By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

It’s been a ride on the tilt-a-whirl this week: up, down and spun all around. Eric’s warning early in the week not to believe anything you hear and only half of what you see was prescient. Blizzard was coming, then it didn’t (in New York, anyhow). Mitt was running, now he’s not (suggesting donor exhaustion, likely Koch inspired). Republicans win everything in sight in 2014 because they insist they “have a mandate from the people,” and less than two months later, Obama’s approval numbers are up 22 points.

It appears that we’ve been let off the leash, somehow, finally free to break the bonds of former decisions and agreements. We’re backing up, doing over, reconsidering. A pro-life Ohio Rep of the Dem persuasion has changed his mind and joined the pro-choice because he “talked to women.” Novel idea, eh? Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee proclaimed women who use profanity in the workplace “trashy,” which was a bridge too far for big-haired blonde FOX News hostess, Megyn Kelly, who doesn’t seem to realize she’s simply supposed to support all male commentary while looking hot. She suggested that swearing wasn’t the only thing real women were up to, much to the Huck’s horror.

Cranky old John McPoopyPants, traditionally a gentleman, protected a stolid and complacent Henry Kissinger from accusations of war crimes by a handful of fearless Code Pink women protestors, calling them ‘low-life scum’ as the Capital police hustled them away. While not a complete back-track, McCain is usually more solicitous with the ladies and patient with the process. Consider what he tolerated in Sarah Palin. I presume, given Pink’s liberal bona fides, Huckabee would approve that level of trash talk.

Do note that a couple of Baggers in Arizona are getting their mojo ready to challenge McCain in 2016 because he’s just so darned liberal. Maybe that’s what’s got him snippy. I mean, it’s not like Kissinger hasn’t heard accusations that he’s a war criminal on a regular basis for most of forty years. These things have a shelf life of their own. Jane Fonda had to apologize for that picture on a Viet Cong tank that earned her the handle Hanoi Jane again this week, and what’s politically correct on that issue has changed too many times to count.

In world news, the internal Saudi reconstruction has solidified into a more moderate configuration than under Abdullah, tumbling political camps like pawns on the board. The change signals problems for Egypt’s president who had counted on a cash infusion from the Saudi piggy bank, and a boon for relations with Turkey, which had been on the outs and looks to be back in. This has everyone scrambling for position internally, as well as internationally, although the ancient grievances against Iran remains unchanged.

And here at home, John Boehner remains unapologetic for having tread on Obama’s toes, inviting a Netanyahu speech to influence U.S. policy on Iran, endangering continued talks on securing nuclear materials. The dust-up that’s ensued in these last few days has everyone scrambling, except for our tight-lipped president, who has refused to meet with Bibi. The Israeli Ambassador had no qualms in quickly blaming any lack of protocol on the Speaker, and most everyone is taking a closer look at this breach to see if it was calculated or another of Boehner’s self-confessed “stumbles.” It’s an embarrassment for all parties and shouldn’t have happened, even if Netanyahu badly needed to shore up flagging support in the U.S.

Least surprising — but most distressing, this week, and thanks to eight Blue Dog Dem Senators (mine included) — the Keystone XL Pipeline vote passed through the Senate, readying a bill for veto on the President’s desk. This, despite a truly disturbing history of pipeline ruptures and leaks that is being ignored by those interested in seeing this Koch project put through. Obama’s veto is a sure thing, and ultimate disapproval for this project looks like a lock, but who knows. The proposal to create protections in ANWR early in the week was followed by a proposal to allow drilling in the Atlantic: one hand giveth, the other taketh away.

There’s a kind of ‘either/or,’ ‘maybe/maybe not’ quality in decision-making going on. Mercury slowed us down just in time to examine it this week in a kind of peculiar slow-mo fashion. Nowhere is this wobble more evident than in our long struggle with how we will deal with resources in this nation. Larry Summers told Charlie Rose this week that we’re poised on becoming the “new Saudi Arabia” in terms of natural gas production. He thinks the pipeline should be approved quickly, so that fuel products are no longer being hauled on trucks and trains, exploding, even killing, on a regular basis.

Better to just spill and contaminate via a pipeline that does not even enrich the American piggy bank, I presume, jeopardizing our water table and fouling the environment. The wheel is spinning: round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows. We take our eye off renewables at our own peril!

Attempting to achieve some balance, the Prez has decided that a stabilized economy should result in the end of sequestration, so his new budget proposal will include an $80 billion increase in discretionary spending, which has the Pubs, who thought they had the pesky liberals cornered, owl-eyed and perplexed. With an inordinate amount of good humor, Obama continues to act with the confidence those of us on the left love to see, especially in defiance of the myth that the last two “lame duck” years of a presidency come to little (historically disproven, by the way). This attitude is no doubt being carefully scrutinized by a couple of Libertarian brothers who — along with their friends, the Wal-Mart heirs — own the world.

The Kochs, David and Charles, have pledged most of a billion dollars to buy the next election, which makes them America’s third, and probably most persuasive, political party. If you’re having trouble figuring out how much a billion is, this graphic (thanks to Digby) will help. And if you don’t know who the Kochs are, Mark Morford’s description leaves little to the imagination:

“What would you get if you crossed a ruthless drug kingpin, a mafia crime lord, the willful blindness of the NRA, the combined CEO’s of Monsanto, Exxon and RJ Reynolds and a couple of scared old wolverines with God complex and a penchant for contaminating the world?”

Ah, yes. A Koch and a smile. Makes me wonder what Justice Kennedy — whose swing vote opened the Pandora’s Box that enabled the worst instincts of a resurrected Ayn Rand in the Citizens United ruling — thinks about it now. Just ‘free speech,’ is it? All that purchasing power, all that corrupting influence? It was Kennedy’s vote that tipped the balance in killing off the McCain-Feingold Act that established spending limits on political contribution. Does he ever think back on the dissenting opinion of Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote, “A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”

Bought and sold they are, of course, because influence peddling and politics are synonymous. In the last decade, somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four billion dollars each year has been spent on lobbying efforts, much of it by Big Pharma, the military industrial complex, pro-Israel groups including AIPAC, the NRA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This is money that can be tracked, following the trail of nearly 12,000 professional lobbyists who descend on our elected officials like a blight of locusts, offering perks and peddling their wares.

‘Dark money’ that is funneled into Political Action Committees by 501(c) non-profit groups can’t be broken down by donor or tracked so readily, which has made the Kochs’ life easier, since anything that beats back taxing and regulation is their primary goal. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, over the last three election cycles, “spending by organizations that do not disclose their donors has increased from less than $5.2 million in 2006 to well over $300 million in the 2012 election.” These organizations count as destination for at least part of the Kochs’ plan to triple that amount next year.

So many months out from the election, with only a speculative list of candidates, can the awareness that we’re facing an onslaught of influence from huge money impact the way we see our political future? The public is getting wake-ups on so many levels, some even subliminal, which is beginning to change the political equation, but we have yet to conclude that we are, collectively, powerful.

It’s all about money, of course, and the love of it. Money is simply an exchange medium for the energy put out to secure it. Money, of itself, is neutral but the NEED of it, for instance, can be the difference between life and death while the LOVE of it — which the Bible named the root of all evil — infamously creates personalities as elitist, insular, jaded. I remember a family member who got a pretty good job, pre-recession, telling me he was voting Republican because he wanted to keep his money. I presume he did vote to the right, at least once, but he didn’t keep his money OR his job for long.

Our relationship with money — as opposed to our relationship with Source — needs to be looked at carefully, especially at this point in history when everything either has a price, or threatens to be privatized because of some Randian wet dream that such a plan “lifts all boats.” Money must not be our master — or our god — if we are to create a new and ethical era.

