As I am resting in my own confusion at the moment, refusing to be swayed by even the best of writing, waiting for my own view to emerge, fragments of visions appear.
Resting in my own confusion. You see, I have no great position of power so I can freely confess I don’t know what to make of the country of which I am a citizen.
I’ve written a little bit about freedom of information — that accountability is not just catching crooks and putting them in jail, but allowing the citizens of this country to be truly informed. We have become a wierd mix of incredible secrecy in the halls of power, be they government or private business and no privacy allowed for the rest of us.
That can’t be good.
I have no doubt that the Obama Administration will do everything they can to get as much information as they can about what has gone on these past eight years. They really don’t have any choice, after all. Each member of Obama’s cabinet will inherit a big giant awful stinky mess. Consider the EPA, just as the first thing that came to mind. Not only will whoever heads the EPA have to deal with the climate crisis and the effects of all the deregulation that has gone on while corporations have basically set policy for that Department, they will also have to confront criminal acts, at the very least politicization of the Department (a’la the DOJ) and at most … well I shudder to think.
This mix of criminality, corruption and incompetence will be quite a challenge.
My question, though, is whether or not they will share all this information with the rest of us.
I think that’s a very important issue. We can’t make informed decisions as citizens if we are not informed.
And then of course there is the private sector, all those banks and insurance companies and other financial institutions. Will we ever find out how the bail-out money has already been spent, what has gone on in those corporations that have affected us all, the decisions that have been made in an environment of almost complete power, will we ever find out what our business communities have done – not only to punish criminals (and who can forget Enron and Ken Lay? Who can forget jacking the price of oil around in California and the resulting loss for Gov. Grey Davis, and now California has The Terminator?) but to punish incompetence. See, even if you haven’t committed a crime, there is a type of accountability that comes into play when gross incompetence or corruption is shown. It’s called being fired. And shareholders around the country (401(k) anyone?) will have to make decisions, and they will need information to do so.
Well that’s one fragment. Another is on a cultural level and is affected by business and government, but ultimately is stronger than both.
I don’t like the visions that arise from the word “unity.” Strange, I know, because that’s a great word and a great meaning.
We are a diverse country. And somehow the word “harmony” … and the word “solidarity” …. comes to mind when trying to describe this fragment of vision, that we must gather together, but we do not yet have the full information to know what to “unify” around. Seems the gathering will take place first. And the “unity” will be of action, not of culture. Well that’s a tiny fragment, I know, veering into political mysticism.
So I’m resting in my confusion, not trying to rush the visions from appearing, taking it in, reading the work of others, checking out the scene, jelly bean.
(“Jack Kerouac, American Haiku,” courtesy of YouTuber gothgod – recorded with jazzmen Al Cohn and Zoot Sims.)
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… weekend.
The only thing I am absolutely confident is my lack of clarity in this ever expanding spider web of political sludge that nobody will be able to turn into something edible.
Am I a passive observer standing outside of the spider web? Am I the meal? Is the web beautiful or terrible?
Pure gold!
my soup.
Do I need any further proof that I don’t control the universe?
stuck between hope and the need to know. WTF is going on. Is it change I can believe in or just another heart breaker. I don’t know, politics can’t tell me it’s just a pack of lies disguised as policy, or a transition, or a coalition or whatever the powers in control? choose to call this historic? election. It seems to me a mishmash of politics gone before from Reagan on. Clintonites mixed with Reaganites mixed with Obamites. My unification is based on a really crazy intuitive mix, hope, and (I hope) clear vision as I do know a bamboozle when I see one.
Will this unity of all, the mix, bi partisan include justice or even an end to the endless politics of nothingness the one that makes us all just a big mosh pit of reactionary directions and distractions continue. The greatest Bamboozle yet, the next one that just takes us back? Who knows at this point who cares. I did what I could and am so depleted that I await the result. Will we won’t we join he dance? Not in any ones hands other then the one we picked the ‘Change’ that will occur or not.
There is so much going on left and right and in between, and Obama isn’t even in yet! Hyper speculation — nerve-wracking. I feel that no matter what Obama does, says, etc., he will be victimized. I just hope that he stays the course of his original intentions, for his own sake and for ours. I believe and know that he is already facing tremendous pressures from the “right center and/or right right.” It was to be expected. But we have too, too many urgent issues to be dealt with and the pressures of those “with hurt feelings” should be set aside to deal with these urgent matters.*
*Personally, do I care about the hurt feelings of criminals?
it means that your model of what’s sensible is wrong.
Like most of us, you probably got your model from our inherited teachings and history.
Well, they’re wrong.
Too bad it’s November; if only it were May-July, I could send you outside every day or two to wait for a cold front to come through.
That’s where we are. A whole new wind is blowing, everything we’ve gotten used to thinking about ourselves, our country, how things work, the general climate–is about to be blown away by the gust front.
Clear your halyards, don your life jackets, make ready with the anchor, take your bearings, watch that blue-black sky to the west. Watch the blurry mist rushing in, that’s the storm front. Here it comes.
…and thank you for putting Questioning Transphobia on the blogroll. Or to whomever did so after our conversation the other day. Or both…
I clicked in to see that they’d taken up a collection for Duanna Johnson’s funeral. They made the amount, and more.