What Are We Greedy For?

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” 

This is a famous line from the 1980’s movie Wall Street, with Michael Douglas. I often write about the greed of the wealthy and powerful in our government and the control wealth has over keeping that power, but this post is about how greed is in all of us and how it influences our views. 

The other morning, I heard Trump say, “Scientists have a political agenda,” as he spoke about his denial of climate change. The first thought that popped into my head was, Trump’s political agenda is greed. Later in the day, he changed his statement, as he often does when push comes to shove. His initial statement got me thinking about what the political agenda could be for the scientists who are warning about our use of fossil fuels and their effects on the climate. If Trump’s agenda is greed, and I can point to many factors besides this one that inform my opinion about that, could the scientists also have greed as a motivation? My conclusion is yes, they could.

Trump denies climate science and promotes the use of fossil fuels to gain votes from the coal mining workforce, and campaign contributions from the owners of the coal mines. He seeks votes in the oil industry from every worker, campaign contributions from the industry, and support all the way up to the leaders of Arab countries. His personal business benefits from his climate change denials, as well. 

He registered eight companies in Saudi Arabia, a major oil supplier, during his presidential campaign.

He has argued, in the past, that his company could be hurt by climate change if not allowed to build – you guessed it – a wall. This time it was a seawall to protect his golf course. To non-supporters and anyone with integrity, this makes him hypocritical, misleading, deceitful, dishonest, and untrustworthy. With much more wealth on the line than can be provided from one golf course, he has chosen the side of climate change denial. He consistently sides with whatever will get him ahead in each transaction or issue.

His type of greed and that of his wealthy supporters cannot admit climate change is real and that humans are causing it without sounding immoral in their support of fossil fuels. They have to deny the legitimacy of the science because if they did not, people whose finances do not depend on the fossil fuel industry would have no reason to support this part of his agenda. In order to persuade someone who has no financial dog in the fight, you have to give them a reason to ignore your vicious dog. To keep us from looking at their financial motives, they act as if it’s about the financial plight of those who would lose their jobs if we switched from fossil fuels to renewables without helping the industry make the switch on their own. I am not discounting the fear of folks in the industry. If I worked in the industry, I would be afraid. If I worked in the industry, I would want my employer to spend money on retraining me for jobs in renewables. Most Americans support tax incentives to help the industry make the changes. So, why don’t they just make the switch on their own? It is because they already get tax incentives and subsidies for doing nothing, so why should they bother? I’m betting it is far cheaper to deny climate change and keep things the way they are than to change within their field. Especially when other companies have sprung up to compete with them. It is cheaper and easier to squash their efforts, politically. So, they deny the science. 

If one’s agenda is preserving their wealth at any cost, they would grasp at any straw, including pre-historic climate changes, to seem credible as they deny the science that says humans are causing it at an alarming rate. If one is wealthy enough to survive without a job, that person has a lot of power and a lot of political influence. That person’s agenda of greed can cause them to ignore the plight of those who will eventually lose their jobs. In their mind, it’s just business. They may think it is a horrible aspect of doing business, but a necessary part of doing business.

The scientists have an agenda of greed, too. They want to live. They want their children and grandchildren to live. They want all humans to go on living They are greedy for life. Life, as we know it, will not continue on this planet if we do not change the way we supply our energy needs. It might take more than my remaining lifetime to see the devastation, but I doubt it will take more than my son’s remaining lifetime. It certainly won’t take more than our grandchildren’s remaining lifetime. We are already starting to see the effects; effects that have not reached our homes yet, but that will. Greed is an intense and selfish desire for something. As the mom of a man with disabilities, I share the scientist’s agenda of greed. I am greedy for the preservation of my son’s life, his climate security, funding for his needs and the needs of his community, understanding and acceptance of him, and I am greedy for his rights as a human being. I am greedy for the rights of every human being. It is selfish because when everyone else has what they need and desire, then I do, too. The word everyone leaves no one out.  

Greed that includes the prosperity and saves the jobs of everyone is good. Greed for the health of planet earth is good. Greed that promotes survival is good. Greed for life is good. One might even say it is Pro-life. The selfish greed that does not include prosperity and job protection for everyone, and that does not preserve the life of the planet and its inhabitants, one might call that ignorance.

All political parties have an agenda of greed. All scientists have an agenda of greed. Sometimes the personal greed mixes with the political greed in good ways, sometimes it mixes in bad ways. We all see issues through our own personal agenda of greed. It is our job to figure out what makes up our own personal greed, notice if that aligns with our moral values, witness how that influences our political views, and hold our politicians accountable for the ways their actions are influenced by their personal greed.

Take care, Friends! 

Check out my recommended reading post at the top of the menu. I hope this blog helps you to create a more peaceful life. Keep in touch with the following methods: Use the links under the archive menu to subscribe or follow by e-mail. Help me get this message out by sharing it with your friends on social media! If you enjoyed it and were helped by it, they will, too! Write to me with your comments and questions at mindchange4all@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Free Speech: An Argument For Using Your Voice

Freedom to speak out against the government is a right we enjoy very much in America. It is a right many people around the world do not have. Their ability to freely say how they feel, without worry of imprisonment, is stifled by the people with power over them. So, when I see someone on social media say they don’t talk about politics on social media, it breaks my heart. Not only for those around the world who are not allowed to but for my precious son. He can’t speak at all. He can’t communicate very well at all. He has difficulty telling me what he wants, and he can’t tell me at all when something hurts inside his body or if someone has abused him. I have to look at his behaviors to figure things out. He has to suffer until I, the one with the power to help him, can figure it out. And I love him. I don’t want this power over him. I want him to be independent and able to care for himself. I want him to be able to shout to the world everything he wants and needs. Especially, to our government because he is being ignored by both sides of the political spectrum. 

