In anticipation of challenges to my assertion that our political dichotomies – especially the liberal/conservative, blue-red divide – are illusions, I offer the following references:
3. The story of the first pro-life and pro-choice activist dialogue done by the Public Conversations Project http://co-intelligence.org/S-beyondabortiondebate.html in which participants were invited to confidentially discuss the “grey areas” where they weren't FULLY comfortable with the archetypal public position of their “side”, but with which they compromised in order to be politically effective. What emerged was a full spectrum of different perspectives on abortion, not just two.
President Obama said in his 2012 victory speech that “we are not as divided as our politics suggests”. He also argued that we are more united than our politics makes us think we are. Finally, he hinted that we are more diverse than our politics suggests. All of these are important truths.
However, President Obama failed to take the next step, the step that would make all the difference in the world, the step we must make through which we come to recognize how changing our political system will enable us to creatively use both our diversity and our common ground to generate public wisdom.
It is painful to watch the thrashings and lurchings of our quasi-democratic country, particularly during the spectacle of a presidential election. Our political system takes our vast diversity and, with tremendous verbal and ideological violence, mashes it down into two opposing forces. At the same time, it splits our vast common ground and fences it off to separate and solidify those two opposing armies.
After all, it is far easier to win a victorious majority if there are only two options, two sides, two ways of looking at the world. If there are three – or, heaven help us, thousands – winning a majority suddenly seems impossible to achieve.
Yet those two options, those two sides, those two worldviews are false – always. The passionate dichotomies that seems so solid to us as the warlike electoral fervor grows are mirages, hallucinations, cloud shadows. The categorical flags around which we rally, the castle boxes into which we gather in solidarity are simply not real; they do not stand up to close scrutiny, any more than the generalizations of racism and sexism do. They seduce us into the thrall of potent and degrading oversimplifications of who we are and how we think and feel and what is really possible for us as a people, as a community, as a world. They are prisons masquerading as knowledge and power.
Germany financial architecture is under stress. If Germany fractures, Euro is gone. Could the US alleged theft of 1500 metric tons of German gold be part of the problem? Could this make the IMF August 2012 working group memorandum on The Chicago Proposal Revisited a “must do”?
The decision of the voters in Washington and Colorado to legalize and regulate marijuana much like alcohol, and the passage of medical marijuana in Massachusetts balanced by rejection in Oregon and Arkansas, I believe, is the beginning of the end of Prohibition. This issue is also going to become a significant part of the growing trend of schism amongst the bio-regions, I believe.
Social progressives should step forward and say, “You know, you guys on the right are correct.” We too embrace states rights.
Washington State and Colorado made history tonight by becoming the first states in the United States – to approve the legal regulation of marijuana.
The United States is frittering away its role as a model for the rest of the world. The political system is plagued by an absurd level of hatred, the economy is stagnating and the infrastructure is falling into a miserable state of disrepair. On this election eve, many Americans are losing faith in their country's future.
“Without twelve toss up states (MN, NV, CO, IA, WI, MI, OH, PA, NH, VA, NC, AND FL), Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are tied at 191 each.
“I predict Mr. Romney will win FL (29), NC (15), VA (13), NH (4), OH (18), IA (6), CO (9) and Mr. Obama will get MN (10), NV (6), WI (10), MI (16), PA (20).
“This brings Mr. Romney to 285 Electoral College votes and Mr. Obama to 253.
A brief overview of the Open-Source Science Paradigm and the Corrupt Closed-Minded Establishment it is attempting to overturn. I appreciate you taking an interest.
