, most of those congressional districts up for grabs have been so heavily gerrymandered toward conservative votes that the fact that there IS a tight race going on speaks to a serious decline in confidence about Republican leadership and values. Still — and because following the dots of logic is still a skill that requires dedication and practice — confusion reigns about what constitutes the public good.

Eleanor Clift writes that in Louisiana and North Carolina, where multi-millions have been poured into nasty TV ads, a focus group of women voters known as Wal-Mart Moms are simply tuning out. These are mostly red-state women, sympathetic culture warriors, but they aren’t so sure any more who is friend or foe to their concerns. The ads have them confused and feeling emotionally manipulated, but news agencies other than FOX are not trusted from the right of the political spectrum, leaving them little with which to clarify the facts from the political fodder. Some of those interviewed say they’ll Google on election day, deciding then which candidate to support. Clift finishes her assessment with this warning: “And with that apathy comes consequences they can’t imagine.”

There’s that concept of consequences again. And try as I might to banish them, scenes from a funky and irreverent sci-fi/comedy keep popping up into my brain. In 2006, Mike Judge — the man who cartooned that seemingly outrageous and frighteningly accurate prick to social consciousness, “Beavis and Butt-head,” and followed it with 13 years of “King of the Hill” — made an obscure little movie called “Idiotocracy,” now something of a cult classic. As with most satire, it takes unattractive truth about our society and skews it into absurdity, something Judge does with ease. His version of America 500 years into the future is so pitiable as to be laughable, but just lately I’m not laughing. I’d like to say a culture that has forgotten so much about agriculture that it waters its plants with the equivalent of Gatorade and wonders why the crops are dying has nothing in common with the United States, but — well — you know. We’re not showing an impressive amount of intellect in 2014, are we?

For instance, while bees are necessary for pollinting a third of the food we consume, industry is happier to invest in science to produce alternatives to that process than eliminate the toxic chemicals that are killing not just bees*, but birds, butterflies and other vital portions of our ecosystem. While fracking continues to be frowned on by the majority, and bottom-up activism seems to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting to jam the spokes of plutocracy, the EPA is still more responsive to the oil industry than to the cries of victimized citizens with compromised water sources. Go over to CommonDreams.org and hit their climate page for more examples of both the bad news and the good on progress in holding back the never-ceasing machinery of capitalism bent on stripping the planet down to mere bones; there is some. And truly, the cataclysmic dangers of global warming have become so obvious to all but encrusted deniers that today’s candidates take chances of turning off savvy moderates by pitching the topic to their faith-filled base.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why anyone who wants to breathe decent air, eat real food and live a sustainable future would fight a common sense approach to climate change. And why would anyone who isn’t wealthy support the current Republican agenda? Even should they be as opulently well-fixed as Midas, witness billionaire Warren Buffet, who thinks the rich aren’t taxed nearly enough. Warren earned himself the title of “most hated man in America by millionaires,” and I don’t think he minds much. He knows when enough wealth is truly enough, unlike those who continue to take from an unwitting public to feather their own nests. Indeed, the consequences of the failed financial policies of this nation will, eventually, find even those whose loyalty has been bought victims of their own greed, but by then the breakdown in structure will make a response more difficult. In Will Pitts’s latest piece, titled “The True History of Blowback in One Sentence,” he writes:

…remember that history exists, and actions have consequences, and this event is tied to that event is tied to the other event in a tapestry of escalating cascading fallout, which is called “blowback,” which always carries a dear price unless you’re getting paid for it, which is why you think very hard before making a lethal national decision, because every lethal decision always comes knocking at your door someday…

Essentially, it depends on the consciousness being expressed as to whether consequences are welcome or not, but there are surely unintended consequences attending every decision we make, while the intended ones are more straightforward but perhaps not as we expected. In Kansas, for instance, Governor Sam Brownback has done such an excellent job of implementing the Baggers’ agenda, especially in terms of taxation, that the state is in dire fiscal need, creating a wave of voter apprehension. Similarly, governors in North Carolina and Wisconsin face engaging gubernatorial contenders. Connecting the dots back to a party unwilling to support the commonwealth seems to be turning a lot of red states purple, not something the Pubs anticipated.

A ‘wave’ election is a tsunami of political activism aimed toward the mis-steps of a sitting president, and while Obama is not popular these days, he is a good deal more popular than either the Republican OR Democratic Congress in every poll. So the thing to consider about this campaign season, different from those in the near past, is it’s either up for grabs by the highest bidder thanks to the Supremes’ decision on Citizens United, or it’s a referendum on much that’s gone wrong within the obstruction party, and there’s some evidence that the latter is beginning to take shape. Much as Europe has shot itself in its own foot with austerity, the Republican governors in this nation who have pushed the Bagger agenda are facing a level of hostility they hadn’t anticipated from their own.

There is a crack in the dense Republican wall, likely from a gazillion heads hitting it from both the political left AND right. Money erected the wall, the same kind of money the New Deal regulated in order to bring the majority of American citizens into ownership of their own future and political process in the midst of the last century. The wall is the same one Elizabeth Warren talks about when she tells us that the system is rigged and we have no chance to win unless we change the very system, itself. As Bill Moyers, finally retiring this year at 80, asserts, “Either we reverse Citizens United and insist democracy is about equal representation, or we might as well close up shop.” Essentially, we can study this problem of ours until the cows come home, but unless there is a ground-swell of activism dedicated to ridding the political process of huge and harmful money, nothing is going to change. That’s where we come in.