Many states do not allow people with intellectual disabilities the right to vote. You might think that is okay because you question their ability to understand the policies. That is the language of discrimination. It is an ableist attitude. Some worry that helping them vote will lead to abuse and a second vote by the helper. That could happen by either party. Someone else’s criminal behavior should not keep a fundamental right out of the hands of others. Isn’t that the argument against gun control? Many people with intellectual disabilities do understand – better than some people without disability – the policies and how they affect them. They advocate for themselves. They should have the right to vote in every state and every country around the globe. 

Imagine living in a country where you are not allowed to speak about what hurts you in your country because your government does not want you spreading an idea to anyone else. They don’t want a person with a heart, a mind, and a soul to touch other hearts, minds, and souls because then a movement would begin. A movement that could take them out of power. I’m thinking of countries like North Korea now. Or, it simply could be that your leader’s ego can’t handle it when people speak against him. He might call fake news to anyone who reports what he does, even though he is the one that did it and they are simply reporting it. Or he might say protests are not allowed because he thinks it’s embarrassing for the country. Whatever the reasons are, imagine not being allowed to say how you feel about injustice, or poverty, or guns, or abortion because your government wants to keep its power over you; not out of love for you, but so you will remain dependent and powerless. 

Some people say they won’t talk about politics on social media because the debate gets out of hand and people say nasty things to each other. Yes, that happens. So? There is a simple solution to that: Don’t engage with that person. Say how you feel and let it sit. You don’t have to defend it or justify it. You have the right to say your truth without defending it. THE Truth – with a capital T – needs no explanation anyway. You simply say I think this president is a horrible human being. He acts like a child. He is all ego with no integrity. He is power hungry and, while I might like some of his policies, I cannot stand him and the way he represents our country around the world. When someone pushes back and says Yea, but… in defense of his deplorable behavior, you can ignore it. You don’t respond. It’s that simple. Now, I’m sure you may be thinking something like, it’s easier just not saying anything at all. I don’t want to add to the drama that’s going on so I just scroll past all political posts. I talk to my family about it and that’s enough. I understand that. You have every right not to speak up about politics on social media if you don’t want to, for whatever reason you have. You use your vote as your voice and that is private. 

My mind goes back to all those folks around the world who don’t have a voice or a choice, including my son. They would love to have a choice like you. That choice is a privilege. When one chooses not to speak or has no political right to speak about things they are passionate about in their heart, really bad things can happen. History has proven that - The Holocaust, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, imprisonment and experiments on the disabled and mentally ill, just to name a few. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that and encouraged white Americans to speak up for the civil rights of black and brown people in America. He urged them for their support because “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter… The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people… In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends… Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere… The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” His words are Truths we can choose to ignore, but that eat away at our souls.

I know all of that and I agree with it, but if I speak one word publicly about my own party or someone in it, the other side might win the next election. That is a possibility, but not a probability. Your voice can change your own party back into one you can be proud of. The Democrats fought hard to keep people with black skin in slavery. Now, they are fighting for their rights. Do they go far enough? No. Do they fight hard enough? No. Some of them may even be doing things behind the scenes to keep things just the way they are. That is deplorable and should not happen. Your voice can change that. Your silence gives others the sense that it is okay with you. Right or wrong, your silence gives people a perception about your views and what you will tolerate. That silence becomes your voice. You don’t have to be cruel with your words. You don’t have to be divisive with your voice. You simply and eloquently say, ____ is not okay. ____ is unacceptable. I will not tolerate ___ from my political party. Period. Then you call your local representatives or the White House and you tell them, too. 

But, if I call my representatives and the White House, why do I need to say it on social media? The answer is because our children are watching. Our children are on social media reading our words, hearing our videos, and viewing our shared memes. And not only our children but our friends who might be inclined toward a dark side if no one around them is saying anything in dispute of it. Everyone is watching the negative things, and many are responding favorably to it. This idea is reinforced in me each time my voice is critical of my party and I get way more reaction to it than when I say nice things about my party. It is a sad but true fact of human nature. But, I choose to be nice most of the time. I plant seeds of love so the seeds of hate planted by others will not be the only things growing. 

Recently, I have been brutally truthful about the actions and inactions of some of my friends. My last blog post, Female, was a satirical commentary on what I have seen on Facebook. I have offended people, intentionally. I do not apologize for that because, sometimes, some people need to be spoken to in a language they understand. Satire can do that. I don’t believe women are inferior to men, but saying, satirically, that my friends have convinced me of it, and pointing out all the ways they “convinced me” was my way of giving them a verbal smack on the head. It appears to me they misunderstand the language of liberals when we speak, but they do understand the language of Trump, so I used mockery in my own way. I did not say anything untruthful and they may not like my opinions, but I come by them honestly with research to back them up. 

satire | ˈsaˌtī(ə)r | noun 

the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

You don’t have to use satire. You don’t have to talk about what you don’t want to make your point. Just say what you do want. I want a president who has integrity, morality, compassion, a willingness to listen, this one does not possess those qualities. I want a president who is respectful to those he disagrees with, who sees no person as defective, who brings peace through understanding, who tries to understand the other side of the argument… Say it. For all those here and around the world who can’t. 

