Light the Fear

I Am My Brother's Keeper; I am My Sister's Keeper

"Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease.  From the least to the most important event, the affection and respect we have for others are vital to our own happiness."  --Dalai Lama

America is for EVERYONE

They call us un-American, but I think the GOP conservatives are truly the un-American ones with their desires to legislate morality in direct conflict with the most fundamental and basic rights granted by the Constitution: life, liberty and the pursuit of individual happiness.  

I also think McCain is a hero, and I was a fan of his before this general campaign really disappointed me with the people he choose to run his campaign, the topics and tactics they took and especially the repeated, repeated use of gay people and minorities as "the enemy" rallying cry to feed their angry crowds hate and fear.

Some of the videos of people outside the GOP rallies truly scared me, and how those dangerous people react is going to be the key to our collective ability to save our country.  If God calls you to be a moral person, you should work to make our world more moral in the individual decisions people in tough places are making and not abstractly in limiting existence (which you can't) or limiting behaviors you don’t like (which you doubly can't!)

Reducing people's rights and using minorities as targets or examples of our enemies or "terrorist" collaborators—like the GOP regularly does, is not right, and I don't think John McCain has ever agreed with any of that.  The people around him did him a disservice to his legacy, and I hope he lasts and has interest to stay in govt long enough to restore his reputation.

Whether gay Americans, Muslim Americans or black, white, green, red, yellow Americans, the tear-inducing beauty of my country to me is that we already are the world's melting pot.  A lot of white, Christian America doesn’t not like this, and some of them openly want "their America," but they need to read the Constitution.  "Their America" is not in that document because the founding fathers were smart enough to understand that in a diverse society of many, we must all, above all and first, support the independence of the Government from control by any one religion or group.

America is a test if humans can love and live together, or hate and die together.  If we pass, the world may live and gain sustainability, and if we fail, I fear tears and bloodshed are ahead for anyone left alive.

We are the grand experiment of the coming global community that the Earth has become—like it or not.  We cannot go backwards, and the enlightened principles of freedom and equality under one State AND a separation of religions and civic rule are critical to ensure a safe and secure future for ALL Americans.  The angry, bitterly divisive alternative is one of war, violence, separation into racial, economic and "lifestyle" camps, and the country we will leave our children will not be one worth having as it will be full of such fear, debt and crime.

Instead, I think a pretty big majority (for our bitterly divided electorate) stood up for a leader whom they think (or hope) represents the best of that "real America," the America that is in the Constitution, and they are strengthened by the steady hand of a cool leader who is smart, deliberative and committed to ALL Americans and not just his unconstitutional social agenda, big donors or the wealthy class of which he is a member.

One startling metric of the election to me is found in the issue of taxes.  McCain and the GOP use taxes with the common people to try and demonize Democrats as "socialists" or "redistributors of the wealth," and yet in this election, the people who make $250,000 a year, the only people whose taxes go up under Obama's plan, the people who would get much, much, much better tax treatment under McCain, they voted for Obama 62%!!!

What does this say?  To me, it says that even those who are right now being asked to help feel some more tax pain for the benefit of the nation are in overwhelming majority (me included!) saying, "Hell Yeah, I'm doing fine, I'll pay a little more to help with poverty and healthcare and education."  For anyone who thinks of "the big picture," this is a no-brainer because a consumer-driven economy cannot function if the basic average consumer cannot afford the basics of living.

Some may call it socialism, but I call it Effective Democracy, when the State uses the taxes (wealth) it is already collecting and spends it on things and in places that benefit the majority of the people in the society (spreading it around).  The is the highest and best purpose of government. 
If we are to live on this planet without destroying it or each other, we must design our economies and cultures to support the most efficient distribution of the necessities of life, food, shelter, healthcare, and education., and we must protect ALL citizens’ rights to individual freedom and due process.

We have lived shortsighted in the past, and especially in the recent past.  Spending and spending, exploiting and destroying the environment, all the while knowing this cannot last, knowing we are using a system our grandkids certainly cannot use because it is so out of kilter with sustainability.  We need to change that, and change it fast I fear if we are to have any hope...can it be done? 

<Getting down off my soap box>

I don't know if it can, but I have hope for the first time in a long time, and I have young friends and family who have the chance to live for the first time in your adult lives under a President that doesn't throw away our best laws, values and traditions to do what he personally thinks is best justified by some external threat to the State, and instead we will now see a President who respects the office, respects the Constitution and respects the Nation enough to tell us the truth.