We can’t stand by and watch as democracy is bought and sold without even a whimper. Not when over a million dollars a day is estimated to be spent securing America for the Libertarian cause — day in, day out — until the November AFTER next. That kind of complacency is madness.

The minimum we can do to inoculate ourselves from this pending glut of money is explain to everyone willing to listen that the vote is being hacked by buying influence as surely as if it were being converted in a Diebold machine.

Here’s an Annie Leonard YouTube to share with people who may not know about Citizens United, how it came about and what it means. Leonard is responsible for the (brilliant, imho) “Story of Stuff” from last decade. For other suggestions, check out Move to Amend, an activist group I like. Or visit over at Cenk Uyger’s Wolf PAC, both doing vital work to repeal Citizens United, and pass the information around.

We do not need to become zealots in the cause of liberty, breathing fire and defensive at every right-wing assault, in order to further the cause of equality and democracy. We must simply seize the day, as Robin suggested to his young men in “The Dead Poets Society,” whenever the opportunity presents. We can use our voice to educate, encourage and support those who are new to the idea that furthering democracy is part of their bundle.

Until the money issue is dealt with in this nation — until elections can no longer be bought or politicians compromised by the continual need for campaign funding — the average citizen has no voice that can shout louder than a greenback. Until then, that wheel is still in play and where she stops, nobody knows. It’s up to us to stop the game.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

You will be pleased to learn that we’ve finally turned a corner. I’ve read any number of articles that confirm it this week, some citing Obama’s progressive march to the sea despite the Republican win in November, others declaring that income inequality, racial tension and climate change are decided, no longer useful as a political football with no goalpost in sight. With Republicans hell bent on obstruction of any remediations, getting the ball up and over will be a monumental task but one that will continue to illuminate the entrenched illogic and corporate loyalty of the party on the right. With one last Uranus/Pluto aspect coming up fast, we’re heading into the final moments of a genuine game change.

The talking heads are all but sure that gay marriage and marijuana legalization are inevitable in this nation. Challenges working through the judiciary could delay but not dissuade the public that the time is now. The war of words from Establishment politicos attempting to equate Warren Democrats with Tea Party extremists is falling flat as public opinion swings back toward populism. And internationally, within just a matter of weeks the shifting sands of the Mideast have revealed much of that political arena to be not just troubled, but also increasingly fragile. With Yemen’s leadership overthrown and the death of Saudi King Abdullah, replaced by his (reportedly demented) brother, coinciding with the downturn in petro profit, continuing fracture seems not just possible but probable.

A left turn from the political and cultural mayhem of the last fifteen years would be a relief, certainly, if we could just push through and take a deep breath without feeling as though someone was behind us, plotting to drag us back into a previous century. And while those of us who chart change might agree that things are turning rapidly now, I think of it more like a long curving on-ramp that reflects our growing political awareness — combined with an almost nostalgic longing for a positive, ethical human footprint — than a sharp left turn. But turn we have, and if you haven’t felt it yet, you will. What used to be an obstructive solid red light on common sense proposals, indicating a brake-squealing stop, has become a flashing yellow and occasionally, green light go.

If you didn’t see it, you missed an interesting State of the Union this year. From a theatrical standpoint, it was a winner, with Pubs mostly minding their manners and the President almost jovial in his presentation. I say mostly because there was one moment in which the right expressed their disdain for the Prez, and he followed their scorn with a quip that put them all in their place (that was the point at which I whooped and hollered). One politico, post-speech, said that moment was an indication that Obama was the most competitive politician in Washington DC — trash talking like he was on the basketball court — and all I could think was that if it had been George W. taking that shot at his naysayers, he would have been congratulated for his quick wit and leadership qualities.

The absence of SCOTUS Justices Alito, Scalia and Thomas helped keep things cool when Obama, once again, criticized the Citizens United decision, calling it a “mistake.” In 2010, his milder condemnation that the ruling would open the floodgates of special interests had Justice Samuel Alito mouthing the words, “Not true.” If he’d shown up, Obama could have mouthed “True!” and been forgiven by most, if not all, of the seated justices, but probably not Roberts, who feels obligated to represent the court on these occasions even if they’re “political posturing.” And Kennedy? Undecided (pun intended). You will want to open this link if you’re a Ruth Bader Ginsberg admirer. Unlike Alito, who has said attendance at the SOTU is like being “a potted plant,” RBG seemed to have enjoyed herself. The same cannot be said for John Boehner, who sat behind the Prez with a face as pouty as ‘grumpy cat.’

This is the year that Obama decided he could not only fly the flag of his many successes, but also speak out for liberal policy, promising to veto a number of expected Republican bills. Those of us who have watched six other speeches with our wings crossed, waiting to hear the words he uttered last Tuesday, may be wondering what the hell took so long. There are a myriad of reasons and rationales for his slow assent into liberal ownership, including his academic reserve, his high-wire act as our first (patently ham-strung) African-American president, combined with that Neptunian quality that created him as the imaginary wishing well we all threw our change into, but let me add that his moniker “No Drama Obama” is both wise and welcome to thinking people, but NOT to those whose lives are best defined by drama and their embrace of it. I don’t have to tell you which of those I’m pointing toward, do I? Compared to the hysteria of the Bush years, the relative calm that this administration has insisted upon will be looked upon favorably by historians.

I did hear one analysis that made complete sense, however, skirting the personal traits Obama brings to the table. Now that the fiscal numbers no longer reflect emergency, and with that painful healing curve occurring on Obama’s watch and under his policies, he no longer has to focus on finance or apologize for flagging numbers. Tuesday’s speech was more the Obama we would have expected to see had he inherited a solvent nation. This was the agenda of the community organizer who had asked us to hope.

Too late to the table, we’d be better advised to organize ourselves, to work for the changes we’d imagined could happen from the top down, but we might also remember that where there was only black and white for the prior two presidential terms, the majority has learned from the experience. Now we are able to embrace nuanced thought and considered response in order to spot imaginary dragons launched to frighten us, and question the motives of ‘party lines’ that don’t seem to serve the public good.

Although the allegations are still flying, it’s become more difficult to rely on a failed economy to assault the left, which signals more culture war in the coming months, since the conservatives have little else to build on. They will no doubt continue to pour salt in the wounds of those who consider themselves victims of a lunatic left and repressive government, keeping them in the fold. Representing ‘values voters,’ Boehner’s party has been busy attacking on that flank since coming back to Washington earlier this month.

Besides going after Social Security and Affordable Care, the House was unable to pass a vote to restrict abortion when a handful of moderate Pubs refused to go along with as strict a bill as the one suggested, requiring a rape victim to report her violation to the police in order to receive treatment. The dissenters, 22 Republican women, said they did not want to rush a vote, the details of which would offend millennials who would most likely be the demographic affected. Branding them traitors, the party quickly moved along to another bill waiting in the wings, limiting ACA funding for abortion, which passed handily. To their credit, this same group of moderates refused to vote for an earlier bill in the House revoking legal protection for Dreamers. They may be the only pragmatists in a party determined to drive away the very voters they will need in 2016.

North Carolina’s Senator Richard Burr, replacing Dianne Feinstein as Senate Intelligence Committee chair, has decided that the torture report needs to go back into the black ops files of the CIA. As if to put the genie back in the bottle, Burr sent a letter to the Executive demanding that full copies of the 6,900-page report received by a number of agencies including the FBI, be returned immediately. The grisly details of America’s foray into torture are at risk, it appears, as the executive branch is subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, while the Senate is not. Feinstein, Udall and others must be apoplectic watching years of effort disappear in front of their eyes, but the rough outlines of American shame are still out in the open, which would never have happened without their service to the nation.