One thing you may want to be aware of: The Trump administration, in America where speech is still free, has proposed a rule to limit where people are allowed to protest or tax them when they protest in front of him. They do not want people protesting outside of the White House. This is a first step toward limiting free speech in America and makes me wonder if all the extreme gun advocates have a point about needing to defend themselves against our own government.  

Proposed Rule

I don’t understand most of that mumbo-jumbo legal language so here is an article about it in plain English. 

The undemocratic idea behind it

I will end with this: Stay silent if you dare, but remember that silence is also a form of speech and your silence just might get you what you don’t want. 

Check out my recommended reading post at the top of the menu. I hope this blog helps you to create a more peaceful life. Keep in touch with the following methods: Use the links under the archive menu to subscribe or follow by e-mail. Help me get this message out by sharing it with your friends on social media! If you enjoyed it and were helped by it, they will, too! Write to me with your comments and questions at mindchange4all@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Female

They say arguing on the internet will never change anyone’s mind. I believe that. We must teach by example. That is a spiritual law that Jesus taught. I have been watching American conservative women these past several years. Ever since I opened my Facebook account I have learned a lot about how wrong I have been. Many of my closest friends and family members are conservative. I have argued with some of them many times since opening my Facebook account, and never once have I convinced them to convert to my views. They have converted me, not by personally arguing with me, but through their example. The women I have watched posting their conservative views and explaining to me why they feel that way have taught me a lot. Watching these women post about their votes at election time and standing up for their convictions has shown me that they and the men they love are right. 

I must say, there is one area where I never needed convincing: abortion. I have always known that is wrong since I first heard the word and discovered what it meant. To take the life of an innocent, unborn, vulnerable baby is a horrible thing. And the women I have been watching and listening to and arguing with on Facebook have shown me how important that one issue is. It is THE most important issue in the mind of every conservative voter. Liberals believe that sex education and birth control will solve the problem without infringing on the rights of women to control their own bodies, but I will show you what my conservative friends have shown me.

So, what was it my conservative female friends did that convinced me, finally, that I have been wrong all these years? Recently they have been posting videos of very attractive females explaining to me why I should not believe the lies of Dr. Ford as she accused the Honorable Bret Kavanaugh of trying to rape her. These were very convincing videos, of women, pretty blonde women, one of whom even said she was the victim of a sexual assault and then went on to explain why Dr. Ford’s assault should have no bearing on Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Some of my female friends - both conservative and liberal - questioned Dr. Ford’s credibility because 

1) She waited too long to come forward, 

2) Someone other than Dr. Ford started a GoFundMe account to raise money for her legal fees, 

3) She could not remember every detail exactly the way it happened more than 30 years ago, 

4) Dr. Ford did not go about handling her sexual assault exactly the same way they did when they were sexually assaulted, and in their minds, that proves she’s a liar. 

Some have convinced me through Facebook memes like this one: 

When I think back to my teen years, Good Lord! My female friends and I were sluts. 

I always thought we were pretty decent girls, but according to what I’ve learned, I was wrong! We mostly wore jeans and T-shirts and tennis shoes. We never dressed like the actresses in that photo, but in the summer, we sometimes wore shorts! Who could blame those boys for wanting to get in our pants? Once, I was stupid enough to wear shorts to school in Jr. High, so, clearly, it was all my fault that a boy grabbed my ass as we were exiting math class one day. I really should be thanking him for teaching me such a valuable lesson: never wear shorts to school. That poor boy had to sit somewhere behind me for an entire 40 minutes seeing my bare legs. It was just too much for him! It was also my fault that he went around telling the other boys the lie that when he grabbed my ass his finger slipped up into my vagina – I’m pretty sure he used a different word. Boys will be boys! Some of those boys asked me about it, not out of concern for me, but to see how high they should place his pedestal. I’m sure they placed it high, choosing to believe him and not me. And it was not the fault of the boy who spread a rumor about me that I had “gone all the way” with my boyfriend. I should not have ever allowed myself to be alone with my boyfriend and his friend who spread the rumor, even though I thought they were trustworthy. Stupid naïve female! I never “went all the way” with him – a fact he never tried to correct. Again, boys will be boys, never guilty about anything they do. And it was clearly my fault the time my top was pulled down, exposing my developing breasts. I was wrong in wearing a tube top – the current fashion in female clothing, the summer between my 6^thand 7^thgrades. Thank you, Young Man, for teaching me that valuable lesson! I was at fault for being naïve enough to stand near him as we conversed for the first time ever. To think that all these years I thought the boys were at fault! Come to think of it, it might not have happened at all. You see, I cannot remember that guy’s name. Not remembering every detail is a sure sign I might be wrong about what actually happened. Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen, for setting me straight. 

Yes, my teenage female friends and I were loose with our clothing and morally impure for kissing boys. We should have never fallen for those boy’s lies. They said they loved us – or at least had “feelings” for us – and we were stupid enough to believe it! Our dads never told us about how teenage boys think or that we should pay more attention to a boy’s actions towards us than his words, but why should they? We would not have believed them anyway. All good conservatives know – and now I do, too – that the female brain is incapable of making good choices. We proved that in our youth with our clothing and slutty behavior. The boys were just being boys and we were at fault. I see that now. We’re lucky they did not rape us. Thank you, teenage boyfriends, for not raping us! We females should have had more self-control. It is morally imperative that we control ourselves because boys should not be expected to control themselves. They are males and therefore superior.

