Business As Usual?

We can’t awaken from the fear, hatred, dread and blaming of the ego’s nightmare to our reality as spirit’s love, peace, joy and compassion, until we realize there is a choice, that we can see the world differently. Instead of looking at the world with ego and seeing fear, hatred, dread and blaming, we can look with spirit and experience love, peace, joy and compassion.

But to do this, to shift, we must realize that there is an alternative to the ego world. We must be motivated to see things differently, to choose another way. We must say enough to fear, hatred, dread and blaming and want love, peace, joy and compassion instead. Such a shift requires motivation, an inner choice. But we will not be motivated to do the inner work necessary to make this shift if one, we see no alternative, and two, don’t think there’s even a need for an alternative.

The idea and belief that what’s going on now in American political discourse – that all politicians lie, and Democrats lie as much as Republicans - is business as usual, suggests that there’s no need for an alternative, no need to shift, that it’s always been the way it is now and there’s no need to shift, it’s just business as usual.

Thus, the idea of business as usual in American political discourse is promulgated by those who see no need to change what’s going on now, perhaps because one, they don’t know what’s going on now, or two, have no standards of descent public discourse nor recollection of a time when discourse was civil and honest compromise was possible, or three, are somehow benefiting from things as they are now and want them to continue.

I suggest that the state of political discourse and decision making in the USA is not business as usual, that Democrats do not lie as much as so-called Conservatives and Republicans, that there is a need for a change, and we need to say enough to fear, hatred, dread and blaming and YES! to love, peace, joy and compassion instead.

Of course lying, fear, hatred, dread and blaming and YES! to love, peace, joy and compassion instead are not the province of one party. But, as Leonard Pitts Jr. said in his column yesterday, “when it comes to serial lying, to the biggest, most brazen, most audacious lies, the lies repeated ad nauseam until people mistake them for the truth [which was Nazi propagandist Joseph Geobles, ‘big lie’ concept], when it comes to the most absolute contempt for the facts and for the necessity of honest debate, it’s not even close. [So-called] conservatives have no equal.” Democrats and Republicans are not the same, it is not business as usual.

Pitts goes on to say that Politifact, the fact checking organization, has six categories for judging a statement’s veracity: true, mostly true, half true, barely true, false, and “Pants of Fire,” from the old school yard taunt of “liar, liar, pants on fire.” Liar, Liar means not only are the statements untrue, they also make some ridiculous claim. Pitts reviewed 100 such statements and by his count, of the 70 that originated with an identifiable individual or group (as opposed to a chain email or miscellaneous source) sixty-one, 61, were from the political right. That includes Rush Limbaugh saying President Obama is going to take away your right to fish, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer saying beheaded bodies are being found in the desert, and Sarah Palin claiming death panels will stalk the elderly – 90% of the most audacious lies coming from the so-called conservatives.