Obama’s affirmation that we’ve turned a corner is based on leaving behind two wars, while stabilizing the economy. His refusal to mobilize the whole of the military or further the War on Terror rhetoric gripes the neocons, even though there are plenty of covert American military-ops around the world that should keep them happy. The continuing tussle between the administration and the hawks over Iran will no doubt increase as election season heats up.

Wee Lindsey Graham is looking for support as the next Commander-in-Chief (both unlikely and unwise) because in the conservative view, U.S. militarism is not well served under a Democrat, although we could easily argue that the drone strikes never cease, couldn’t we? And that the military budget is still humongous, bloated and obscene? Establishment politics will continue to be about militarism and corporatism unless We, the People, decide that we no longer support those things as necessary to our lifestyle. Today, they are still deemed necessary. We will have to remain hopeful about tomorrow.

We might speculate about whether or not Mr. Boehner had a bit too much Merlot when he decided to invite Bebe Netanyahu to address Congress “on the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life,” without getting approval from the Executive. This comes at a time when the right is pushing hard for pre-emptive sanctions should negotiations with Iran fall by the wayside. The left rightly identifies that as a way to kill off any chance for on-going diplomacy regarding nuclear capability.

While Boehner’s loyalty to Netanyahu is well documented, frankly I’m surprised at this unprecedented action, which borders on illegal. Boehner seldom initiates much more than a verbal strike or a rounding up of the usual suspects to encourage a vote. Actually jamming a stick in the gears is very aggressive behavior. Very un-Boehner-like, indeed.

An unnamed official in Israel’s intelligence/special ops, Mossad, was quoted by John Kerry as suggesting that new sanctions would “throw a grenade” into the current negotiations, and to be candid, there are still many Israelis who would be happy to do so. But not so many as in bygone days when everything was black and white, nor are Americans so utterly devoted to the Israeli cause, now that they’ve gotten a good look at what is happening in Palestine.

No longer asleep, we have questions about who the evil empires really are and what they really want, the ideological right AND left no longer trusting appearances, or those who foster them. It seems that the larger coalitions, both political and cultural, are showing signs of stress and fracture. The systems — governmental, cultural, and even religious — representing Capricorn authority must surely morph by necessity before this is all over.

Uranus explodes and Pluto transforms; together they’re like the genie in the bottle. Once out, there’s no going back. The last time Uranus and Pluto danced like this, it marked the end of the Old Guard. Look at grainy black and white television footage from the early ’60s, showing humorless men in suit coats and hats along with women who appear to have been uniformly stamped out of dough with cookie cutters. Then watch a movie from the early ’70s, with garish colors and paisley patterns, long hair and bell bottoms, a seeming ease with sex and drugs, and question what happened to the fedoras and white gloves that were required only a few years earlier.

Let’s remember how quickly things changed after the genie of rebellion kicked over the blockage to glaring truths about Vietnam and culture war and a burgeoning Military Industrial Complex. Ricky and Lucy couldn’t sleep in the same bed in the 1950s, but by the ’70s, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice all could, and did.

The ’50s gave us the Cleaver family, including the Beave’s iconic mother, June, she of the pearls and heels, day in, day out, who convinced a generation that they were missing out on adequate mothering. By the ’70s, “One Day At A Time” assured us that a divorced mother could raise two girls alone with the help of an apartment ‘super’ (an aging lothario with the instincts of a stalker). Times change while we’re busy with other things. Times change when we’re not looking.

So let’s look, shall we? They’re changing as we speak. Nothing’s black and white any more. We’ve discovered nuance, we’re asking questions. The gray of indecision has many of us unsure what to do next, but at least we aren’t marching off where we’re pointed, battling mindlessly, parroting patriotic catch-phrases. We’re a work in progress. The tornado that picked Dorothy up and set her down in Oz had Uranus written all over it, but in the end, she got back home, where the Pluto changes she discovered weren’t in the personalities around her, but in her attitude toward them, and toward her expectations of reality.

That ‘hopey changey stuff’ Sarah Palin found so silly actually happened: the changey stuff, anyway — the hopey stuff wasn’t quite realistic enough to pin itself into form. Changes happened when we weren’t looking; they’re happening right now. Those who impede progress may continue to do so, but progress won’t be stopped. Everything is a process of realization, a progression of events that lead us to examine what’s in front of us for another choice, and another and another.

Say what you will about the calm, collected president we elected a few years ago, he has given us permission not to blow a gasket or have a tizzy or lose our heads over the challenges of the day, and because of that, we can now identify what is hysterical, what’s over the top, what’s designed to manipulate us and what doesn’t ring true. Think of that as everything on TV, most of what you hear around the water cooler and much of the chatter in your brain.

And even though we do love the drama, and daydream of a mystical moment that might change everything for the better, there is strength and reassurance in knowing that the reality of our lives consists in appreciation of one another, in cooperation and shared expectations, in solutions discovered and embraced together. We are the creators of our reality, we are the ones who shape the future. We’re rounding the corner and where we go from here is — always has been — up to us: one thought, word, deed at a time.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

I suppose it’s obvious enough that when you have over seven billion people on the planet, you’ll have over seven billion opinions to contend with, even if they’re not all expressed publicly (like most of China’s one-and-a-half billion, for instance). Still, not all opinions count the same, do they! Although the whole of us Earthlings are seeding the ethers with psychic intent, which I suspect will ultimately win the day, 3D has its pecking order for which impact the most.

For example, it seems some noxious form of insanity that half of America’s 300+ million can refuse to believe in climate change, perpetuating an ever-increasing state of emergency for the rest of the world. In this writer’s opinion, it’s equally as insane to consider the action of a handful of nihilistic zealots hell-bent on violence to be a threat to the continuance of civilization as we know it, although continuing a collective pattern of fear, obstruction and delusion might just do the trick.

The patterns revealed in the progression of new moons at the initiating degree, and news reports I’ve read in these last few days, have led me to consider this moment in time the fulcrum on the teeter-totter that will allow it to tip and rest, eventually. Which side it comes down on remains to be seen, but the very Aquarian flavor of such a debate, reflected in the opinion of the world, defines the challenge. Here’s hoping it also reflects the altruism and humanitarian instincts that inform the higher aspects of the Waterbearer.

The possibility that what happened in France last week was a false flag event (to incite further right-wing xenophobia against Islamic citizens, or create more sympathy and support for Netanyahu as Israel moves toward election, or as justification for an ever-increasing and euphemistic War on Terror, or … feel free to let your imagination wander through the many obvious possibilities …) is not lost on those of us who both support the unity of millions gathered in defense of free speech and inclusion even as we witness a chilling effect on that very thing.

France has a law against inflammatory speech, based on anti-Semitism and holocaust denial. Now, using even more stringent antiterrorism law, the hammer has come down hard on Muslim citizens since the attack on Charlie Hebdo. The New York Times spells it out:

“Those swept up under the new law include a 28-year-old man of French-Tunisian background who was sentenced to six months in prison after he was found guilty of shouting support for the attackers as he passed a police station in Bourgoin-Jalieu on Sunday. A 34-year-old man who on Saturday hit a car while drunk, injured the other driver and subsequently praised the acts of the gunmen when the police detained him was sentenced Monday to four years in prison.

“All told, up to 100 people are under investigation for making or posting comments that support or try to justify terrorism, according to Cédric Cabut, a prosecutor in Bourgoin-Jalieu, in the east of France. The French news media have reported about cases in Paris, Toulouse, Nice, Strasbourg, Orléans and elsewhere in France.”