Looking back, I should have been convinced long ago of my wrongness. For years, they have been posting nasty things about liberals and complaining about the things liberals say about them. But, I now see that Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Cathy Griffin, Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, and all the other females who spoke out for women’s rights, including me, are just bitches. We are. We are bitches. Some of our arguments make sense, but the way we go about getting them across is just bitchy, as opposed to all the pretty blonde ladies on Fox News Channel. They are assertive, like men. It’s okay to be assertive, like a man, if you have a conservative view, but not if you have a liberal view. It’s not assertive then, it’s bitchy. And liberal females should just keep their mouths shut.  

All my life I bought into the whole feminism thing. I mean, seriously! It’s partly my dad’s fault, but I don’t blame him. He is just as much a victim of liberalism as I have been. My dad told me I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up. Conservative dads tell their daughters that, too. Quite possibly, those conservative dads are doing their duty of instilling patriarchy into their daughter’s minds, which is a noble thing. I have learned from my observations of my female conservative friends, you gain a female’s confidence and loyalty by making her feel secure in her ability to think for herself so that she won’t notice when you undermine her politically. You know she can’t think for herself, but as long as she thinks she can, all is well with the world. The trouble with my dad, though, is that he believed what he said. Some men, like my dad and Keith Urban, get it wrong sometimes. Keith has this song about the awesomeness of females. It’s called Female. With my newfound wisdom, I’ll never hear that song the same way again. :-(

Anyway, I have learned that if you convince a female she can think for herself, you can convince her that THE most important issue – abortion – cannot be fixed by birth control because females cannot be trusted to be moral, especially when they have access to birth control. When put to her this way, the female thinks back to her morally reprehensible behavior as a teenager and knows you are telling her the truth, despite the fact she never got pregnant and turned out okay. This theme really gets etched in her mind in church, where she is told that only morally bankrupt women get abortions and morally bankrupt liberal men want to avoid taking responsibility for the baby. Once the female is on a high moral ground, believing that the only way to end abortion is to outlaw it, she is ripe for everything else you want her to believe: 

Subservience is good for her and society; 

men are always the best leaders; 

God made women inferior; 

her religious liberty is threatened by liberals; 

wealth is good, poverty is caused by immorality; 

people must support themselves without any help from the government including higher wages; 

ignore your instincts and stick with conservatives because they have the moral high ground as pro-lifers; 

she must help support her family outside of the home and take responsibility for maintaining her home and her children’s care; 

men are too stressed to help around the house, but she is a strong woman who can handle it all; 

if we can end a woman’s right to get an abortion we can start to work on feeding the poor and caring for the elderly and disabled; 

when we fail to help the needy after abolishing abortion, we will convince her the liberals are to blame; 

she will believe it because we have taught her not to think for herself, even though she thinks she does.

The way females bend over backward:

to keep from seeing all the lies and manipulations by conservative men who only want money and power, 

to convince themselves that conservativism is good for females, 

to keep taking their children into Catholic churches - or any church - even though they know priests abuse children at an alarming rate, 

to continuously vote against their own interests and the interests of poor children, 

to keep letting them convince you that most of your tax money goes to people who cheat the system (well that part is true, but it’s not who they say it is, so let me rephrase), to let them convince you that individual people with drug problems are cheating the system when it’s really the wealthy people in power who are doing it, 

to let them convince you that Fox News Channel is real news and everything else is fake news, 

voting and bragging about voting for a vagina grabbing, disability mocking, labor cheating, bullying liar, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,

bending over backward to convince themselves and others that their vote for him was okay, 

supporting people who voted for a pedophile (to be fair, this is ingrained by many churches – see above reference to priests),

supporting Bret Kavanaugh and defending his hysterical outbursts while vilifying his accuser who was calm and rational, 

losing their minds when a liberal celebrity does something bad and keeping silent when a conservative does the same exact thing, 

worshiping a flag while ignoring the abuses of people of color, 

cutting the funding of a place women can go to get birth control so they won’t need an abortion, 

overlooking that fact because that clinic performs abortions,

fighting to keep sex education and birth control out of schools because they are afraid their daughters will use it to be promiscuous, which is also an unconscious excuse to cut funding for Planned Parenthood (don’t think much of their own daughters, do they?), 

fighting to make sure the unborn get born and then turning a blind eye to their plight…

Watching my female conservative friends and family doing all of these things and more is what has finally convinced me that females are inferior to men. At least some of us are. 

I pray that one day all females will learn to think for themselves. Until then, I will fight for us and I know my liberal friends, both male and female, will fight for us so that American women don’t all end up with our rights stripped away, new legislation about acceptable women’s clothing in public, and need the constant escort of a male family member to remain pure. 

P.S. Some of you may not realize this is satire, so rest assured, parts of it are. It is up to you to figure out which parts. If you need help, ask a liberal.

Women discussing women in 1961 - Australia

You know you want it!

Check out my recommended reading post at the top of the menu. I hope this blog helps you to create a more peaceful life. Keep in touch with the following methods: Use the links under the archive menu to subscribe or follow by e-mail. Help me get this message out by sharing it with your friends on social media! If you enjoyed it and were helped by it, they will, too! Write to me with your comments and questions at mindchange4all@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you. 