And that’s where voting makes a difference. The millennial generation, by the way, along with the minority population, have a larger stake in this election than they realize, so I’d like to see them mobilize to keep progressive ballast in the Congressional make-up. Warren’s campaign to relieve student loans won’t see the light of day in an all-Republican Congress. In fact, very little will make it to the table, except a trimming of our remaining security nets and a full-throated give-away of corporate welfare to those who need the money least. Two groups I approve — Daily Kos and MoveOn — are working to mobilize Dem voters, and once again, it would be worth your time to join them if you can. In a totally Republican political environment, as we had under George W. Bush for a couple of (Tom DeLay) years, there will be no progressive agenda seeing the light of day, period. Big money will continue to travel to the top .01 percent, and, as our friend Moyers tells us, that will slam the door on the possibility of responsible governance..

Now, here’s the good news. If the Dems can come through the conservative money glut and the gerrymandered districts to run this close a race, that means populism is on the upswing. If the Pubs take both houses of Congress and further impede any kind of liberal agenda, blowback will see to it that they won’t find themselves in the White House in a decade and likely much more. If the Dems can pull this one out of the fire to keep the Senate, the public will be encouraged that it can be done and will continue to act locally to produce change. In that way — and illogical as it seems — what we face with so much dread today is a win/win for the democratic process.

Yes, we’re in dire straits. And yes, this election is important, worth our concern and activism and even a bit of personal sacrifice, if required. But, as our recent eclipses have made clear, a door has closed even as a window has opened. There has been an end to the circumstance that began back in 1995 — when intellect was being attacked by a growing evangelical fundamentalism — and the beginning of one that could well take us into an era of political restoration and ethical/spiritual renewal. We’re becoming accustomed to hearing harsh truth, learning to examine the consequences of our inability to face years of denial and practicing the art of following the dots to reclaim logic. And it seems to me that we’re traveling faster than many of us think we are.

There are some out there who are so overwhelmed by what they see and hear around them that all they want to do is pull the covers over their heads, and I empathize. But there is no victory in doing so, and no reward unless we’re either helping ourselves or those around us. We have a job to do on this planet, and that’s to contribute our best to it on a daily basis. I suppose some would disagree, especially in a political sense, but like Bill Moyers, I don’t want to close up shop on democracy, so in whatever way I can I do my little part; you can count on me to keep at it. I hope you’ll intuit the importance of finding a way to do yours, as well.

The channelers all say it’s up to us now. Let’s listen to our higher angels, vote our true values and insist that our politicians live up to them. Let’s create a ‘wave’ of loving action that flings the windows to a healed and healing future wide! Those are the consequences I’ve waited a lifetime to see.

*If you’re interested in saving bees, you might want to stop by your local Lowe’s Hardware between 10/29 and 10/31 to deliver a nice little “trick or treat” Halloween card urging them to “stop selling bee-killing pesticides and garden plants pre-poisoned with these harmful chemicals.” Friends of the Earth has a downloadable card to print and take in. Even conservative competitor, Home Depot, has agreed to put warnings on products containing neonicotinoids. Corporations are beginning to respond to public pressure. If this activity doesn’t appeal to you, visit the site to send a message to the EPA’s Gina McCarthy asking her to ban the toxic chems.

There have been many times over the last fourteen years when national atrophy, zealous leadership, and political hijinks pushed reality into the surrealistic zone, creating — in me, at least — a mixed bag of response that Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross would have recognized as the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I have experienced them all and sometimes on the very same day, one after the next ( a.k.a. lather, rinse, repeat.)

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Even now, denial and depression occasionally alight like a butterfly, tickling my psyche for just an instant, then flickering quickly away. Bargaining and acceptance linger at the back of my mind, threads of sane and proven technique woven into analysis of any given situation, awaiting assessment. Like time itself, the emotions prompting these states do not always seem to be sequential, and most of them don’t last long in my household except for that second one: anger. Am I pissed? Oh, you bet! As I was writing this, my son checked in to ask if I had my topic yet. I told him I did, it’s “What The Fuck Is Wrong With People???”

In order to enjoy any kind of calm, grace-filled emotional space at the end of the day — clearing our minds of useless information and preparing ourselves to enter a healing, often informative, dreamscape — I think it’s important to feel everything that has presented itself for our attention during the day. Granted, allowing these feelings takes a certain mindfulness, as most of them are as unwelcome as a stream of ants at a picnic. I’m not talking about that moment in the day when we over-react to stimulus, like throwing a shoe at the cat as she digs in a flower pot, but rather a purposeful instance in which we lift some distressing bit of information into focus using balanced intellect and higher mind, defanging it in the process of clarification, and marking it for further investigation and/or activism.

And while I believe in and practice positive thinking and affirmation, I don’t recommend them ‘to a fault,’ screening out all other factors. Avoiding the avalanche of sad, distressing or challenging news we hear on a daily basis often becomes less self-protection than an act of self-sabotage, creating a habit of resistance like a hardened callous, insulating us from reality. And — slowly and surely, event after event — isn’t that how we achieved this version of our increasingly surreal America, to start with?