Eric explored hypocrisy of the march for free speech in Planet Waves FM this week, and the politically savvy know the score. The French have an obvious double standard, but so do most Western nations. And clearly, there’s little posturing on the other side of the fence, where free speech doesn’t exist at all.

A criminal case against one man in Bourgoin-Jalieu cites him for shouting, “They killed Charlie and I had a good laugh. In the past they killed Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Mohammed Merah and many brothers. If I didn’t have a father or mother, I would train in Syria.”

There’s harsh truth, loyal to the tribe and illuminating the problem with holy wars everywhere: if tribal and/or religious belief and secular government are at odds, how can the actions of one or the other not inspire resentment capable of putting a match to the vapor trail enveloping them both?

Here in the United States such commentary would have found disapproval, and closer scrutiny but — and I will reverently whisper “as yet” into the ethers, as if in prayer — not arrest. At this point, we don’t have Thought Police (except for those who hope to sneak explosives into shoes, toothpaste or shampoo, pre-flight, which is a kind of rarely occurring fantasy interuptus). We’ve already taken our learning curve on 9/11, only recently assessing the blinding emotion that led us to accept two wars as justified, torture as necessary, and state surveillance to be as warm and comforting as mother’s milk.

Yes, there’s a lot of déjà vu going around these days. Some of you may remember a half-hour talk show called “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” an award-winning late-night offering from the last century. Maher lost his long-running celebrity roundtable (appearing on Comedy Central from 1993 to ’97 and on ABC from 1997 to 2002) when he agreed with a comment by (conservative and thoroughly disagreeable pundit) Dinesh D’Souza, rebutting Bush’s declaration of the hijacker’s cowardice. Said Maher, “We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it. Not cowardly. You’re right.”

There was a larger context to Maher’s statement, referencing our own militarism in the Mideast, that showcased the kind of nuance unwelcomed by the press during that knee-jerk period in 2002. Recall that things were very black and white in the days when the Towers fell; chest-thumping and flag pin-wearing were required by those who “love America.” We were not encouraged to think for ourselves. Indeed, the Republican party had not been encouraged to do so since the Gipper saw a Shining City on a Hill in the ’70s. As Maher would testify, we were punished for opinions of our own.

With all that confusion and emotion running us ragged, a few sponsors dropped Maher’s show like a hot potato. ABC decided it couldn’t risk loss of revenue and refused to renew Bill’s contract the next year, as if the title of the show — “Politically Incorrect” — was not exactly what they should have expected from him. Ironically, according to Wikipedia, six days after the cancellation, Maher received the Los Angeles Press Club president’s award for “championing free speech.”

And so was born Stephen Colbert’s decade of ‘truthiness’ as opposed to truth-telling. Many voices were silenced during that period, and bless Comedy Central for giving us the pointed satire of Stewart and Colbert — truth dressed in humor — to keep us from entering into darkness altogether. Also, stars in HBO’s crown for giving Maher an even more intense hour-long platform to hold political discussion since 2003, sussing out the events of the day that demand not just a nuanced conversation but perhaps even a down and dirty discussion considered, by some, objectionable.

Let me issue a disclaimer, although it’s personal. I’m always amazed that my Friday writing is regularly reflected in the topics discussed on Bill’s Friday night show (which I wouldn’t dream of missing,) as if our brains are similarly wired. Not that I agree with his every position, especially on militarism and religion. And I know some readers consider him a misogynist, but I’ll give him a pass on sexism because he’s an unapologetic hedonist. I haven’t seen that get in the way of his political positions, and I consider his sex life is his own business.

Perhaps I would find some similarities in our charts for that synchronicity of thought process, and probably because I’m comfortable with his level of candor and curiosity, I’m more than willing to give him his due for not ducking hard topics. He’s recently in trouble for considering Islam a dangerous belief system, across the board. I’d have thought as controversial — and I’d be wrong — is his opinion that all religions, Islam included, are pure fantasy. His crusade to out them has few sacred panties in a knot and there’s some shadow-thing there, tickling the truth and eluding me.

On “Real Time With Bill Maher,” he invites people to the table I’d rather stick with a pin than listen to, and that’s part of the painful process of discovery. If we want our truth unvarnished, it may ruffle our feathers and twist our sensibilities. Unwelcome facts might stick like a burr under our saddle, not just rubbing raw but pissing us off and requiring us to clarify what we believe. Most dangerous — most liberating — of all, grappling these difficult concepts might make us think, force us into weighing context from both sides of the fence.

France — indeed, all of Europe, gone on a preventatiive rip to oust terrorists — has a lot of thinking to do in the next months. I pray they ‘get it’ faster than we did, that they don’t knee-jerk into actions they regret and muddy their waters. That said, I’m struck with the political correctness we’re wrestling with these days. It feels like a throwback to earlier times, like déjà vu all over again. I don’t want a repeat of watching the lemmings march to the cliff and throw themselves over, so let me say it, loud and proud: being politically correct is a big damn mistake!

Being politically correct is something I’ve spent a lifetime defying, and almost entirely by the seat of my pants. It took time to dawn on me that sometimes my comments had the same effect on listeners as jumper cables to the genitalia, sparking a reaction that brought roaring life into something that had been, up to that point, deadly quiet. By the time it did, I had already honed that ability to an art, learned how to bring it down to just a sting, a twitch, a zap. In short, I had learned to own the ability because it’s my authentic self.

So thank God/dess for the United States of America, and its — as yet — elemental respect for free speech, because I find it almost impossible to keep mum when faced with apparent bullshit, and that’s after a lifetime of smacks on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Although I’m better at intuiting when I shouldn’t speak up at all, these days, it has never occurred to me that I couldn’t say what I felt or saw or considered important. Here’s comedian Sarah Silverman with a similar thought:

“Stop telling girls they can be anything they want when they grow up. I think it’s a mistake, not because they can’t, but because it never would have occurred to them they couldn’t.”

Amen Sister-Woman! That’s why I’ve never considered myself a feminist. Even as one of the earliest Baby Boomers, it never occurred to me that I had to be one to take my place in the sun. But Silverman, who has plenty of impressive, outrageous and politically incorrect quotes on her resume, has paid a price for her candor, as I’ve paid for mine. You strong women out there know what I mean. How can we — ANY of us — not speak out about what we see, when so much is at stake?

Yet here we are again, congress critters ramping up ways to keep Obama from making peace with Iran, mustering loyalty for Netanyahu when Israel’s heavy-handed treatment of Palestinians has created disapproval among the American majority, and pledging the defeat and removal of ISIS with an improved military budget, if required. Many in the world, responding to the recent atrocity of a handful of mind-crimed radicals, seem poised on a war with Islam, the religion.

Islam, the religion. Sounds like a movie. And with well over a billion Muslims in the world, who can define what Islam is, anyway? I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but such a plan is both ridiculous and useless. Islam has an internal problem between Sunni and Shia that has yet to be resolved, and one of the reasons it’s been delayed is because we — the Western world — won’t keep out of it.

Trying to mend the schism between these two sects is not only impossible but not our business, and any attempt to moderate it can only be seen as disrespectful to believers. We have a real problem putting ourselves in the other guy’s shoes, don’t we? And how hateful is hating the haters? How useful is endlessly perpetuating the loop of judgment and violence? Solves nothing, changes no minds, wins no hearts.

The rejection of modernity is a major issue, of course — and a losing prospect — which can easily be tracked to the Wahabi’ism practiced in Saudi Arabia (you know, our good friends). It should be no surprise, then, that the very day that Charlie was attacked, the Saudis were administering 50 lashes — the first of 1000 — to the blogger that was sentenced to ten years in prison for insult to Islam. The Saudis are just now reviewing his case, with all this unwanted attention on fundamentalism, and there might be some respite for Raif Badawi, whose wife and three young children have moved to Canada.