In Wealth We Trust

People with disabilities, their parents, their caregiver, and other loved-ones often lament about how, in a country seemingly built on Christian morals, our most vulnerable people are the first to be ignored and cut out of budgets when deficits are being reduced for “fiscal responsibility.” When you look at how and by whom our government was formed, you see a stark reality: that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people was never actually part of the agenda. An illusion was sold to Americans in the form of The Bill of Rights in order for the wealthiest Americans to take control and hold control in perpetuity. Class conflict is what Americans continue to accept as long as we continue to allow our current election process to remain in place. Politics is spiritual and very personal, and we the people need to take control, once for all, in order to truly have a more perfect Union of true equality and mutual satisfaction. 

The arcane and antiquated presidential election process, the electoral college, elected Donald Trump as president over the popular vote winner Hillary Clinton, in 2016. The same arcane, antiquated process elected John Quincy Adams over popular vote winner Andrew Jackson in 1824, Rutherford Hayes over popular vote winner Samuel Tilden in 1876, Benjamin Harrison over popular vote winner Grover Cleveland in 1886, and George W. Bush over popular vote winner Al Gore in 2000. 

That’s five times in America’s brief history that our own Constitution silenced the will of the American people. 

The only votes that mattered in any of these five elections were the majority votes in key states. And that’s exactly how our wealthy elite Founding Fathers wanted it. The number of elites compared to the masses of average means were few and they knew it. They did not trust the American people to elect someone of elite status to the presidency. 

Many of the things I am putting in this post from here forward are written in a book called A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. Some I have directly quoted, some I have paraphrased. The chapter I refer to is called A Kind of Revolution, and my information comes specifically from pages 90 to 99. The entire chapter, pages 77 to 102, is shocking! I highly recommend you read it. The parts I have borrowed from the book are in American Typewriter font. My own thoughts and words will remain in Georgia font.

In the early twentieth century, historian Charles Beard wrote about his view of our Constitution in his book, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution: 

Inasmuch as the primary object of a government, beyond the mere representation of physical violence, is the making of the rules which determine the property relations of members of society, the dominant classes whose rights are thus to be determined must perforce (inevitably)obtain from the government such rules as are consonant with the larger interests necessary to the continuance of their economic processes, or they must themselves control the organs of government.

In short, Beard said, the rich must, in their own interest, either control the government directly or control the laws by which government operates. When studying the history of our Founding Fathers, Beard found that, of the fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to draw up the Constitution, all were wealthy, land owners, slave owners, professionals in manufacturing or shipping, lawyers, had money loaned out at interest, and forty of them held government bonds. They each had financial interests in the articles that went into the Constitution and in the way elections were held in order to keep the wealthy in power. And he noted that four groups of people were not represented in the Constitutional Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women, and men without property. Beard did not feel the Founding Fathers wrote the constitution to benefit themselves personally, but rather to benefit the wealthy groups they represented.

But it did benefit them personally. And, the four groups of human beings that were not represented says a lot about the mindset of our Founding Fathers.

By 1780, resentment began to grow in western towns of Massachusetts against the legislature in Boston. The new Constitution of 1780 had raised the property qualifications for voting, they refused to issue paper money – as had been done in some other states such as Rhode Island – to make it easier for debt-ridden farmers to pay off their debts, and no one could hold office without being quite wealthy. In other counties, the local governments were holding court proceedings to seize the cattle of farmers who could not pay their debts, to take away their land, now full of grain and ready for harvest. Over the next several years, local sheriffs in other states, as well as Massachusetts, had to put together militias of men to guard the judges of these court proceedings because the locals were coming by the thousands, over and over again, to stop the courts from taking their properties. Many of the men who stood on the side of the farmers and rebels were veterans of the Revolutionary War who had been made promises after the war by the newly formed government; promises that went unkept. Fights broke out between the people and the legislators and courts, and properties of the wealthy were destroyed in efforts to gain some rights from a government who sought to keep its wealthy boot on the necks of the lower classes. 

It was the attitude of the wealthy aristocrats that the lower classes could not be trusted to choose their leaders or to make any decisions regarding the running of the government. 

Alexander Hamilton, at the Constitutional Convention, suggested that a President and Senate be chosen for life. He had this to say about the classes:

All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share of the government… Can a democratic assembly who annually revolve in the mass of the people be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.

The Convention did not take his suggestion on offices held for life, but it did not allow popular elections, either. Thus, the Constitution provided that Presidents be elected by an electoral college, and for the Supreme Court to be appointed by the President. 

In New York, there were fierce debates over ratification of the Constitution. This led to what is now known as the Federalist Papers which began as a series of newspaper articles written anonymously by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. Madison argued that to keep the peace a large republic ranging over thirteen states would make it more difficult “for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other…. The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States.”

But, whose peace did they actually intend to keep?

He spells it out, actually: “A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it.”Who had a rage for paper money? The masses. Who wanted an equal division of property? The masses. Who classified these desires as improper and wicked? The elite wealthy few.

Howard Zinn writes, “When economic interest is seen behind the political clauses of the Constitution, then the document becomes not simply the work of wise men trying to establish a decent and orderly society, but the work of certain groups trying to maintain their privileges, while giving just enough rights and liberties to enough of the people to ensure popular support.”