I know, much of what is happening in the world is dreadful, disturbing the even flow of emotions and events we favor, but in this long-anticipated time of social evolution we can expect no less. Yet even so, with unavoidable change upon us, our human intellect still requires some reason to run toward it, eager to experience something new, or conversely, a visceral response that informs us that the direction we’re moving in only mires us more deeply in what needs renewal. Following up that first impulse, pro or con, with thoughtful investigation and realistic analysis must come right behind — unless it doesn’t, unless we shove it under the rug. I suppose that’s where my WTF rant begins and ends, starting with, “What part of unavoidable do we not understand?”

With one dead and two infected — a total of only three citizens, nationwide, mind you — it’s Ebola 24/7 on television news, and I’m not talking about the irrational (and disturbingly racist) babble that’s going on over at FOX News. FOX is the channel that proposed those immigrant kids on the bus this summer were carriers of leprosy, TB, cholera and plague, after all. Hardly a stretch to imagine the kinds of things they’re saying about Ebola now. And no surprise that I’m hearing echoes here in the Pea Patch, from seniors who can’t seem to utter the word Ebola without adding something disturbingly ignorant about that black guy in the White House, or others “of his kind.” Those who say racism isn’t at work in the underpinnings of this Ebola scare need to come spend an afternoon with me.

A House panel raking CDC Director Thomas Fieden over the coals this morning took border-closing hysteria to another level. The rationale behind keeping flights and flyers under scrutiny of CDC personnel is designed to prevent the possibility of people using alternate routes to sneak over the borders in search of better healthcare; an administrative choice between some control, no matter how flawed, and none at all. The howlers don’t care, as long as fear works to feed the political machine.

Many of the questions put to the director called for speculation, and Fieden answered truthfully, saying he didn’t know and couldn’t say. This caused a CNN panel to invite viewers to go on Facebook with their response to queries over whether or not Fieden should be fired. WTF? Fire one of the few people who has the international expertise to either understand or manage a deadly viral outbreak? What’s wrong with you, CNN? What kind of thought is THAT to plant in public consciousness?

Makes about as much sense as ‘firing’ experienced career politicians only to replace them with people who do not understand the system they’re charged with working within, or the ramifications of, for instance, refusing to fund the government (the same one we’re all bitching about not responding to the Ebola crisis quickly enough to suit our needs). That kind of behavior has been called, over many decades, “jumping from the frying pan into the fire,” and “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Amazing, isn’t it, that we’ve been practicing this kind of irrational response so long, we’ve created time-honored idioms to cover it, yet we still do it every chance we get?

The burgeoning bubble of panic finally pushed the White House to name an Ebola Czar to head up the crisis. The man awaiting announcement — Ron Klain, former chief-of-staff to both Biden and Gore — has an excellent reputation in organizing and implementing programs, and should provide some confidence in government response if not become the ‘face’ of that healthcare expertise, as would the reassuring visage of a Surgeon General. That position is still unacted upon, some 18 months late, thanks to the National Rifle Association’s lobbying efforts to silence Obama’s candidate, who considers two million or more yearly emergency room visits for assault (according to the CDC,) the majority involving weapons, a danger to our national health.

In other news, while Pope Francis feels it’s time to open his arms to the queer community, his recent remarks regarding gay folk has apparently created a mushroom cloud over his bishops’ sensibilities, particularly the English speaking ones. When the Pope said that homosexual unions can often constitute a “precious support in the life of the partner,” the Vatican was obliged to issue a ‘new translation’ that mollified the objecting clergy, which now reads ” … valuable support in the life of these persons.” This opens the door for discussion of the church accepting civil unions, as well as making space for homosexual parishioners, although the Pope’s commentary about “welcoming homosexuals” has now been changed to “providing for homosexual persons.”

Those whom the Pope wants to draw in, the bishops choose to distance from, and in order for these latest recommendations to be approved and discussed among dioceses around the world, two-thirds of the bishops must approve them. Me, I’m thinking Pope Frank needs a food-taster. While most of the rational world celebrated his remarks as an example of the Catholic Church catching up with the 21st century, when I told a priest-friend I was worried about Francis, he nodded and said he figured somebody was surely mixing the poison in the back room.

I don’t want to be overly critical here, but what part of “closet cases” do these Vatican princelings think we don’t already know about? Anybody remember “Judge not least you be judged?” Or is that only in the Protestant version of the Bible? Not that Protestants are any less parochial, as witnessed by evangelicals who have joined ‘pro-family’ Catholics in calling the Pope a betraying heretic for his progressive — and dare I say, Christian — leanings. They have accused him of teaching ” … that there are positive and constructive aspects to […] mortal sins.” One group used a word I had not heard before: homoherisy. Did they just make that up? And we thought the Taliban was scary!

A church that is teetering on irrelevance should probably be a little less radical, don’t you think? And there it is, there, at this point in history: to refuse to evolve from the old fundamentalism of an earlier age is a sure sign of radicalism. Those who cannot embrace progress and change are doomed eventually to wither and die. It is simply the way of all living things.

This constant pressure of conservatism that refuses to acknowledge what the majority not only wants, but already lives  — day in, day out — doesn’t just grind away at us, it angers us. Trying to keep one’s intellectual balance while seemingly surrounded by those whose fear and self-loathing threaten to banish those of us who refuse to repress ourselves to the corn field takes a toll.

And if you’re in one of those states where every other television or radio commercial is political, spewing lies about the state of the nation and/or the promises of this or that political figure, your nerves are probably as frayed as mine, so if you go outside and howl at the moon, find yourself breaking dishes rather than washing them, or charring dinner rather than cooking it, know you are not alone. This too shall pass, but — I fear — not without pissing me off.