But this is Sharia law we’re talking about, not very flexible. In fact, two Saudi women were arrested for commentary they made on social media, where they have a following in agitating for the right to drive; they will be tried at a specialized court that was established to deal with terrorism cases. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that denies women this activity, and evidently considers them terrorists if they try. With friends like these ….

What, I wonder, does America have in common with this repressive government, which uses religion like a cudgel against its own, except love of oil? In fact, if it wasn’t for oil, would we be in the Middle East at all? Might Islam have the freedom to begin its own internal dialogue, without solidifying itself in defense against the Infidel? Let’s connect those dots and consider that yet another terrific reason to invest ourselves in alternative fuel and clean, home-grown technology to power this new era.

The Pope, attempting to soothe, says we can’t make fun of someone’s religion. Oh gosh, Pope Frank, don’t be silly! The very sensitive may find that such remarks sting like the dickens but, at least on these shores, that’s just the breaks! Like Sister Sarah says, “I’m hurt all the time, but I would die defending people’s right to say anything.”

Take the Pastafarians, born in revolt to the Kansas State Board of Education’s embrace of creationism. By virtue of The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the church (FSM) takes a jab at every religion, especially those that ignore science. No born again has gunned down a Pastafarian lately, even the gent who insisted on wearing religious paraphernalia (a spaghetti colander) on his head for his drivers license picture. True believers pray to “His Noodley Goodness,” ending with “RAmen.” All of religion, then, skewered, kabob-like, and presented as a tasty treat. Once more, humor makes the necessity of keeping an open mind and dialogue acceptable.

And it IS necessary, and serious as a heart attack. Unless we are able to look at it all, even the stuff we find objectionable — even blasphemous — we are not getting all the information we need for an informed decision. We’re not standing in the light.

Me? There’s a lot of humor I’m not comfortable with, a lot of rhetoric that has me daydreaming of voodoo dolls and pin cushions, but I’ll defend the right to put the objectionable out there in public with my life. That’s what they did at Charlie, and I suspect they all considered the consequences long before they published.

There are some things we decide to stand for, that we don’t need to defend or justify. In fact, to do so is insulting to that very principle we embrace, even though it carries a warning tag. If we attack someone, we can expect them to attack us back. If we tread too close to the sacrosanct, residing somewhere in the darkest, most humorless part of someone’s psyche, they may try to harm us because in that mindset, there are no other solutions to the problem. If that stops us from telling our truth, then we’ve discovered that we’re very human, very hesitant to own our best instincts or face our fears, and there’s the clue that we’ve still got work to do, here on planet Terra.

It’s a tough subject and I’m interested in what you have to say about all this. Here’s our roundtable, this weekend; our “Politically Incorrect” where we can thrash out the wheat from the chaff. Please weigh in with your insights, if you’d like. As always, this is a safe place to put your thoughts and feelings.

I’ll close with another Silverman quote I like, for perspective:

“Mother Theresa didn’t walk around complaining about her thighs — she had shit to do.”

Ain’t it the truth!

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

“I didn’t come here to do favors for TransCanada. Republican leaders may disagree but I’ll be voting no.”
–Elizabeth Warren

This first week of the new year has been quirky, improbable and distressing, wrapped in weather that, at least here in the Pea Patch, brings everything to a slow, frigid crawl. And it would be impossible to write about the news of the day without mentioning the deliberate attack on journalistic freedom of speech perpetrated against political cartoonists in France.

It’s not my topic this week, but the larger context of this story — the free exchange of ideas and concepts, the ability to speak candidly and without fear of censure — is always of primary concern at Planet Waves..

Two things became evident to me as I watched the world respond. First, the vast majority of humanity finds this kind of behavior barbaric and shocking, and the reaction from people of all races and religions has been a unified rejection of murder in the name of religious jihad. If the skewed tenets of radical Islam were, in fact, behind this strike, it did its cause no good.

The other thing that I find so twisted about these things is the insistence that they occur in defense of God. It should be obvious enough to true believers that if God is the supreme deity, then God requires no assistance from mere mortals. In fact, if God is that touchy about his reputation, logic dictates that he would do his own killing, which should prove easy enough with things like sink holes, tornadoes, and Ebola at his fingertips. Once again, mankind has created God in his own image and confused his own darkest impulse with righteousness.

Gratefully, that truth is glaringly evident to the majority of us witnessing the wreckage in France this week. Unfortunately, we’re still somewhat blindsided by how that breaks down within the Kabuki theatre we call Congress. This was the week that Joe Biden swore in dozens of newbie legislators to the 114th Congress, almost all Republicans. This was the week that House Leader John Boehner barely survived an attack against his speakership by hostile Baggers who think he’s too eager to work across the aisle (which history will show hasn’t happened in six years, and will likely not occur for at least two more).

And this was the week that Mitch McConnell lit on news, that 2014 was the best year for hiring since the turn of the century, like a duck on a bug. With unemployment fallen to 5.6 percent, Mitch declared that the United States was finally showing encouraging signs of fiscal growth and stability — here’s where improbable comes in — now that the Republicans have taken control. Twenty-four hours before that, of course, the country stood on the edge of fiscal oblivion, and here’s Jon Stewart’s spit-take as illustration. Paul Krugman has called this creative bookkeeping, and right-wing delusion, “the voodoo time machine.”

I’m not sure what level of perfidy it takes to ignore facts, make shit up and try to sell it to the world, but I’ll give it to Mitch, he schleps this particular brand of snake oil with a straight face and the party faithful lap it up. Much as he constructed a plan to obstruct anything ‘Obama,’ this time around he’s vowing to prove the Republican ability to govern because “I don’t want the American people to think that if they add a Republican president to a Republican Congress, that’s going to be a scary outcome. I want the American people to be comfortable with the fact that the Republican House and Senate is a responsible, right-of-center, governing majority.” I suppose that’s because Pubs have been so responsible and ethical these last six years, don’cha know, and if you don’t believe that just ask the short list of one percenters, who are doing better than ever — read that EVER — before.

As an aside, we should note that the odds of success on this front are frightfully slim. Republicans have no interest in the public good, only in privatization and corporate dominance, and their disdain for the rising populist movement makes them even more susceptible to self-delusion. Since the American people are decidedly progressive in their outlook, the full weight of Republican responsibility for national leadership should produce buyer’s remorse fairly quickly. Within their ranks, the Baggers are as contentious as ever, pitting themselves not just against ‘establishment’ leadership, but against doing ANYTHING with Dems to move the nation forward. Meanwhile, on the left, the Progressive caucus is picking up credibility, supported by Speaker Pelosi in most instances, and more energized than it has been in years.

There is no longer a sense of camaraderie in the nation’s capitol, providing opportunity to develop the personal relationships that made governance do-able in years past. There’s no longer any pretense of developing such a mutual space. 2015 finds our least moderate politicians nose to nose, although a streak of Libertarian distaste for plutocracy runs through both parties, and might provide alignment in the odd moment.

Still, there seems little chance for Republican leadership to show its “well-meaning” side, since it doesn’t actually have one, and it may have difficulty doing damage so long as Obama uses his veto pen (and the Dems don’t cave). So far, the Prez seems more than happy to wave that pen like a sword, willing — some even say eager — to slice and dice repressive legislation. The pen may well prove mightier than the sword in the coming months.

The first thing our new Pub Congress did this week was to create a few rules, propose a few bills to destabilize the very fiscal improvements they claim as their own, declaring them progress “for the American people.” (This is one of my pet peeves, as some of you know. Every time a Republican tells me s/he’s representing my best interests, Pinocchio’s nose gets longer and an angel plummets to earth).