Isn’t that exactly what our wealthy politicians do to this very day? They keep things as unequal as possible between the elites and the average Americans by keeping us off kilter when speaking of our rights in campaign speeches during election cycles. They make us feel like we have some control, even though we actually have very little. They only need the popular vote in certain states during an election. They don’t need it everywhere. So, if they can keep us focused on our rights – like gun ownership, religion, free speech, etc. – and make us feel empowered, they keep winning and we keep losing. Even when we win, we lose because the fix was in right from the start. 

Madison, Jefferson, and Monroe belonged to the Democrat-Republican Party (no, I am not making that up), while Hamilton, Washington, and Adams belonged to the Federalist Party. Both parties agreed on the aims of this new government they were forming. Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers that this new Union would be able to “repress domestic faction and insurrection.”Which they feared due to the violent rebellions I included above.

In the Federalist Papers #63, someone – either Hamilton or Madison – wrote, “a well-constructed Senate is sometimes necessary as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions… there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn… In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?”

The wealthy slaveholders of the South and moneyed interests of the North worked together to give all the power to the wealthy and ensured that the middle class – the majority of Americans – helped them keep it. They sold this Constitution, and the protections it afforded to the wealthy elites, to the middle class through the writing of The Bill of Rights. Small property owners, middle-income mechanics, and farmers helped to keep the power out of the hands of the poorest whites, the blacks, and the Indians through their belief that the Bill of Rights would work to protect them.

Looking back at the last 200 plus years we can see how the rights of the average person are truly affected when the elite class has all the power. Most Americans today want protections and funding for people with disabilities, an increase in the minimum wage, the minimum wage tied to inflation, more protections in healthcare and their costs, common sense gun control laws (which we used to have, but they have been eroded for profit), but so far, the desires of average Americans have taken a backseat to the interests of the wealthy ruling class. They continue to pander to the wealthy insurance companies, corporations, the NRA, and Wall Street executives and continue to ignore the desires of the working class. This is, in part, a result of the American people allowing a special group of people to outweigh the popular vote, through the electoral college. We have amended the Constitution over time to give voting rights to women and black people. At times we have passed laws supposedly to ensure the rights of minorities. However, in recent years, with the continued elections of wealthy, white people into our government at all levels, and the growing numbers of minority populations in our country, we have seen efforts to erode the voting rights of minorities. 

The recent election is the most blatant example of how the electoral college hurts the masses of American people. Both candidates are very wealthy, but the electoral college gave the presidency to the one who is crude, rude, insulting, racist, and a mega-elitist, whom the American people clearly did not want to be governed by. And, this racist president, as well as the double election of the former president who happens to be black, has emboldened white, wealthy office-holders all across this country to enact legislation making voting much more difficult for the poorest Americans, many of whom are minority populations or have fallen into poverty due to the last giant recession. It has given more power to people who are more concerned with wealth than with the rights and welfare of our citizens. It has emboldened them to further erode protections we have gained in every facet of life. The American people voted for a person they felt more secure to protect their rights and personal liberties, but the electoral college ignored 3 million of those votes. Given that, it is really not difficult to understand how our loved ones with disabilities are so easily ignored by our government. 

The fact that the only candidates we ever get to choose from are wealthy says a lot about the election process designed by our wealthy Founding Fathers. For our government to truly be run by the people and for the people we need to elect candidates who are committed to abolishing the electoral college. This needs to be our single most important issue in the upcoming mid-term election, as well as the next several elections. Until we abolish the electoral college, we the people will continue to be governed by elites who have their own best interests at heart. 

#GreedIsTheEnemyOfThePeople

Check out my recommended reading post at the top of the menu. I hope this blog helps you to create a more peaceful life. Keep in touch with the following methods: Use the links under the archive menu to subscribe or follow by e-mail. Help me get this message out by sharing it with your friends on social media! If you enjoyed it and were helped by it, they will, too! Write to me with your comments and questions at mindchange4all@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you. 

Breaking Bad

            Wisdom tells us that everything is at it should be. It tells us that there are purposes to everything even though we can’t always see what it is. I used to think that when clergy members were asked why bad things happen and they gave the answer, we can never know God’s plan, that it is was a big load of BS. I now understand what they mean. There is a macro view of the world that we can’t see. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is a universal law. I don’t know if God’s handwriting is already written in the stars, as they say, but I believe that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Each person makes choices in life. Each choice comes with a consequence – good or bad – and it is all connected.  

“We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.” ~ Stephen Hawking

            My husband and I recently watched every episode of Breaking Bad in a three-week time span. When you watch a full series from start to finish so quickly, it becomes easy to see all of the things we can learn from the various events. Things that may not seem connected if viewed over a longer time period suddenly stand out as being completely connected. The connections between people – some of whom don’t even know each other exist – are startling. My husband and I were fascinated by the story as it unfolded, as well as the brilliant writing and acting. If you watched the series on television over a long period of time I would urge you to watch it again over a short period of time. You will be fascinated by what you notice. Seemingly random events are tied together as the results of decisions made by each character. Watching the whole series fast helps to keep every event in your mind so you can see how it all ties together. It is a truly fascinating, crazy and sometimes funny show.

