Hello, welcome to:
Intelligence Test 08’
(aka: the US Federal Election)
Intelligence Test 08’
(aka: the US Federal Election)
There’s Something Happening Here
What IT IS Ain’t Exactly Clear…
Stop Children - What’s that Sound
Everybody look what’s Going Down…
What IT IS Ain’t Exactly Clear…
Stop Children - What’s that Sound
Everybody look what’s Going Down…
For What It’s Worth
Buffalo Springfield/ S. Stills
Buffalo Springfield/ S. Stills
Epic is the word that comes to mind in appreciating this ‘date with fate’ that the US Presidential election contest represents. Playing like Ravel’s Bolero it has been a very long, drawn out, crescendo of repetitive phrases that grows in novelty while slowly and steadily grinding to a climax. It issues are monumental: war, health, global crises, human rights, ethics and morality; sustainability and prosperity.
Obama, the anti-Bush political and social phenomena, grows in maturity and esteem in the heat of the process by being the cool, calm and collected everyman for the season of choice America holds every four years. Ignoring the fear wedge and speaking to “the people” Obama, refuses to take IT personally by reminding US of our dreams. I imagine that his boyhood hero was Kane in Kung Fu – a cool, unfazed and deadly agent of the spirit acting in the pursuit of peace with justice; a half-caste initiate on a hero’s journey of discovery and ethical purpose.
I/we resisted him for a while, being unwilling to be sucked into yet another politicians populism screening an impotent power trip (‘ah Bill, we got to know you too well’). Or worst yet, experiencing another visionary being cut down by the right, in another well reported violent act. Regardless, Barak patiently wore down our cynicism, and became “The One” we have been waiting for, by passionately speaking to all of US who have been seeking each other at the edge of possibilities and potentials.
IT has been as long as both the Trojan War, the Odyssey and more, since the last “great communicator” Ronald Reagan seduced America with his “voodoo economics” sales pitch of a “trickle down economy”. Indeed, IT IS a Saturn Return* of 28 years since the Republican landslide of 1980 (here we go again - one more time with feeling people).
Of course the real genesis of our disillusionment was generations old even by then and before being dangerously turbo charged with the murders of JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby and many others calling for progressive policies, or those suffering the consequences of that optional but aggressive, pre-emptive war in Viet Nam (watch out for the dominos). We also remember Nixon and the dark places he shared with US in his paranoid quest for power – in life, Nixon imitated art; no better Gulum ever existed than in the twisted mind of Tricky Dicky (“ ... my precious, my precious ...”).
Of course we cannot forget George HW Bush I with his promise of a “New World Order” and the pain unleashed by the organized global cartels and mafias it spawned. Indeed, where would we have been all these years without say the “War On Drugs” and its criminalization of culturally important plants and activities, the creation of black markets (abetted by the CIA while in the process of installing dictators like Sadam and war lords like Bin Laden) or the monstrous, record breaking, prison populations, renditions and torture. Who benefited – then and now – in these bogus wars of every description, of the Darwinian attitudes to progress as strictly the survival of the fittest or the re-invention of Casino Capitalism – Google: ‘Tulip Mania’ or ‘South Sea Bubble’ (“its déjà vu all over again”).
With all this in mind, and in our living memory, is it any wonder than many of US liberal and progressive souls are ambivalent, if not skeptical, about the potential for success with Obama. We would be foolish not to be suspicious after the last two elections for the US president being stolen in broad daylight. But also foolish not to be dreaming, once again, “the dream” revived by this latest prophet from the “no coincidences department”. By being almost too good to be true, Obama challenges our individual and collective realizations of our own power and purpose. He rallies the weary, wary citizens of a lost Great Society to grasp the power of the possible – of the ‘what if it is’ … the time for the best and the brightest to be also those who are responsible, caring and devoted to the world, ITS people and the highest good of all.
“Yes We Can. ”
We must. The “End of Days” trajectory that “W” has fronted for the neo-cons, fundamentalists and haters is a darkness too deep to be plumbed by trusting to “the same old same old”; of continued “ right is might, I’m the sheriff of the world” delusions.
So, it is an intelligence test. An opportunity to get IT right by moving left; of healing the wounds created by the misuses of power and the arrogance of might.
Passing this test and electing Obama is “just the first part, just the start”. It will be like having a successful birth, a right of passage resulting in new life; and, like having a new born babe, it will be just the beginning.
*
“Saturn is symbolically/astrologically associated with time, challenge, fear, doubt, confusion, difficulty, seriousness, heaviness, unwanted burdens and hard lessons, among other more positive things such as structure, significance, accomplishment, reflection, power, prestige, maturity, responsibility and order – this is why astrologers believe that the thirtieth birthday is such a major rite of passage and is considered by many astrologers to mark the "true beginning" of adulthood, self-evaluation, independence, responsibility, ambition, and full maturation.”
