Monday, September 12, 2011

American Dream

Saturday morning, I attended the Protect the Dream meeting. I went to the meeting because I’m looking for a way to integrate my spiritual insights and political action. I don’t know what I expected – which is good, having no expectations leaves one open to making the most of whatever happens – but I was kind of disappointed, more in myself than the others present.

I think I was looking for help in exploring and actualizing my non-dualistic, non-either/or, non-traditional and more spiritual way of thinking about politics. Instead, I got pulled into the traditional, win-lose, either/or, non-spiritual way of thinking. I was not clear enough, nor strong enough to express my ideas, nor enable others to understand them so that we could all work together to operationalize them.

The pull of the gross, visible failures of the Democratic Party and the so-called Democratic President, along with the horrible abuses of power and their attendant threats to American Democracy by the Republicans, hooked my fear and loathing [as it usually does] and I succumbed to the ego view of things and was unable to stay centered in spirit.

But it was good practice though! I need to be able to go into the fire, like Meshak, Shadrak, and Abendego, and emerge unscathed. People don’t know who those three guys were anymore. They’re the protagonists in an Old Testament story.

I want to protect the American dream, and do something, but in addition to not being able to express and operationalize my ideas, none of what was discussed – making phone calls, demonstrating, sending emails, handing out flyers in the neighborhood or on street corners, attending house parties – clicked for me. I know that if I were to do any and all of these things centered in spirit, they would click for me. But at this point, however, I’m still looking to do something else; some new combination of these things that actualizes my non-dualistic, non-either/or, non-traditional and more spiritual way of thinking about politics.

I feel ‘called’ to share this view, feel, if we could ever express it clearly it would resonate with the vast majority of Americans. I think people are ready; they get that we desperately need something new, partisan, either/or, win-lose business as usual has gotten us where we are; and if we always do [think and feel] what we always did, we’ll always get what we always got.

At every level and in every way the system is broken, just about beyond repair. Einstein said, ‘You can’t solve the problem at the level of thinking that created it in the first place.’ We need a message grounded in connection with our reality as spiritual beings, of renewal, optimism, cooperation, inclusivity. No more fear, loathing, hate, blame and partisanship. The so-called ‘two party’ system with its primaries, the political/economic system itself with districts drawn by partisans and the Supreme Court equating money and speech, and the legal fiction that corporations are people, is not working for the vast majority of Americans.

But how to get this majority to wake up, understand they’re being destroyed, slowly, secretly, and not so slowly or secretly now, like Thorndike’s frog; that their very hopes and ideals subverted, taken from them and used to kill their hopes and ideals? What’s the message that will express that, that will mobilize them? Both parties mouth the same platitudes and motherhoods. Will a new party be better? Perhaps. But it too, would need thinking different from the kind that created the problem in the first place.

We desperately need something new, a message grounded in connection with our reality as spiritual beings, of renewal, optimism, cooperation, and inclusivity. Partisan, either/or, win-lose business as usual has gotten us where we are; and if we always do [think and feel] what we always did, we’ll always get what we always got.

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