AFTER THE OUTRAGE COMES SOMETHING EERILY CALM

Four elements of a non-violent revolution

Fotograzia

According to Heather Cox Richardson today, there’s a “newly created Economic Defense Unit (EDU) in the Defense Department. The EDU is directing government investment in private sector defense contractors and has cut deals for the government to start taking equity stakes in those businesses.”

So it’s no longer just the usual suspects of defense contractors — Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), General Dynamics, Boeing — making money on this war. They will of course make fortunes replenishing the supply that we’re exhausting in Iran, repairing what’s been broken, etc. But now the government itself — i.e. the cabal that’s currently running this country — will themselves have an equity stake in the madness. Don Jr. and Eric have also gotten in on the business opportunity, selling drone interceptors to Gulf countries being hit by Iran.

Trump is a businessman, as we all know, and there’s no bigger business opportunity than the U.S. war machine. His “dream military” after all has a yearly budget of $1.5T. In the old days all this would have been called war profiteering - which is illegal of course - but those days are over.

Registered to vote yet?

I remember years ago when people started saying the government should be run like a business. First of all, no it should not; it should be run like a healthy family. And secondly, what kind of business? A righteous one, or an immoral unfettered con? Makes a difference.

Of course, the government should be spending American taxpayer money in legal, ethical and appropriate ways. It’s probably a good thing at this point to remember that no major part of the U.S. Defense Department has ever passed an audit. But hey, let’s give them half a trillion dollars more, shall we? One of the more ridiculous claims of this administration is that it’s going after fraud, when in fact the President himself has been convicted of numerous counts of fraud and is pardoning fraudsters at an alarming rate. And secondly, this administration is a fraud. Most importantly, it has fraudulently claimed to serve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. From violating the separation of powers to impounding appropriated funds to attacking the press to withholding citizens’ due process to prosecuting illegal war and more — instead of protecting the Constitution, it is ripping it up.

The corruption in American politics has gone from a contained cancer, which it has been for years, to a full body diseased condition. Watching virtuous Congresspeople, Democrat as well as Republican, trying yet failing to withstand the current assault on every pillar of freedom our government is supposed to represent, has put millions of us in a state of shock. After the shock comes outrage. After the outrage comes something almost eerily calm. “Okay, it’s happening. Now what do we have to do?”

And that’s where things get tricky. Obviously we need to wrest as much control from this administration as possible with our votes in November, but it will take more than that to address the deeper elements of what’s gone wrong in this country. As we’re all aware, Trump didn’t come out of nowhere. He’s merely the tip of a spear and unless we deal with that, then just removing the tip wouldn’t matter all that much in the long run. Our Supreme Court and both houses of Congress are now split into two categories: the kneecapped, and the complicit. Either way, they cannot now be counted on to protect us.

As I’ve been saying for a while, it’s our turn now. We the People need to stand up and keep standing. We can take upon ourselves a four-pronged, integrative approach to the struggle at hand.

1. Understand the larger arc of history that’s taken us to this point. Just today, I saw this comment on my YouTube page:

I am currently reading her book The Healing of America. I realize that if I’d read it when it was first published in 1997, I would have dismissed it as alarmist. Now I know that I was living in lala land and unable to see the true direction that the country was headed. How unfortunate that so many others were like me then.

I replied to her that soon I will be hosting a book study on my book HEALING THE SOUL OF AMERICA. You might want to purchase it, or check it out of your local library, so can read it before we do the class. We’ll provide details after next week’s online Town Hall.

2. Prepare your internal self for the work at hand. As Gandhi taught in his lessons on political non-violence, “self-purification must precede political action.” What’s happening today is an attack not only on our institutions but also on our nervous systems, and cultivating our personal capacity to endure this moment is necessary if we’re to transform it. Whether you’re doing the daily meditations here on Substack, or doing any other spiritual, reflective, or meditative practice, the work to strengthen our attitudinal muscles is as important as any other form of political activity. Only a whole-person, holistic, integrative approach to this moment will be powerful enough for democracy to prevail. Among other things, spiritual practice will increase your intuitive ability to discern the part that you can best play in the unfolding process of our political repair. When Gandhi was asked to name the leader of the Indian Independence movement, he responded, “the small still voice within.”

3. Involve yourself now in the coming elections. The obvious political work is right in front of us, as every American can vote for a member of the House of Representatives this November, and a third of us can vote for a Senator. Remember this from Abraham Lincoln: “While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years.”

   With enough work, we can win back both houses of Congress. We need to remember that the President and his minions are already at work trying to rig this election, and only a massive showing at the polls will be able to override their efforts. Above all, make sure you’re registered. Do it now!!

4. Stay informed. Information is power. After meditating each day, I scan Heather Cox Richardson and other sources as well in order to stay on top of the news. It’s important not to ignore what’s happening, but equally important not to allow ourselves to spiral down emotionally. If you’ve watched two or three ICE videos, you don’t need to watch ten more. We all know what’s happening, and each of us is only asked to do the part that we ourselves feel called to do to respond effectively to these times. None of us are alone in this. We are part of a matrix of healing, organized on an invisible plane by nature itself. Think of yourself as one cell in the immune system now rushing in to heal our body politic. None of us can afford to sit out our part in this, but it’s the entirety of the system that accomplishes the task.

If on any day it all just seems too much, that’s okay too. Binge watch Downton Abbey or something. But then come back. Friends don’t let friends sit out this moment.

One more thing. Late in his life, my father had a weak heart. We were told by doctors that because he’d been so in shape earlier in his life, particularly as a soldier in WW2, his body had formed a kind of alternative set of capillaries then compensating for the system that was otherwise damaged. And that’s what we’re doing now. We’re forming an alternative field of possibilities that will compensate for those now being blocked. Whatever would be the opposite of a shadow government, we’re it.

Get on it.