People want to close the borders to strangers, blame the agencies that are trying to contain this outbreak, and scare the pants off each other, telling tales of pandemic and loss. If this is what we’ve got with one death, what will happen with thirty? The last flu considered a pandemic was H1N1 in 2010, in which there were over a quarter million hospitalizations resulting in over 12,000 deaths. Did we come unglued then? Did we close the borders? Did we blame black folk?

It turns out that the Pope’s ‘compassion’ is a liberal trait, not something to brag about. The church is miffed at its new leader for being too kindly to suit the traditionalists. Every time I think of what the church did in Spain during the Inquisition, I get pissed. When I think of what it did in Ireland during the last century — rent Philomena — I get pissed. When I think of what it’s still doing, cloistered in its exclusive same-sex club, I get really really pissed. Can we see the darkness there, reflected in ourselves? And if we can, then why do we still empower these people?

The conservatives are set to take over both houses of government. We’re just weeks away from losing any ability to stop them from attacking all of the things we’ve managed to accomplish in these last years, not to mention those things we’ve tried to protect. This is — to quote Joe Biden — a big fucking deal. Why aren’t we raising hell about this? It’s just establishment politics so it doesn’t matter what happens next? Really? REALLY?

Feeling dismay, even anger, isn’t the end of the story, of course; it’s just the beginning. Once we have that warning flash, we’ve been given information about something that requires further action of some sort. That’s much of what our plight is about — too many flashes, too few options about how to handle them or what to do next, even if we find the time. So let’s go back to that list of five responses once again, linear as designed: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Those of us on the progressive side of the fence are no longer in denial about what we’re facing. Our challenge is to get those who do not think as we do to face reality while there’s still some hope of remediating our growing problems. Some of us think we can change minds; others of us have simply given up.

The second of the five, anger, comes and goes, so it’s best to learn how to handle it. Anger works as catalyst, focusing our attention, but it isn’t a place to dwell unless we want to physically disintegrate with too much adrenalin, too much toxin. Treat anger as if it’s a pressure cooker, needing a jiggler to allow for escaping hot air. Then jiggle away, as needed, while investigating the cause of the emotional storm (likely leading to unaddressed fears). Unless we explore our anger, it owns us. Better the other way around.

Bargaining is only an issue if we’re bargaining with some other human who can actually affect the situation at hand. Dems can’t bargain with Pubs, for instance, despite the meme that talented political leadership can bring anyone to the table, a fantasy politico’s like to repeat. Those days are gone, memories of them scribbled in the margins of the Pluto/Uranus playbook. Besides, the bargaining Kübler-Ross was speaking of was an exchange of some kind with God when facing our own mortality. That may still play in traditional religious thought, but as our understanding of God has begun to morph, so has our understanding of the alchemical changes within ourselves that are required for bodily healing, as well as intuitive meditations dealing with the concept of death. Bargaining seems to me that place where we come to terms with reality.

Depression? Seems a natural consequence of facing dire circumstances, although I can’t help but think the many pharmaceutical solutions prescribed to relieve anxiety work to our detriment. The amount of drugs taken in this nation to eliminate stress is frightful, and I’d bet my piggy bank that they most often cause as many problems as they solve. Chronic depression, as opposed to circumstantial bouts of depression, is tricky and very often ignored, exacerbated by the environmental toxicity of food, air, water we must all endure thanks to rampant capitalism, poor national foresight, and misunderstanding of both metaphysics and the natural world.

Then there’s that last one: acceptance. Now there’s something to aspire toward. Think of it as sanity. That’s how Eckhart Tolle considers it when he says, “What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is?” To simply accept where we are now, while vowing to do all we can to change it into something more acceptable to the whole of us requires some self-mastery, and an on-going understanding of the emotions that flood us from moment to moment, demanding our full attention.

For those of us who view the politics of the moment with trembling, let’s remember that we’re poised on an election in a few weeks that hangs on a mere 500,000 votes. That’s what Howard Dean said in a fund-raising e-mail the other day, and I believe him. He’s one of the few politicians I know who doesn’t lie for a living. So much of the next two years depends on this election, it’s fearsome to think about, and yet, when we do, we just shrug our shoulders. Nothing we can do about it, right? Election’s being bought by the highest bidder, with hundreds of millions in play.

But Howard thinks that turning out the vote is the answer, as do many historians who know that mid-terms get too little public attention. And because the races are so tight, Dean believes there’s a possibility to keep the Senate if volunteers will spend some time contacting liberals — likely working women — reminding them just how critical their vote is. His organization, Democracy for America, has set up a phone bank, put together phone lists and training, and has asked for people to commit to a few hours making calls. Since my understanding is that this is not cold-calling, eliminating the likelihood of reaching hostile Republican voters, this doesn’t sound too painful. If you have any interest in this project as the clock ticks down, go to his website and get the particulars.

While the Kübler-Ross model speaks to a process of grief and loss, there are ways to break the hold each of those emotions has on us, but it requires us to DO something. This nation seems to be stuck in morass, lethargic in the face of disaster. Being part of something we believe in relieves much of that internal emotional rollercoaster, releasing us from inertia.

Maybe that’s what’s wrong with people! Maybe they haven’t had enough exposure to being part of something more interesting than just taking care of themselves. When our choice is between self-interest or doing something for the betterment of us all, have we had the experience of feeling like we’re contributing something truly important? Like what we do matters? In order to experience our humanity, we need to do something for others, do something to help. We need to open our arms to things that keep us empowered and in the moment, encouraged and encouraging.