Besides changing the way “math” works, with a process known as “dynamic scoring” in order to mask the financial consequences of legislation (think fiscal truthiness, as practiced by the Dubby’s White House), the Pubs went after the Volker Rule — a key reform in the endangered Dodd-Frank bill passed in 2010 — that was put in place to regulate banksters gambling with taxpayer money, known as proprietary trading. Essentially, when the ‘bet’ wins big, it’s reflected in an enormous bonus, so Wall Street has railed against Volker since its inception. Even though the Volker Rule has never been fully implemented, the Pub proposal would delay that implementation for another two years. This is only one of eleven deregulation changes proposed on Wednesday, but one that Elizabeth Warren thundered against as a “big bank giveaway that makes our economy and middle class families less safe.”

And although the Pub meme of moment is to further reduce the deficit — which they themselves ran sky high in Bushwar(s) II — Boehner’s kids quickly passed yet ANOTHER hit on Obamacare (that makes fifty-something, I’ll let you know when we reach sixty) which the Congressional Budget Office tells us could add as much as $53 billion to the debt. The argument on the right is that since companies are required to provide health benefits to anyone working over 30 hours, this cuts away at the established norm of the 40-hour work week by providing employers an incentive to hire for less than 30. The proposal raises the imposed fine threshold to 40 hours, although the CBO warns that this increases the risk of a million workers losing their employer-provided coverage, a substantial increase in Medicaid, more subsidized exchanges and CHIP service to kids, costing the taxpayer 21.4 billion bucks over the next decade.

The Pubs argue that they have anecdotal evidence from their own little ponds that none of this is true — and the “new math” is how they roll, anyway, so the CBO can go pound salt! Not to mention their sincere belief that the John Roberts court will deliver a blow to ACA this year, leaving upwards of ten million people without health insurance. And, yes, given the conservative activism made evident by prior decisions, it could happen.

In yet another strike against the most vulnerable, the new congress wasted no time in creating a pseudo-crisis regarding the viability of Social Security, putting 11 million disability recipients on line to lose 20% of their benefits. There is no SS funding crunch at hand, and won’t be for a couple of decades. And although the disability insurance trust fund requires a cash infusion from time to time, this has been done almost a dozen times in the last years with no beads of sweat dotting the national brow. But no longer, now we must twist in angst at the “takers” on disability running the fund dry. This requires immediate cuts to a defunct, limping “entitlement program.” (The Pub mantra on this issue, done in subliminal whisper? “Privatize, privatize, privatize!”)

When it’s plain that the vast majority of Americans not only want robust SS but depend on it, how do the Pubs rationalize constant attacks on a fund that is flush for at least two decades, and much longer with only slight tweaks? They lie, just as Reagan lied about the welfare queen who raked in multi-thousands under many different names. If we go over to the Crime page at Huffy, we’ll find reports of career criminals making attempts at this kind of fraud, but to assume that entire groups of people do this as a matter of course is sheer nonsense. This is the same meme that fuels the culture wars, that exaggerates racism and sexism and paints it all with the same black/white, us/them brush until it explodes.

Thus began the first week of the 114th Congress of the United States of America. And, as if that wasn’t enough — and as was announced by Mitch McConnell early in December — their very first matter of business was the Keystone XL Pipeline, pledging to override Obama’s decision-making process. Flexing his go-ahead-and-try muscles, Obama made it clear that he would veto any bill passing XL through, explaining once again that he has been waiting for further information regarding this controversy, especially a decision by the Nebraska Supreme Court on the legality of the former governor granting TransCanada permission to access private property.

Today that body issued a decision granting permission for the pipeline to go forward, although ” …the court ruling was split with four of the court’s seven judges agreeing with a lower court that the 2012 law used to grant TransCanada that permission was unconstitutional. However, Nebraska requires a supermajority of at least five judges to strike down a law.” There is now a two-week period in which federal agencies are invited to comment on the proposed route, which gives Obama some wiggle room.

The White House issued an immediate statement, warning that “The State Department is examining the court’s decision as part of its process to evaluate whether the Keystone LX Pipeline project serves the national interest.” Confirming the continuance of the proposed veto, the statement included language making it clear that Obama objects to the challenge to his Executive authority, which would prevent “the thorough consideration of complex issues that could bear on U.S. national interests.” Obama’s position on the pipeline has seemingly taken twists and turns over the years, but his own thoughts on the venture — if that’s what we’re seeing now — seem to consider it, on the whole, problematic for the nation and environment without producing adequate national benefit. And it probably sweetens the pot just a tad that our newly assertive president knows how badly the Pubs want that win, after six years of Obama-bashing.

Amazingly, the economy is working in the liberals’ favor on this issue. The plunge of global oil prices and the upswing in U.S. production make expensive tar sand recovery less attractive to investors, and TransCanada has already shifted its process of product movement toward (the dangerous practice of) transport by rail. “Clearly, the economics are threatening the project,” said Robert Bryce, a senior energy fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute research center. “There’s no doubt the Republicans in Congress are going to pass a bill that intends to force approval. But they can’t make the pipeline get built.”

Perhaps Obama was listening when Elizabeth Warren had her say on the Congress floor, to be found here. Don’t miss it. It’s short but sweet, as are most of Ms. Warren’s objections to those who punish the average citizen. And the Pubs pretended not to hear either the Senator or the President as the proposed legislation passed out of the newly convened Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee with a vote of 13-9. There will be a floor vote next week in the House. The fight may or may not be won on the left, but there’s no question that it has created a shift in environmental activism, and that’s not a baby step — that’s a leap.

If you haven’t made your own wishes known on this topic, you might want to add your name to the one of the petitions floating around the blogosphere. I signed one again today at Earthjustice, a not-for-profit legal assistance organization focused on environmental law that began as a small community project. Surprisingly intimate, Earthjustice is now global in its reach, but continues to focus on the needs of individual communities in their struggle to determine their own environmental future.

I particularly like the Earthjustice motto: ” … because the world needs a good lawyer.” In this day and age, that’s the most expedient way to address these critical issues, and this organization has an excellent record. In July of last year, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that a couple of little towns could use local zoning laws to ban heavy industry, including oil and gas production, within their borders. That case was argued by an Earthjustice lawyer and set a precedent that, one can easily imagine, led to the recent state ban of fracking entirely. Do visit and read about the diverse causes Earthjustice supports. This organization is well-rated, with 82% of funding going to projects and 72% raised through individual contributions.

So there’s our flagship congressional week, giving us a heads-up on what the future holds. So much for the quirky, improbable and distressing. Oh, and quirky, yes: it’s true, Mitt Romney is considering a third run (because ‘destiny’) so add that bit of quirk to your own examples of weird, perhaps as strange and unexpected as mine, to flesh out the picture.

And do lighten up, as you can, in the coming week. While all this seems pretty serious and difficult, especially with news full of downed planes, disgruntled cops and assassinated journalists, be mindful of how you’re feeling about things from moment to moment. Taking care to give our emotions a harmless expression will keep them from festering, unexplored and turned toxic. We must not turn our backs on what is happening around us, but we do not have to ‘enter in’ to it, either. It’s ours to mend, not to wallow in.

As always, there are ethical considerations and human consequences to everything we do, what we choose to support, how we wish to create our world. The more kindness, compassion and care we can bring to the issues, the higher the vibratory rate that lifts us all. Remember, we can’t go wrong if we come from heart, extending the best of our humanity to one another and the world. These are the years when we set a new foundation for the future: color it with love.