            In case you have never seen it, the story is about a middle-aged man named Walter White and his much younger business partner, Jesse Pinkman. Walter is a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher who is turning fifty years old. He has a beautiful family; a loving wife who is pregnant with their second child and a teenage son who has Cerebral Palsy, and other family members who play prominent roles in his life. When the story opens we see Walter and Jesse in a crazy situation and we have to keep watching to find out what happens and how this craziness all came about in the first place. We learn that before this crazy situation started Walter learned some news that changed his life and the lives of his entire family. Rather, he changed their lives based on the ensuing choices he made. His rationale behind every choice is clear and on the surface seems justified, at least in his own mind. He sets aside right and wrong at every turn. He is clearly stuck in his head, unable to step back and take a look at the lies he tells himself. He justifies every action he takes as having good intentions towards his family. 

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” ~ Oscar Wilde

            As I watched the beginning of the story and Walter began to make some bad decisions and choices, even knowing some of the reasons he made those choices, I couldn’t help but wonder how he could justify some of the extreme behavior. It did not seem rational for him to make the leaps he made. Then we learn more information about his background and one more piece of the puzzle comes into view. Things from his past come to his awareness once again to help him justify his behavior in his own mind.

            We make a connection with the characters right from the start of the show. The writers use humor in some extreme situations that we would not normally find funny and this helps us to connect with the main characters. After all, you never want to think badly of someone you like. There are characters in the show that we should be completely sympathetic with; they do all the right things that we would expect them to do in society, but we do not sympathize with them because we already sympathize the main characters. We see the pain of the main characters much more clearly than the others. It is stunning when you realize that you have a different view than the one you normally would in a real-life situation. You find yourself wondering how you could root for the people you are rooting for! We respond to the main characters in the opposite way we normally would. However, we do that because we understand their rationale and the reasoning behind their actions. As you follow the story you can understand why Walter and Jesse think the way they think and how they justify their choices and actions. You get to know them and you get to like them. They are charming, funny, vulnerable, loving and they are relatable to the average person. You understand their hardships and you cheer their triumphs. You can see a little bit of yourself or someone you know in their characters. And that right there is one of our connections to every other human being on the planet.

            In our lives, we don’t get to know every other person that lives. We don’t see the world from the macro view and that makes it difficult to understand people’s behavior at times. We don’t get to see their lives unfold the way we do in a television show or movie. Usually, we know one little detail about a person – their huge mistake – and from that one detail we make a severe judgment. When someone does something wrong, or when someone has a bad attitude we don’t stop to think of what might have led them to become the person they are. We don’t stop to think about how they might be rationalizing it in their mind. We forget that the events we go through in our lives help to shape who we are and the choices we make. No one on earth can say they have made the right choice in every situation they have faced. However, even while knowing this, we are still quick to judge others for their mistakes. We never want to feel like we may be even remotely similar to someone who has made a huge mistake, especially when they have harmed people. 

            There are some people whose actions and choices we must deal with as a society and some choices are horrific. When horrific events occur we want immediate comfort. We are told, in the words of Fred Rogers, to look for the helpers. That is fine in the short term, but it does nothing for our society. It makes us feel good at the moment. And labeling the person as a monster does too, but it causes us to ignore the broader issue of what happened in that person’s life to get them to that horrific point in their life. If we remember that we don’t know the struggles of the person committing the offense and we examine our own choices as well as our sympathy for criminal characters in entertainment, we will stop seeing them as monsters, different from ourselves. You might think the only reason you feel comfortable liking and rooting for a criminal character on a show is because you know it’s not real. However, I will bet there has been a time when you judged someone’s actions and later discovered a little more about their background and felt some sympathy for them. When we know what someone has been through, empathy comes more easily. We can hold a person accountable for their actions while still recognizing that they are a person with a history we don’t know. We can acknowledge that given the same set of life circumstances we might have behaved the same way they did. You just never know. Of course, I am not saying we should suddenly condone and accept criminal behavior. I am saying we need to take a step back from our initial judgment of things that happen in our society and look at the history of the individuals involved. We should try to remember that we don’t know their full story. We may never know it, but this is one reason to suspend our judgment and look for reasons to show compassion. 

“You teach people how to treat you.” ~ Dr. Phil McGraw

            One of the things that stood out to me in Breaking Bad was that very few of the characters loved themselves. Many of the characters had low self-esteem and tried desperately to make themselves feel more worthy of respect and love. The one person that seemed to accept himself completely was Walter’s son. He spoke his mind and told the truth about how he felt in every situation. Walter, Jr. never sugar-coated his words. He has CP but it did not get him down. He felt no need to overcompensate for what others might see as his problems. There is a scene where some kids were making fun of him and he felt hurt by it, but he just tried to ignore them. He seemed to be the only character who understood that respect starts from within. If Walter or Jesse loved and respected themselves, they never would have gone to the lengths they did to get it from others. Walter had the love of his family, but that was not enough since he did not feel it for himself. He felt unworthy in his own mind because of events from his past and decisions he made in the past. He compared himself to others and felt that he lacked what they had achieved financially and professionally, never stopping to see the true abundance of love in his life. He felt stupid and small which caused him to try to build himself up. He rarely stood up for himself if a family member put him down, but he did not tolerate that behavior from his business associates. He was okay with his family not knowing how powerful he was, as long as he and others he did business with knew it. He taught each group how to treat him and he understood that, when it came to his business, but he refused to stand up for himself with his family, at least for most of the series.   