Encouraging others to lend a hand at this important moment in history is the kind of person-to-person experiment that can change everything. That’s the kind of activism that can help dispel anger and depression, that accepts the fluidity of the possibilities and understands that what we bring to the moment changes the outcome.

When we open our hearts in acceptance of one another, when we offer our time and effort in advancement of what blesses all of us, we learn to leave fear behind, replaced by purpose. Perhaps what’s wrong with people is they don’t realize that their only job, here on planet Terra, is to love and be loved, leaving no one out. And maybe that’s the sixth stage that moves us from the grief of dying into the sunlight of living, the one that heals us all.

How about that blood moon? Pretty impressive in the night sky, daring anyone to look away. Made me ponder the moniker, though. Why isn’t it a rosy moon or a cherry moon? Earlier in the evening, before the eclipse stained her face, Luna was so close, so big and bright, the words that came to mind were ‘bombers moon.’ Why are we schooled to automatically reach for the most dire and dramatic words to describe things we see? Life is hardly so humdrum and mundane that we need frightening teasers to keep us ever on edge and prepared for the worst.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

This week a Jehovah’s Witness acquaintance of mine cheerfully greeted everyone she met with an enthusiastic announcement that “The pestilence is here!” I assume, for her (and as implied by frequent illustrations in the JW recruitment magazine, the Watchtower) that triggers happy thoughts about lions lying down with lambs and a utopian society where all is regulated by benevolent theocratic authority. For most of the rest of us, though, just mention of the word pestilence frightens the bejesus out of us and turns us against one another as suspicious germ-carriers.

Some idiot sneezed on a plane this week and followed it with a crack about being from Africa. After landing, authorities in hazmat suits escorted him off the plane, fellow passengers hooting and clapping, even as the black man protested that he was joking. Is idiot too harsh a term? Not realizing the highly-charged emotional climate into which one injects dark humor seems more than just clueless, it’s reckless. A word of advice? Don’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre or ‘bomb’ in a busy airport and, these days, don’t joke about pandemics.

Nothing scares us more than something we can’t see coming. It prompts us to do stupid things, as when pretty but vapid “The View” alumni, Elizabeth Hasslebeck, now a FOX News contributor, suggested that a National Institute of Health* doctor seal the borders. His answer was both logical and nuanced, enumerating the consequences of such an action, which seems to have stumped Elizabeth and, very likely, her viewers as well.

Surely it can only be fear that prompts us to believe the stupid (and glaringly manipulative) things political operatives say, like Rush Limbaugh declaring that Obama has allowed Ebola in as punishment on white people for slavery. Like Phyllis Schlafly commenting that the Prez wants Americans to die from this virus so that the U.S. will be more like Africa. But WTF, folks! A little brainpower would be refreshing about now, don’t you think? A little common sense to go with our panic attack?

It’s entirely human to become self-protective in the face of danger — our bodies flooded with fight-or-flight waves of adrenalin that pitch us into action — but living in a constant state of fear over supposed matters of life and death is simply exhausting, self-defeating and stressful. We can blame the corporatists for chipping away at the educational system that might have given us the cognitive skills to put all the chaos we see around us into proper perspective, and thank the fundamentalists for much of our nihilistic mind-set, setting up a scenario where we desperately need ‘saving,’ not to mention the adoption of a one-size-fits-all moral code in order to deserve  it. And, yes — because if the buck doesn’t stop here, I don’t know where it stops — we can thank ourselves for slowly allowing that kind of regressive thinking to color our world in tones so densely dark and somber that now we have to fight our way back up into the Light.

As successful scaremonger and director of suspense-thrillers, Sir Alfred Hitchcock, told us, “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.” And although we might argue that the world has gone full-blown drama queen, shot-gunning out its dysfunctionality to pepper any casual bystander, twist any rational mind, there is a lot of fabrication going on. This distillation of the shocking, saddening, salacious or most severe of our behaviors finds easy access to performance art, filling the pages of a script, stuffing scads of dysfunction along with promises of thrills and spills onto its pages to create the ultimate soap opera, otherwise known as the world, today.

In order to write such a scenario, we have to leave out anything that relaxes us, repairs our jangled nerves, or makes us comfortable, focusing instead on the dire and the dismal. In order to appreciate the drama at hand, we have to begin to live out the consciousness that propels it, and some of us, Hitch said, come by it naturally.  “I’m fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn’t make a good suspense film,” said the iconic director.

Ratcheting up anxiety over every possible danger in these last years, we’ve created a society that expects the worst and takes a kind of perverse satisfaction in being proven right. Makes me think of my JW friend, pleased to be the first to announce gawd-awful news. What the hell kind of happy-dance will she break into when famine shows up? Reminds me — as does so much of what I see, these days — of the Course in Miracles affirmation, “You can be right or you can be happy,” and Richard Bach’s warning, “Argue for your limitations, and they’re yours.”

The kind of hysteria we’re experiencing because of the Ebola epidemic has a good deal to do with what we’re NOT hearing. We’re not hearing how this is a problem that has its roots in poverty, feudal hygiene practice, and medieval burial procedures; hence, the very cause of the problem we must eventually address. We’re not hearing that modern medical practice can certainly contain the worst of this, or that an actual cure for such a frightful scourge won’t be found so long as those who suffer from it have no money to pay. And although we’re hearing — from progressive providers everywhere — that this is not something to run with our hair on fire about, we don’t have a definitive voice to tamp out the sparks that are flying, fast and furiously.