Hard to believe how quickly this year has passed. So much for the “time speeding up” theory being all in our heads. Or not. Maybe the fact that each day is jam packed with so much noise and news and mayhem that our brains are bedazzled, spilling over with a glut of information, accounts for why we can’t recall the details from yesterday’s breakfast or even the telephone call we got ten minutes ago. That can create the illusion that life is one endless stream of crises, requiring ingestion of at least one Emergn-C® (the equivalent vitamins of 10 oranges without any of the pleasure of eating them) a day to boost our immune system.

You can’t contemplate a new year without taking a scan of the old one, jotting down a few notes, and this year was packed full of all manner of dire speculations and dangerous thinking, infecting the whole of our conversation. We had ISIS and Putin and Clive Bundy and Ferguson. We had missing airliners and erupting volcanoes and an annexed Crimea. We had the Clippers and Syria and McCutcheon vs. the Fed and Hobby Lobby. We had Palestine and Israel, the XL Pipeline and fracking. We had Ukraine and any number of school shootings and Ebola.

We had EPA changes by presidential authority, hundreds of thousands of political commercials, and a mid-term election that proved, without a doubt, that the average citizen does not understand politics. Now we have the Attorney General and Secretary of Defense resigned with no replacements in sight; we have Obama determined to use executive power to close Gitmo even if the Republicans swallow their tongue over prisoner placement, and that’s if they even notice, now that they’re busy suing over both Affordable Care and immigration. We have a lovely mess, indeed.

2014 was, essentially, Year Two of the new Era, the first to allow our chronic problems to break the surface, catching our eye like half-buried diamonds waiting for someone to notice their sparkle. Racism, sexism, classism — they glitter brightly. This current year seemed to bring everything up for our careful attention, while seeming to have no agreement about what, if anything, to do about them. The Republicans, for their part, didn’t even try, but the Democratic attempt to break through their stonewall was so puny as to be embarrassing.

This was a political year with little political movement, essentially, but all the big themes were there, exposed and glittering dangerously, for us to examine. It’s taken us awhile to get the full picture but now we see pretty clearly, don’t we? Now it’s up to us to decide what to pick up, what to lay down, what to mend and carry forward into the future.

I read an AP article this week that startled me. I had to stop and think about how the dots connected to our global challenges, because clearly — they did. The article was titled “How Torture Physically Changes The Brain Forever”:

At times, waterboarding rendered al-Qaida terror suspect Abu Zubaydah hysterical. But later, a message to CIA headquarters described an interrogator merely lifting his eyebrow and snapping his fingers, leading Zubaydah to “slowly (walk) on his own to the water table” to lie down.

The Senate torture report released earlier this month describes how the CIA’s harsh interrogation program sought to make detainees passive and powerless to resist, using techniques from sleep deprivation to stress positions to waterboarding to induce a state that psychologists call “learned helplessness.” ”Compliant” was the interrogators’ description of Zubaydah.

While this article describes the result of pure torture — the kind we peek at through our fingers in war movies — there are all kinds of torture in the world. I’ve seen interviews with those who have survived physical torture, and you can see it like a shadow behind their eyes, a presence within them they will carry forever. And yet, I’ve seen fundamental Christians similarly afraid of their own thoughts and the snapping fingers that control them.

I know that some of us are held prisoner in financial situations that make it near to impossible to refuse to do jobs that seems torturous to us, and many of us have been stripped of dignity by loss of income, health, relationship or opportunity. Even self-doubt, inflicted upon ourselves, is a kind of emotional cruelty that stops us from being all we can be. There are many kinds of torture in the world, and all of them leave a mark of learned helplessness and compliance.

Still, forever is a long time, and we’ve faced down demons before. On the other side of these emotional bombshells, when we discover we’ve not only lived through our suffering but learned how to make the best of it, there is a renewed sense of self available to us. We can overcome much of what frightens us with the help of those who have already gone through it. We can begin to get a sense of our self, unafraid of those who seek to control us, when we know we don’t stand alone. I think this is the year that those who are willing to awaken will look for an outstretched hand to take — will yours be one of them?

I have great hopes for 2015. We accomplished a good deal this year under ridiculously constricted circumstances. We made great strides in matters of same-sex marriage and transgender issues, and although we are facing an emergency regarding women’s right to choose, feminism seems to be recreating itself. We’ve reconsidered the War on Drugs, decriminalized weed in many places and legalized it in others. We’re examining civil liberties, something we’ve taken at face value as “done” since the last Pluto/Uranus dust-up.

We’re kicking up the diamonds of racism, sexism, fiscal corruption and warped political influence. We’re rethinking everything, attempting to meet the needs of citizens on local levels, influencing from the bottom up, and learning how to take care of one another. We’re finally growing into ourselves.

The planets have moved into position, over and over again, to give us an opportunity to heal ourselves. They will continue to amp up the energy for our transformation as we approach the last of the 2012 squares that have shaken us to our roots and shown us so dramatically what no longer works for humanity. The finger-snappers of the world are losing their power because those who have sleep-walked through these generations are finally awakening to the pain and the possibilities.

We’re entering the third year of the New Era. We have our work cut out for us, but then — we’re cut out for the work. With open hearts, there isn’t much we can’t accomplish. With a dangerous year behind us — a year of sorrow that brought those ancient, diamond-hard problems of hatred and mind-control into stark relief so we could say we’d finally seen them, awake and aware — the fireworks ahead of us should be less fearful. Perhaps we can even find them exciting, knowing them as we do and newly knowing ourselves.

There will be challenges, and we’re up to them. There will be sorrows, and we will come together to heal them. Ultimately, there will be progress because we can’t do without it. There is no question of “if.” The question is “when,” and only we can answer. If we choose, we can put the end to finger snapping and mind control, to media bullshit and political nonsense. We must have the courage to simply face it down, every time it seeks to intrude. Once we become proficient at that, demons chastened and chased away, our healing is sure and our future bright.

2015 looms, coming up quickly. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Make it everything you want it to be.

Editor’s note: The following article was written by Judith Gayle in 2006.

Holiday market at Grand Place, the central square of Brussels. Photo by Eric Francis.

The day that I made my gingerpersons and other holiday goodies, I invited my son’s new girlfriend over. She wanted to help. She is a very sharp cookie [no pun] spiritually, despite the fact that she’s surrounded by Fundamentalist relatives and, due to her living circumstance, is forced to participate in Evangelical church-going. I admire her ability to cheerfully keep a foot in both worlds … it’s harder now than it used to be. Which is the topic of this message.

When I gave up “drama queen-ness,” which is a [sometimes subtle, sometimes not] bid for attention, I gave up telling my personal history unless to illustrate some point. What I learned, and quickly, is that without that tell-all tale you become enigmatic to others, or semi-invisible. Boring to some, I’d suppose — mysterious, though. The “story” that you tell are the lessons you took away with you, not how you got them — and you tell them by living them.

But in new relationships, some historical exchange is required. So — cutting out cookies and listening to Christmas carols, my new friend said that the one thing she’d never done, but would like to, is to go caroling. She asked if I had.

With an effort [these things fade] I recalled my childhood — my 18 years in the [not Southern] Baptist church, my musical family: my Mother’s expert touch on the piano and her rich alto, my Father’s hearty baritone and my bright, shiny soprano [ahhh … youth!]. I told her about the churches we visited across California to perform gospel music, the choir rehearsals every Wednesday night at our big Berkeley church, the oratorios and cantatas we’d participated in, the solos that came up for one or another of us on a weekly basis — and yes, the caroling. Sometimes memory is a good thing. I recalled the majik of all that, the pure, sweet joy of it.

I could see her confusion at the warmness of my recollection. That is not who she knows me to be. “Religion then wasn’t like it is today,” I assured her.