Obama, the anti-Bush political and social phenomena, grows in maturity and esteem in the heat of the process by being the cool, calm and collected everyman for the season of choice America holds every four years. Ignoring the fear wedge and speaking to “the people” Obama, refuses to take IT personally by reminding US of our dreams. I imagine that his boyhood hero was Kane in Kung Fu – a cool, unfazed and deadly agent of the spirit acting in the pursuit of peace with justice; a half-caste initiate on a hero’s journey of discovery and ethical purpose.
I/we resisted him for a while, being unwilling to be sucked into yet another politicians populism screening an impotent power trip (‘ah Bill, we got to know you too well’). Or worst yet, experiencing another visionary being cut down by the right, in another well reported violent act. Regardless, Barak patiently wore down our cynicism, and became “The One” we have been waiting for, by passionately speaking to all of US who have been seeking each other at the edge of possibilities and potentials.
IT has been as long as both the Trojan War, the Odyssey and more, since the last “great communicator” Ronald Reagan seduced America with his “voodoo economics” sales pitch of a “trickle down economy”. Indeed, IT IS a Saturn Return* of 28 years since the Republican landslide of 1980 (here we go again - one more time with feeling people).
Of course the real genesis of our disillusionment was generations old even by then and before being dangerously turbo charged with the murders of JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby and many others calling for progressive policies, or those suffering the consequences of that optional but aggressive, pre-emptive war in Viet Nam (watch out for the dominos). We also remember Nixon and the dark places he shared with US in his paranoid quest for power – in life, Nixon imitated art; no better Gulum ever existed than in the twisted mind of Tricky Dicky (“ ... my precious, my precious ...”).
Of course we cannot forget George HW Bush I with his promise of a “New World Order” and the pain unleashed by the organized global cartels and mafias it spawned. Indeed, where would we have been all these years without say the “War On Drugs” and its criminalization of culturally important plants and activities, the creation of black markets (abetted by the CIA while in the process of installing dictators like Sadam and war lords like Bin Laden) or the monstrous, record breaking, prison populations, renditions and torture. Who benefited – then and now – in these bogus wars of every description, of the Darwinian attitudes to progress as strictly the survival of the fittest or the re-invention of Casino Capitalism – Google: ‘Tulip Mania’ or ‘South Sea Bubble’ (“its déjà vu all over again”).
With all this in mind, and in our living memory, is it any wonder than many of US liberal and progressive souls are ambivalent, if not skeptical, about the potential for success with Obama. We would be foolish not to be suspicious after the last two elections for the US president being stolen in broad daylight. But also foolish not to be dreaming, once again, “the dream” revived by this latest prophet from the “no coincidences department”. By being almost too good to be true, Obama challenges our individual and collective realizations of our own power and purpose. He rallies the weary, wary citizens of a lost Great Society to grasp the power of the possible – of the ‘what if it is’ … the time for the best and the brightest to be also those who are responsible, caring and devoted to the world, ITS people and the highest good of all.
“Yes We Can. ”
We must. The “End of Days” trajectory that “W” has fronted for the neo-cons, fundamentalists and haters is a darkness too deep to be plumbed by trusting to “the same old same old”; of continued “ right is might, I’m the sheriff of the world” delusions.
So, it is an intelligence test. An opportunity to get IT right by moving left; of healing the wounds created by the misuses of power and the arrogance of might.
Passing this test and electing Obama is “just the first part, just the start”. It will be like having a successful birth, a right of passage resulting in new life; and, like having a new born babe, it will be just the beginning.
*
“Saturn is symbolically/astrologically associated with time, challenge, fear, doubt, confusion, difficulty, seriousness, heaviness, unwanted burdens and hard lessons, among other more positive things such as structure, significance, accomplishment, reflection, power, prestige, maturity, responsibility and order – this is why astrologers believe that the thirtieth birthday is such a major rite of passage and is considered by many astrologers to mark the "true beginning" of adulthood, self-evaluation, independence, responsibility, ambition, and full maturation.”
Wikipedia
1 comment:
Fabulous article James - so true what you say - particularly this ....Passing this test and electing Obama is “just the first part, just the start”. It will be like having a successful birth, a right of passage resulting in new life; and, like having a new born babe, it will be just the beginning.
As I say on my site 'This is perhaps the most historic time in global politics since Pilate the politician washed his hands.'
It's going to be a long, long, long time til Tuesday 4 November!
Cedar
http://www.celticgardens.com.au/index.htm
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