Many in this family and this nation disagree with me, and some think they have the right to define morality in law.  They believe Christians have the ONLY path to God and salvation, and I guess anything is excusable to them in that kind of a "holy war" and with that exclusive endorsement by the almighty. 

They don't see how very illegal and UNAmerican their views are, they think their personal conduit to God is so exclusively correct, that it justifies ignoring or rewriting the equality and freedom out of our Constitution.  They do not value the continuing independence of our State, but want to create a Christian government that enforces their view of God’s laws.

But that's not me, and it never will be.

As I get older, and without my own kids (thankfully, really!:-) I find myself more impassioned to fight for a government that respects and protects ALL.  As I see the amazing beauty of my nieces, nephews, and now all the kids they are making too, I want us to leave them a world working well together, not fighting and dividing and seeking to exploit the worst in each other instead of lift up the best in each other.

"Some say I am a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.  I hope someday you'll join us (although I know you already have!), and the world will live as ONE."

The Triumph of Hope, The Challenge of Love

America is emerging from a long brutal Presidential election that pitted the politics of hope against the politics of fear, and with the election of our first non-white President, hope has triumphed in America. 

Fear was marginally set aside in some places and dramatically set aside in others as Americans came together to create a landslide of those who believe in the promise of our great nation, who are dedicated to work for a future we still believe can be ours and to reject the division of our diverse peoples into separate camps of race and gender and religion. 

Hope has triumphed, but love still has many great challenges ahead.  Fifty-three percent of us may be celebrating this victory, but at least forty-six percent of our fellow Americans are troubled and worried what this next President will mean for them and their loved ones.  Love is challenged to quell their fears, to stir their hope and to bring us all back together again as one nation under many visions of God.

Love is challenged to reconcile those who are still gripped by fear.  Love is challenged to bring all Americans under the fold of this new movement of hope, to see our shared possibilities through the lens of the best that can be and not the worse that can be.  Love is challenged to mend the families, friendships, businesses and private groups of citizens that have been divided in their choice of candidate, but ultimately unified in their great love and commitment to our nation of the people, by the people and for the people.

Barack Obama is a great American, but around the world, he is even more than that.  He is a symbol of the return of the American Dream, a rejection of the unilateral “go-it-alone” American foreign policy of the Bush Administrations and a demonstration that especially in America it doesn’t matter who you are, but what you do most of all—that anyone among the world’s poor and disenfranchised can work hard and rise to power to change their world.

At home, President-elect Obama is celebrated by many of us as the greatest example yet of the American dream of hard work, self-reliance and equality among all regardless of race, creed, color, orientation or origin.  Yet Obama is also feared by many Americans, unsure of him and perhaps taken in my negative propaganda or outright lies. 

But today and tomorrow can be very different from yesterday if we can but let yesterday go and focus on today.  Today and tomorrow are about our NOW vibration, and we have complete control over that.  You have complete control over that, and each moment we all make the choice to engage our fear, or to quell it, to reject our natural tendencies to love or to embrace and express them.

As someone who feared and yes, even hated the past eight years, I understand what it feels like to have a President that you do not agree with, do not relate to because of his policies, attitudes or upbringing, and yet over that time my heart has learned time and again that no matter who is in charge of the White House, we each have a choice to love or to hate, to hope or to fear.

Last minute, I was in Ohio as a voter protection volunteer for the Obama campaign on Election Day, and I was honored to do my very small part to help elect Barack Obama.  Some fear him as a secret agent for America’s enemies, while others raise the stakes to make him some kind of evil Anti-Christ, and yet those who invest in their fear so much say so much more about themselves than they do about Barack Obama.

We each must look inside and challenge our fears with hope, challenge our hate and discrimination with love.  Barack Obama is just one person, as I am just one person, and you are just one person.  We each always have a choice: to love or to fear, to act in anger or to act in positivity, to believe in the best or actualize the worst.

Hope will never eradicate fear, like love will never have any meaning without hate, and yet the triumph of hope in this election ignites a beacon for all Americans, for all people of the world.  Although we face many challenges, I am confident that love is on the rise and the powers of truth and light will always prevail in the end.

Believe in yourself, seek guidance from your Gods and be kind to your fears, but do not indulge them.  If we can do this together, I know hope will provide all the fuel we need to face our challenges with love.