She was startled. “No?”

And that’s when I had to really work at the conversation. How do you give a person an experience they haven’t had; one so at odds with their own that they can’t get a grip on it? I had to tell her what church wasn’t, in the middle of the 20th century.

“No,” I said. “When I was a child, Pentecostalism hadn’t infected the churches yet. I wasn’t taught fear or hatred and I wasn’t given a concept of my ‘specialness’ as a Christian. I wasn’t told that Satan was staring back at me from my cereal bowl each morning, waiting to choke me, or that End Times were upon us. I wasn’t militarized to believe that saving souls was my purpose in life, or feel superior to others.”

“I didn’t leave the church because it was a hateful experience,” I finished. “I left because it had taught me that Love was unconditional … I left because I knew there had to be more. I went looking for it.”

I do remember when that all started though, that first step toward trouble. I was about ten — because of my Mother’s extraordinary musical ability, she was invited to participate in the newly-formed outreach of a young [Scorpio] Billy Graham. Whenever Billy came to the Bay Area, which was often, we would make the trek into San Francisco and participate in what had the feel of an old fashioned revival, only a lot bigger and much slicker.

The music was superb, the message mesmerizing … and I was introduced to a sudden sense of evangelical urgency. I watched in amazement as hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people flooded the aisles of an over-packed Cow Palace for an alter call — and even at so tender an age, I remember being a little nervous about the whole thing. Graham was, personally, as intense a man as he was a preacher — I believed him sincere then, as I do now. He has mellowed over the years but his stridency and passion to “save souls” has produced his son, Franklin, who continues in his fathers footsteps with a thunderous message of Heaven and Hell, homophobia, women-in-their-place and fear of Islam.

One of the great sorrows of these last years has been, for me, the morphing of the Christian church into a great hulking assault on the consciousness of the world — and the thing that has been “Left Behind” in all this is the actual message of the Christ. I don’t hear it, these days … maybe that’s because it’s a softer song than the Fundys sing. The churches who attempt to live it get nailed as “Lefty” movements … and that proves a point that most Christocrats don’t want to hear — Jesus [if he was an actual person and not several persons, as is historically speculated] was a liberal … a pacifist … a realist … a radical … a bloodless revolutionary … and the message he brought us is the very one we wrestle today — will we love, no matter the circumstances … or will we hate because of them?

The one thing I knew about myself early on was that I came into this incarnation with an anti-authoritarian streak a mile wide. And in the church I knew as a child, I was not uncomfortable … I was questioning, but I wasn’t kicking and screaming, and I didn’t leave it throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If the church has become a hateful thing, it’s because it’s people have become full of hate. If it’s become a fearful movement, it’s because it’s people have been taught to fear.

When I was in California earlier in the month, my family and I were following an erratic driver who had a fish sticker on his bumper. As we commented on it, my seven-year-old grandson piped up, a tone of disapproval in his voice, “Well … he’s a Christian.” That hit me like a sledgehammer — us, them. [Turns out various of Wyatt’s little friends at school won’t play with him because he’s not “one of them.” The churches in his area are organized, militant and highly visible. He’s too young for a nuanced explanation — that these children are being taught separation, exclusiveness and nothing of the Christ.] All I could say at that moment was, “So am I, darlin’ … and Christ taught love.”

I didn’t lie — I’m a Christian … and a Buddhist … and a Muslim … and a Wiccan … and a Mystic. We are all the philosophies that have contributed to our understanding — we are All .. we are One. And after all these years, I’m not a cynic, even though I’ve stood witness to some of the worst of man’s deeds … maybe that’s because I’ve seen some of their best, as well. I believe in God and Goddess and the Mystery of that … I believe in Nature and Divine Order and the organizing Principal of the Universe. I believe that all of this is a part of me … and part of you — happening WITHIN us and asking to out-picture in our daily words and deeds.

I believe that the Higher Angels of mankind are just a choice away … and that Angelic presence can only speak to us if we’re willing to listen to the still, small Voice and not the loud, mindless Groupspeak of the world. I believe that if we stand in our power, be discerning with our thoughts and process them through our hearts, we can move the dense energy of a hateful, flawed religious signal into a dynamic spiritual understanding … raise a callous, self-obsessed mankind into a collaborative, respectful world-wide community. In fact, I count on it. My faith is in the Love that holds the Universe together like glue, the essential goodness within each of us and our ability to inhabit that. That’s Christ consciousness.

But we live in the Chinese curse, presently: interesting times. I wish they weren’t so damned interesting, sometimes, and I find myself left wishing, too often.

I wish we could still go out caroling and people would appreciate the music, the intent, even if they didn’t resonate to the message … or weren’t so lost in television and computer games that an actual event coming to their doorstep might be worth getting up for. Mostly, I wish we still felt safe to do it … and inclined.

I wish the Fundamentalist churches would return to their senses instead of making so many of us just plain miserable, day in, day out — that for once the Spirit of the message that was birthed in the Middle East all those many years ago would infuse those who say they follow it — and I wish my grandson didn’t think all Christians were wingnuts.

I wish that the Wiccans, should they choose, could put up a lighted pentacle in their front yard with as much freedom and pleasure as my son-in-law gave his children when he strung a gazillion lights on his house and plunked the illuminated reindeer in his front yard. I wish we had as much respect for each person’s belief as we do our own. And I wish Santa Claus didn’t have a credit card under each arm; that the Holidays held a little more spiritual impact and a lot less consumer angst.

I wish humankind had a better grasp on what we WANT rather than what we don’t want … and I wish we could just talk to one another, rather than scream at one another over the chasm that we’ve created to separate us. I wish we’d collectively intuit the difference between offering a hand or raising a fist … and understand that one is powerful for peace, the other murders opportunity.

Interesting times: they make it harder for us to find that still, small Voice that tells us we’re ok … That we’re all in the right place at the right time … and what we want so desperately will come to us eventually. And there’s some of us … the ones that remember … that are heartened by the new direction of many Christian churches who are policing their own attitudes and those of their brothers. It IS a matter of “values,” just not the restrictive, punitive ones that the Loudest of our brothers think it is. There is a populist movement birthing in this country, picking up speed … you’ll hear about it in many pulpits this year, as the old notions of charity and compassion and equality begin their ascent out of the darkness. I would like to see that happen … for Wyatt, and for us all.

I don’t know what spiritual tradition you embrace, if any — what your experience of religion has been — or what you think about all this, except that if you’re reading this you’re aware of the political implications of our current religious “wars.” I expect that you would agree with me that the institutions of religion have about broken this world apart … but the philosophies that prompted them are seldom served.

Whatever your traditions, I hope you FEEL them this year … a little heart-expansion to take you into the New Year … a moment of Lightness that brings you encouragement and hopefulness … a tenderness toward yourself and others as we plow through the heaviness of religious prejudice and judgment and bias, in order, I suppose, to firmly grasp what is NOT helpful and all that is, in fact, harmful. We will not progress unless we strip away the cynicism that prevents us from fully feeling — we will not usher in the Light until we open our hearts to receive it.

And so today, from a cold, bright Pea Patch, please accept my wish for your happy holiday and a Merry Christmas … and I hope it comes to you with a little music. The thing that’s pure and sweet and majikal about music is that the Heart hears … perhaps that’s why tears welled the other day when I heard this one.

I wish for the world what, according to those who penned the New Testament, Angels proclaimed for a world awaiting a new understanding of themselves — Peace on Earth, Good Will to men. We will have it when it’s more important to us than anything else … maybe that’s where these Interesting Times are designed to take us. But first we need to stop telling the story … and begin to live it.

May your days be merry and bright — and may all your Christmases be Light.