Greetings from
The Publisher . . .
Finding an Agreeable Platform
to Talk AboutAnother busy month here—and there's more coming. Have you noticed that the Fall always seem to be full of conferences and seminars? The AGNT Conference is in Indian Wells, Don Miguel Ruiz and sons are having a one-day seminar, The Journey has a seminar coming, the Bioneers annual gathering is in Marin County with Greenfest in San Francisco not long afterwards. And of course, there are the events we get into more detail about this issue that involves Caroline Sutherland, Mingtong Gu, Joe Vitale, and Terry Cole-Whittaker. Just look at how large our calendar is this time.
Adding to the busyness recently was the Olympics. While I don't follow the sporting events that comprise the Olympics, it's hard to totally ignore once it gets started. It also draws international attention and this time we got a little closer look at China.
Interesting to see the subtle and not so subtle manipulations by the Chinese government as they put on their best face for the world, nothing unusual for the host country. There were more serious abuses with protestors, but wasn't it interesting to see what was all right with them? The young girl who sang their national anthem in the opening ceremonies was really lip-synching the song. The Chinese stated that the girl who did sing it wasn't pretty enough to appear and having a prettier girl appear to be singing their anthem presented their country in the best light. Really?
I guess the Western capitalistic materialism they object to is not a blanket rejection. They rejected the more common-looking commoner—very uncommonistic; and then the simple truth of it—being truthful—also got lost until they were called on it.
The Chinese admitted they did deceive people, but it was “in the national interest.”
Well, who are we talk? And add to that it's election time! A double-whammy. It's time for the national conventions and rhetoric, quickly followed by the here's what we believe in speeches designed to appeal to and sway the swing voters. For the rest of us non-swingers we'll probably have to remember the clues that were dropped along the campaign trail early on and project what we think will happen. Didn't he once say that . . . ?
Remember a few years ago, when Ross Perot jumped into things and started to talk without editing himself as much as most of them do?
For a short time, whether or not you agreed with what he said or not, I think he was saying what was really true for him and people resonated with that honesty. I'd like to see more of that outspokenness. It's sad to see our potential leaders play it safe. That's pretty hard to resonate with or get excited about.
Given our media, some of it is understandable. If Sen. John McCain decided to give half of his dozen or so homes to charity the media would probably tell us that his finances were unsettled and he was in a readjustment period.
If the media discovered that Sen. Barack Obama could walk on water, we'd be reading that he couldn't swim.
While the media can distract with hundreds of side issues, there is a major difference between the candidates and this is an important election. Just look all the changes we've been through the last 4-years. On some things, unfortunately, they've been very predictable. Wasn't one of their first suggestions to extract oil from Alaska?
I'm waiting for the sane position on oil. (There are lots of good alternatives in the solar column this issue too.)
Meanwhile I've been thinking that if oil is getting more and more valuable why not save it for when it gets really really valuable. Maybe we could hold on to it all until the Arabs run out and get our money back by selling it back to them. Or we could buy back all the American property they own. Maybe right now we should be importing all of the oil we can and using none of our own domestic oil—keep our oil in the bank. Save it.
What we will hear as the campaign goes on is a lot of distracting media-fed issues, swing vote issues and strategy analysis: what the Dems plan to do is—the GOP wants to convince people that—on and on. Wouldn't it be refreshing to hear about the strategy of instituting a health care system that worked. It's as if all campaign reporters have a background in reporting sporting events.
Don't we have important issues we're not hearing much about?
I don't think it's because there aren't things we can agree on. There's a lot for us to agree on; and a lot that we do agree on.
When the figures came out in August from the GAO that said 55% of corporations don't pay corporate income tax, I didn't find too many people who thought that was equitable.
Putting an emphasis on energy independence if something people of almost all political persuasions support right now. The poll I saw said almost 80% of us want to limit greenhouse gas emissions. What will the new energy plan that 80% of us want look like?
The latest polls show people overwhelmingly want to protect the Constitution and our Constitutional rights.
Most of us even agree that there are better ways to fight terrorism than war. Let's replace never-ending war with vigilance. Contrary to what we hear about “winning” and success, unilateral wars against the bad guys, with little or no international support, are still not supported by most Americans.
Isn't war really a failure to communicate? Why don't we emphasize the fact that whenever we call in troops it's because we failed to understand the issues or couldn't resolve things, and admit we simply weren't smart enough to figure out what to do except kill people.
We want national health insurance for all Americans—universal health care. And if you feel compelled to say how bad the current systems are, forget for a moment that we have the highest infant mortality rate among “civilized nations” in the world, and tell us all the flaws in the French, and Canadian and British systems—so we don't do the same thing. We don't have to copy or include anyone else's mistakes that don't work. We get to create our own system. Let's hear about that—or fire both candidates.
Most of us also want our campaigns publicly funded—as compared to being corporate funded—and the influence of money will definitely be a continuing issue. It's simply time to regain a balance and remember that the Constitution is about giving a voice to people—not people with the most money.
Closer to home my remodel is continuing and while I've talked to some good people I haven't settled in on one person to help me with my projects and paperwork yet. (my advertisement.) I'm sane and not overwhelmed as long as I focus on the progress and not on that what still needs to be done. In fact, it's much better than “trying to maintain sanity” since so many things are still unfolding so miraculously. More later.
In a similar way, maintaining our future sanity in the face of politics is about focus too. It's okay for us to focus for a while on our current knights in shinning armor telling us all the problems they will solve for us, as long as we remember that after the election we are the ones who have to hold their feet to fire—especially when “contributors” begin to start moving money around. The trap is to think it will be handled for us, forgetting it takes us to make US what we want.
I had to go to press before the Dem convention and do hope for the best, ?that it was inspiring and not simply the normal convention(al) talk. I think we all are ready to add hope to the process.
Have a great month.
Steve
I've decided I still don't have enough to do and want to write about us/US more often than I can in The Light Connection . It will be a little different, shorter, come out more often and offer my take on current events and the changes we are going through. If you want to read it, I'll email it to you. (I won't share your email address). Email me at stephenj2@cox.net and let me know you want to receive it.
HOME - FEATURES - NEWS - FROM THE PUBLISHER
LETTERS - COLUMNS - MUSIC REVIEWS - BOOK REVIEWS
PLANETARY CYCLES - CALENDAR - ABOUT TLC - CONTACT US
CLASSIFIEDS - RESOURCE DIRECTORY
ARCHIVES - SUBSCRIBE - ADVERTISE - SEARCH