“The truth will set you free, but labor pains are involved.” ~ Iyanla Vanzant

            Walter lived a double life and had to put on a show in both worlds. In one world he had to be gentle and kind, acting as if nothing were different from before, but in the other world, he had to be ruthless – the complete opposite of how his family saw him. I found myself wanting him to behave in the appropriate way for every situation, for his own well being. This is what we do when we like someone. We make excuses or accept the excuses they give us, and we put up with a lot of bad behavior sometimes because we want them to be okay. We don’t want to make things harder for them by refusing to accept their excuses or to challenge them. We believe that by accepting it we are helping them, but the reality is that we are enabling them to self-destruct much more slowly than they would otherwise. We help them push the lesson they need to learn farther down the road. 

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

            The façade came naturally to Walter, but the other characters did not always have a good poker face. Behind closed doors, they fell apart and in some cases they fell apart right out in the open, causing others to question what was going on. When we do what we know is wrong, it affects us deeply. When we don’t really buy the excuses being made, either by someone else or ourselves, it takes a toll on our physical and psychological health. This is how the mind-body connection works. 

If we were all to simply act from love – doing the right, moral thing in the name of love – no matter how difficult it is, no matter how hurt someone might be at first, our lives would improve greatly. Initially, it would feel like self-destruction. During the destruction phase, the ego would start to go crazy second-guessing. The problem is we don’t always know the right thing to do. On the surface, one thing looks right, but looking closer, something else looks right. The trick is to keep the long term in mind, remembering that taking the easy way now won’t help someone later, and what will look like harm to them now will be the best thing for them later. Doing the right thing is hard for the ego. We live in short-term self-preservation mode. This is where faith comes in. The entire Bible shows us one example after another of people doing the wrong thing, the consequences of it, and then it shows someone doing the right thing and the miracles arising out of that. 

             A Course in Miracles says that a miracle is a shift in perception from fear to love. We must look past the fear of what might happen now and act with love for the long term. We cannot stand in the way of someone else’s miracle if we want our own miracles to happen. Marianne Williamson explains it much better than I:

“Just like the embryo turns into a baby and a bud blossoms, your life is already programmed in the mind of God to its highest creative possibilities. The blueprint is already there. It’s like a file in a computer. If my heart is not open I can’t download the possibility on earth as it is in heaven. It’s an undeletable file, but if I don’t bring it down to the screen, if I stay in bitterness, what I get on the screen is bitter. That doesn’t mean it’s not in the computer… It’s an undeletable file. The title of that file is God’s Will.”

The situations depicted in Breaking Bad are extreme examples. Other than standing by and watching someone hurt an innocent person, I believe God’s will is to allow every person to make their choices and mistakes, so God can best lead them to Love. Every person on this earth is doing the very best they can at the time. While it seems some are failing completely, they are on a path that only they can follow. As painful as it may be to watch or to live through, sometimes the most loving thing we can do for them is to get out of the way and let God handle it. 

Love to all!

Belong to the Truth

“Jesus speaks of those “who belong to the truth.” It is not something you say, but something you own. You belong to it. It is rooted in self-acceptance and open-hearted awareness.” Gregory Boyle in Barking to the Choir

We know the truth deep in our bones when we hear it or read it. We know it. It makes our heart soar with glee and our eyes beam with love. When it is a truth we are not comfortable with, that doesn’t fit our political or economic agenda, it feels like a stab to our heart or to our gut. This is when we let the false-self take over our thinking and look for, sometimes even conjure up in our own minds, a reason or reasons for it not to be true or at least for it to be acceptable to ignore. We don’t want to know that we have supported something bad. But, we still know. The truth knocks on the door of our heart each time we hear it and we must continue to bar the door, to be blind to it, to keep our Self from belonging to it.

Be one who belongs to the truth. Fight for the truth. No matter the cost to your ego. I know it hurts, but not for long. When you belong to the truth you are protected by peace. I know this because I had to fight my own ego so that my Self could belong to the truth. I still do sometimes. It gets easier. And I am at peace because I know that I belong to the truth. I will not allow my ego to tether me to a lie. Some of the truths I had to belong to were under Obama. He supported things that hurt innocent people, like TPP and Monsanto. I also had to be truthful with myself about the ways my political party has tricked me into supporting some things. And, so should you. It does not mean you are a traitor to your party. We cannot betray someone who was never loyal to your values. They have already betrayed your trust. No matter what party you support, they spin, they manipulate, they fear monger, they propagandize. “When we see clearly, we behave impeccably,” says Sylvia Boorstein, a Buddhist teacher.

You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything. People in politics like to use that sentence to make their bipartisan point. But an honest bipartisan sentence would go like this: When you stand for someone, you’re likely to fall for anything. We put party and politicians over policy in politics, but it is the policy that should matter, not the party or the politician. Your true Self knows good policy when you hear it. Often, our ego distracts us from that truth with, “Yea, but…” What is happening right now in our country, in this administration, has happened before in history here and around the world. These same types of events led to some horrific, murderous, genocidal acts. We can change the trajectory, but we all must belong to the truth in order to do that. Stop turning a blind eye to suffering children. Stop making excuses for it and other things this president is doing. James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Let your heart face it.

Belong to the truth. 

Check out my recommended reading post at the top of the menu. I hope this blog helps you to create a more peaceful life. Keep in touch with the following methods: Use the links under the archive menu to subscribe or follow by e-mail. Help me get this message out by sharing it with your friends on social media! If you enjoyed it and were helped by it, they will, too! Write to me with your comments and questions at mindchange4all@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.