And who might such a one be, you may ask? An American Surgeon General would do, for starters. Someone who can speak for public health, and represent the integrity of the medical institutions charged with containing such a danger. We haven’t had a SG in almost a year, ever since the physician Obama proposed — Dr. Vivek H. Murthy — had the temerity to consider guns a danger to the health of the average citizen (and I doubt that any doctor working an emergency room in this nation could disagree.)

The NRA did not take such a notion kindly, and its minions, comprised of the entirety of the Republican party, jumped on the chance to stonewall Obama’s choice, refusing confirmation and denying the nation a national physician. Clearly, even on his best day Sanjay Gupta doesn’t cut it, but corporatist Dems haven’t raised an appropriate amount of hell to push a confirmation vote for Murthy, nor has the Prez. We are, as usual, without what we need when we need it. We could really use a hero, but with none forthcoming, I’m thinking it’s on you and me.

Some say that the appointment no longer has the weight it once did to represent a politicized nation, and looking at the reason Murthy has been waiting in the wings all this time may prove the point. When the physician of moment is on board with the party in favor and its philosophical idiosyncrasies, rather than the medical needs of the people, then perhaps the position is, indeed, no longer viable. Yet most often it’s the administration, rather than the medical representation it chooses, that wimps out.

Do we all remember C. Everett Coop? While he was Reagan’s man, and a devout anti-choice conservative, he would not buck science in favor of his personal politics. He advised condoms for protection against AIDS without demonizing homosexuality as did the Reagan camp, so he was not advised in the early — and crucial — years of the epidemic. At the end of his tenure, Coop found no evidence that abortion caused lasting psychological harm to women and said so, despite his own personal hesitations. Those on the right were surely not pleased.

And perhaps you remember our first African American Surgeon General, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, a pediatric endocrinologist who advocated the distribution of condoms in schools to protect teens from STDs? Controversial from the get-go, she suggested that teaching masturbation would be a likely tactic for discouraging teens from riskier forms of sexuality, and — bless her — said, in 1994, “We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children.” Clinton fired her that same year. (I’m pleased to report that she continues to be a front-and-center advocate for childhood issues, calling abstinence-only sex education a form of child abuse and voicing support for marijuana legalization, citing nicotine and alcohol as far more dangerous drugs.)

Yes, it would be good to have a wiser head to listen to, not left twitchy and almost manically uninformed — like Egypt that killed hundreds of thousands of pigs when there was a hint of swine flu, or Indochina, that snuffs chickens by the millions at the mere mention of Avian flu — but perhaps it’s too late to stem the tide of stupidity and fright. Ebola already has its first animal sacrifice: Excaliber the dog, belonging to the Spanish nurse who has since died of Ebola. For whatever reason, it is easier to feel the loss of a beloved pet than that of our neighbor, so for God/dess sake, please do. We will not overcome this challenge to intellect and compassion unless we open our heart to it.

When things get grim, the first thing we hear in this nation is a great wail about how End Times are finally here. The newest “Left Behind” movie is out this week, just in time to capitalize on all the spooky, scary and largely irrational conjecture about vanishing believers and vanquished evil, bathed in fire and blood. Good times, eh? Great drama, pure soap opera and lots of shocks and jolts, but — seriously, my dears — nothing new.

I’m reminded that in 1918, with WWI still in progress and the whole of the globe tired and sad, an epidemic of flu gripped approximately one-fifth of the world. Here in the states, over 675,000 citizens sickened and died, more than a quarter of all Americans. Unusually severe, it bypassed the very old and very young. Those between 20 and 40 were consumed so quickly that there was no way to handle all of the bodies, so they were left in their beds, their homes closed and quarantined, and family members displaced until pick-up and decontamination could be arranged. My great-grandmother was among them, leaving a devastated husband and two little boys to an unthinkable future without her.

There was a great cry and howl about End Times during that frightful period, count on it. There was hand-wringing and angst, foretelling the rise of Christian Dominionists who would embrace the concept of Rapture rather than stick around to bury the dead. Yet it was during this same period that science reorganized to address the fearsome challenges of modern medicine, pushing to discover the wonder drugs of the 20th century, define treatment of sepsis, and design and implement the vaccination policies that brought childhood disease to a standstill.

The Ebola threat is just the newest version of … let’s call it … a healing crisis. It has provoked our oldest, deepest cell memories of fear and loss, but it is not the end of anything. Perhaps it’s even the beginning of all that must come next if we are to restore sanity and survive into this new century, the dawning of a new era. As the world changes, so must we, and the first thing we have to let go of is superstitious fear and irrational — if shiveringly entertaining — things that go bump in the night.

* With elections coming up it’s worth mentioning that sequestration removed some 1.5 BILLION dollars from the NIH and 300 million from the CDC, which would have staffed, equipped and enabled a speedy response to this global emergency.  Even now, the funding requested by Obama to address this challenge is being used as a political football to garner mid-term votes.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

We see what we choose to see, so they say, and there’s truth to that, but we used to have to work harder at it. Because news and entertainment have morphed into a single entity — infotainment — and bygone days of generations sitting down together in front of radio or TV to share the offering of the day are long behind us, our collective cognition has suffered enormously. Technology brought us options, and our info consumption habits fractured and splintered, exploding into a smorgasbord of individual servings. Now we are able to select only those tidbits that we want to ingest. In a nation grown increasingly egocentric, this kind of socio-political isolation of ideas does not serve us well.

