I’ve decided against posting the larger part of what I’ve written about the election and the current political situation.
I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut about certain things over the years, especially where it comes to politics and political action. I’ve learned that you can get a lot more done under the radar than above it.
When I looked back on what I’d written, I realized how much more of my own beliefs and actions I’d revealed than I am comfortable with revealing. So — into the vaults it goes.
All I’m going to say is this:
I will not de-emphasize the importance of Barack Obama’s election to this country. On so many levels, it represents an evolution of mass consciousness that is critical to our well-being and continued heatlh as a culture.
But I will also not de-emphasize the fact that it represents a continuation of the status quo in a lot of other ways. I’ve never been comfortable with the compromises, secret promises, and covert winking at corrupt practices that it takes to be a major party candidate on either side of the aisle. While I have some hope that Obama may indeed be the kind of transcendent figure that can move beyond that, I will continue to be skeptical about that until I see some proof.
In the long run, the single greatest issue this country faces is not terrorism, ecological degradation, economic meltdown, or the inequality of opportunity and rights for all. Those, to me, are the symptoms of the larger issue, the Great Issue: that we regard the world as a choice between "either" and "or." That we have reduced our own interpretation of the ideological spectrum to "pro" or "con," "left" or "right," "liberal" or "conservative," "Democrat" or "Republican." That we look at the positions of Obama and McCain and see them as being far apart, when in truth they each represent tweaks to our current ossified and crumbling processes without examining the fundamental concepts behind them to seek opportunites for true and necessary change. Our actions and policies, no matter which party is in power, have been dictated by a narrow band of possibility that never truly discomforts those who benefit from our timidity and reduced vision; it is killing us, and because of our tremendous stature and influence, it has sickened the world as a whole nigh unto death as well.
I do not see the current definitions of "right and left" as being accurate. To me, it’s as if we were to look at a rainbow, ignore the existence of all the colors except blue, and then define the ends of the rainbow as being the right and left ends of the blue band. So much is left out in that perception; so many possibilities are available to us, and we don’t look beyond for them.
Some of you are going to read this and attack me, here or in your minds, for being impractical and idealist. I don’t care, and I’m not going to respond to an awful lot of what I expect to appear here — not because I do not wish to engage you, but because I am concerned about revealing too much of what I alluded to earlier. But I will say this in advance: I know we are all committed, or at least many of us are, to true change. To improving our world and our country and to make them over into a true home for all. In order to do that, we must move beyond our narrowest perceptions of what is possible and engage the impractical, the idealistic, the frightening things that lie beyond our current conceptions of what is possible and appropriate. I hope that Obama is in a position to do that, and his election gives me the sliver of hope that that is indeed possible because of the apparent character of the man. But I am not excessively hopeful. May he prove me wrong, over and over again.
I’m out on this. As I said, I won’t be engaging much in the discussion here, if it indeed ensues. But have at it, and at me, as you will.
hopeful
Dark Matter 