On Wholeness

This week has been a fine reminder of the potential drift of America toward internal violence. American soldiers posing with the body parts of slain militants. Rep. Alan West of Florida, saying there are 78-81 registered communists among congressional Democrats. The aging rocker Ted Nugent, raging against Obama, hinting at potential armed conflict in the event of an Obama re-election.

I think Obama is a fake Democrat, as imperialist as any President in recent memory, as intolerant as Bush, or maybe even more intolerant of internal dissent, if his raiding of marijuana dispensaries and enthusiastic support for drug testing, are a sign. What is astounding though, is the way the Right acts as if he is the first President who ever treated the Constitution with indifference. Does any one of them remember the Patriot Act? If there ever was an evisceration of first principles, that was it. But Bush gets a free pass from the Right, while Obama gets the same, from the estimated 45% of registered voters who support him, for his willingness to codify the detaining of Americans indefinitely, without trial. Such is the poison of ideology, that it blinds us to at least half of the truth.

Does anyone think our boys weren't going to go to the dark side, some of them, with us treating war like it will have no end? Those young men with their calloused souls will be coming home, you know. Many of them, having participated in atrocities, are home. Has anyone else noticed how local police very recently have come to look like an occupying military, whenever a gunman is about, or maybe just angry college kids or liberals?

Alan West gets to say what he says, because he was a soldier, and he continues to serve as such for the GOP, dividing with the intent to conquer. Joe Scarborough called him on it, but the Right's take on that was, Joe was just being “mischievous.” Never mind that America has a long history of red scares and the rounding up and incarcerating unconstitutionally, of anyone perceived to be a threat to the existing established power. It's hard to tell, if the Communist charge has any pull anymore, North Korea being about the only true communist country left, the midget fiefdom (China being more laissez faire capitalist than America by a long shot.) But my guess is, the harder the economy gets for blue-collar America, the thicker the kool-aid will be. There is at least one Facebook friend I have, downing heavy doses, with talk-radio IV's.

As for Ted: thanks, jackass. Stirring up the rednecks. If all hell breaks loose and “patriots” start killing “democrats”, I'll be sure to tell my niece and nephew, you have their best interests in mind.

I was reminded how important the left and the right are, today, setting nails in some trim-work I've been working on for a friend, and mudding sheet-rock. The left half and right half of my body are very different, the right side dominant, to a fault. I was a baseball player, and so much of the manual labor I've done, deformed me in a way, so much attention focused on my right side. That too is where most of my interior physical tension and pain reside. When I'm in a groove, as I have been on the project the last two days (on the last of my special brownies), I switch the hammer back and forth intentionally, from right to left. Too, with the mudding tools. That is when I feel the most dignity in the work I do, when I'm feeling the most balanced. I truly enjoy labor, when I'm conscious about it that way, singing and dancing as I work.

America is like that, dominant to a fault on the Right, practically unconscious on the Left. Totally balanced in it's imbalance, and not at all aware of it, most acting as if we cut out half the body, we will somehow heal. Conservatives used to care about the dignity of work. So did Democrats. Now, nearly everybody wants to get rich without working, or at least, the pay scale of empire is inverted, those working the least making the most. Collecting interest is not work, but there isn't anything more esteemed than money. When the money's gone, about 5% of America is going to remember how to work. The rest it appears, are going to go about the process of killing each other, or just dying. Or so I imagine. Maybe there are more people than I think, waking up to the reality that ideology is a tool of control, and while we are busy raging against the evil Other within, the country is being looted by the establishment, as the American empire is approaching it's expiration date. It's hard not wanting a savior to save us from ourselves, but no savior is needed if one is whole. And there is no harder work than being whole.