Like kids let loose at the pastry bar, we can consume all the fluff and goo we want with that constantly renewed technology we can’t wait to get our hands on. We can feast on scary stuff, like Laura Ingraham’s Ebola rants on FOX News, putting old folks into panic du jour over pandemic and the horror of Obama allowing dark immigrants to infect the homeland. We can binge two-fisted on sports channels until the testosterone leeches out through our pores, or turn into glitter voyeurs, sucking up the intimate details of our favorite celebrities’ personal lives (as approved and embellished by their handlers and PR people). We can take our radical religion through an IV drip or swallow whole anything the NRA or the NSA (or any other acronym that appeals to us) has to offer. Yes, like Burger King, we can have it our way even if it puts us in a coma.

The litany of ain’t-it-awfuls rings like a cheap watch, striking twelve: ISIS, Ebola, extreme science denial, Syria, extreme sexism, Ukraine, extreme racism, Secret Service scandal, Hong Kong, extreme income equality, war, war and rumors of war! And all that seems almost inconsequential compared to the daily assaults on the social fabric that holds our national community together. Did I mention how much of this seems extreme? How the unusual has become usual but we still can’t quite accept that as “normal?” And that no matter how much we hide our eyes, all these lightning strikes hitting the tower card of our daily experience are illuminating our tattered reality like a neon sign at midnight?

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly relied on selective sight when times were tough and available solutions offered no immediate recourse, choosing not to wallow in oh-shit-oh-dear challenges that pull one down into defeatism. But my innate altruism is informed by a nagging skepticism, constantly reviewing the checks and balances, keeping a watchful eye on reality while walking an emotional high wire. Painful circumstances show up in our lives for a reason, and sometimes they have to turn downright viral to get our attention. It seems as though that’s exactly where we find ourselves today, so let’s kiss Chiron on the lips if we dare and get on with the healing.

And it would seem, if we’ve gained any skill at following the bread crumbs, that things are beginning to shift from the darker forms they’ve lately taken. Climate change is really no longer in question; only the inability of a cynical Congress to make any change from the deliberate denial that feeds the stilted tastes of its radical-right base (and do watch Jon Stewart mess with the Schoolhouse Rock classic, “I’m Just A Bill.” It’s a major not-to-miss hoot!).

ALEC has been discredited with the business class, everyone is aware of the issues with police brutality and militarization, and the Supreme Court is under scrutiny like never before. The right’s howl that Ruth Bader Ginsburg should recuse herself because she’s been speaking out lately were met with a bitch-slap when Scalia made his opinion clear that the founders meant the Constitution to tip toward religion rather than secularism. He sleeps well, he says, knowing exactly what the founders wanted and not having to make any moral decisions himself. (Deep breath!) And wonder of wonders, a judge here in Missouri has ruled that same-sex couples married in other states must be recognized, putting my locals in a state of apoplexy, while in California, Jerry Brown just signed a bill allowing judges to remove guns from family members who appear threatening to relatives.

The resistance that had us pitted against one another in deadlock for so long seems to have yielded a bit of ground in these last few days. You may remember shortly after the Trayvon Martin killing, as we were all being introduced to the self-defense concept of Florida law called ‘stand your ground,’ there was a spate of similar incidents that pushed the envelope way past Zimmerman’s obvious craziness. They’ve turned up again, not such bad pennies after all.

Pulling into a convenience store, a gent named Michael Dunn sprayed an SUV full of black kids with ten bullets because they took exception to his asking them to turn down their “thug music.” This resulted in the killing of 17-year old Jordan Davis, whom Dunn accused of having a gun. No surprise that the man was white and the kids black, right? Dunn was staying at a local motel and, seemingly justified in shooting up the place, didn’t bother to stick around for the cops to come. He went back to his room, fixed a drink, ordered a pizza, and walked his dog. Police eventually found him in his home town days later.

In February, Dunn was found guilty of three counts of attempted murder for shooting at the full car, but the jury deadlocked over killing young Davis. A second trial this week centered on Dunn’s insistence that he was threatened with a weapon. Since none was found, and his subsequent actions were highly questionable, Dunn was convicted of first degree murder this week. There is no quick ‘fix’ for the racism that has a grip on this country, but this verdict, as a bit of a game change, goes a long way toward equalizing justice. When reporters mobbed the young man’s family at the end of the day, his heartbroken father told them — with a singular grace we’ve come to expect from these parents whose children have become unwilling poster children — “We must do a better job of loving each other.”

Around the same time, in Michigan, a black teen whose car had broken down banged on the door of a man who opened it and shot her dead. There is some question as to whether or not he knew her sex or color, just that it was the middle of the night and he was awakened out of a dead sleep by an insistent stranger. Dropping someone on your porch because they startled you is a bit paranoid, seems to me, but there is a ‘shoot first’ law in Michigan. It took a while to work through the system, but essentially the girl was unarmed, probably a bit high, simply looking for help. The shooter’s guilty verdict, along with a display of regret for his actions, was something of a surprise.

Common sense is quietly making a welcome comeback. Like a box of crackerjacks, there appears to be a prize buried deep in the polarity of our current consciousness. The more absurd the accusations, the more temperate the response of a disgusted public. The more deluded the supposition, the more sane the conclusion by those who are painfully aware that the tin foil hats on the right of the political spectrum have contributed to a dysfunctional nation. As if we’re being inoculated against ‘stupid,’ we’re building up an immunity to the embarrassingly childish response of one political party bordering on extinction, as well as a lack of patience with the corporatism and waffling of the other.

The mass hysteria over young people of color taking advantage of older white folk is mostly just that: fear tactics used to achieve political advantage. We’re seeing another version of it in the growing pandemonium over Ebola, which was soundly swept away by Dr. Kent Sepkowitz on Stephen Colbert Thursday night (go to http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/ October 2, 2014, and load Deathpocolypse Now – Ebola in America.) A rattled America plays into the hands of the War Hawks and Chicken Littles. Things that go bump in the night have always been their forte, and Jupiter in Leo has brought out the drama queens to rile up the scaredy cats. Fortunately, the performance is a bit too obvious to scare the majority, or all that crying wolf has us exhausted,, one or the other.

Frankly, we’ve been lethargic about dealing with Ebola, this scourge from half-way around the world. The money needed to educate and create decent living conditions that discourage this kind of outbreak has been missing from the nation’s coffers for awhile now, and while Obama has pledged to do as much as we can, funding for this kind of international service has been whittled away over the years. As with money for campaigns, our e-mail inboxes are filling with requests for financial help. Imagine the hubris of turning to the public and asking them to take care of much of the world, even as many of us struggle to take care of ourselves. But, here we are — caught, in this emergency, with our pants down and our wallets empty.

This is that moment when we all begin to realize that the world is simply a big neighborhood, that virus doesn’t care about political party or religious conviction but thrives and spreads among those who have the fewest options for either healthful living or health care in general. The international community needs to take care of these issues, for self-preservation if nothing more. This is a wake-up call, one that Texas has failed miserably — and, while I hear there’s a big Texas prayer-push for all involved, praying for everyone to be OK isn’t the kind of world-class action we’re in need of right this minute.

I’ve got nothing against prayer, in fact I’m a true believer, but not in the childish prayers of those who ask for outcome rather than in-dwelling. Ask for strength, insight, forgiveness, grace? I’m there. Say the perfect prayer: help! Be open to what appears for you, trusting what shows up to give you what you need, despite appearances to the contrary. The larger energies that infuse us under those circumstances have much to do with what is unseen but deeply felt.

Sometimes seeing is believing, even if the things we believe in are invisible. In fact, that’s often true, even as the reality-base insists that unseen influences must be proven with anecdotal information. For instance, if anyone is brave enough to visit my house today, they’ll have to ignore my snorts and swearing as the Mercury storm turns my PC sullen and unresponsive, my connection on-again, off-again, my job more difficult. They would know without a doubt that I believe in Mercury retrogrades and their ability to make life more complicated. And looking outside at the severe storms that swept away an 80 degree day yesterday to promise a freeze tonight might be enough to convince a few holdouts that extreme weather is upon us, just as climate science warns. Disbelievers can dispute that if they like, but seeing inevitable consequences is powerful mojo.

Some of us believe only what we see with our own eyes, losing faith and hope quickly when the slog is uphill and harder than expected. There is plenty of precedent for this kind of behavior choice. We will find it in the heart of every cynic, every doubter and every disappointed kid at Christmas. We will not find many in this strata of consciousness who add energy to the lifting of the planet. This is the kind of thinking that keeps us looping in pattern. This is consciousness asleep to the possibilities.

Some of us clap hands for Tink to live, expecting to be saved and secured by being obedient to dogma and rarely, if ever, questioning why the things we’ve been told will happen, don’t. That’s seeing what we want to believe, creating a façade to house our belief system and staying closely aligned with those who reinforce it. Fighting for our limitations, owning the result. The success of this process doesn’t bring much satisfaction, but it’s still being done on a major scale. So much of this applies to Christendom that, although that church experience is far behind me, it hurts my feelings. The Protestant church was once the place where social consciousness took root and began to bloom, as it still did when I was a child. That we seem to have lost that in a glut of repressive fundamentalism saddens me, but piques my imagination as to how it will revive itself. Nothing is ever lost, it only changes and Christianity needs to up its game, letting in the Light.

Then there are those who believe what they intuitively feel, stretching to reach for the unique signs of expected outcomes and confident that they will come. They represent those who have been touched by the Great Mystery in some way. Their hearts have opened. They’ve loved and been loved. They’ve trusted and learned to be trustworthy. They’ve developed compassion by tending the feelings of others, as well as their own. They’ve felt the deep sinews of life beneath the skin of their living. They don’t know all the answers, but they aren’t afraid of the questions. And when things get tough, they’re among the first to understand these words, supposedly scrawled on the wall in a Jewish hiding place during the Holocaust, and they are comforted:

“I believe in the sun even when it isn’t shining,

I believe in love even when I cannot feel it,

I believe in God even when He is silent”.

When all this political misbehavior rights itself in a shifting, growing surge toward Aquarian principles — and I have every expectation that it will — it will be that last group that birthed the baby. In a time of conflict and confusion, marked by the big outer planetary energies like Jupiter and Saturn, Pluto, Uranus and Neptune, activated again and again by quickly moving personal planets, it’s easy enough to lose track of who, what and where but when we keep faith with what we believe, bolstered by the ancient, irrefutable data that we have stored in every cell, the outcome is sure. Believing WILL be seeing. For today, then, we can take comfort in the many signs of growing awareness and renewed faith in the process of evolution.