It's been years since I've felt this ambivalent regarding a national election.
Yes, my left-leaning ways supports our President and, really, I am so tired of all the circle talk,
of all systems that don't work, of an antiquated bi-partisan system, and of a values system that merely perpetuates a dominant paradigm of profits over people. No thank you - I'll veto all of it.
Do I still believe that buying into this system and using it as a means to create real change is a way forward?
I don't know - truth be told. It seems that each time I've entered into situations with a positive intention to help affect a shift - even though my intuition tells me that it just ain't gonna happen - the only help that happens is me helping myself. Usually it sounds like a huge, resounding "NO!" that encourages me to get out and do my own thing - "For goddess sakes!" and "Finally!" I'm trusting that, this time around, I am actually listening.
So, my 79-year-old father is sitting here, with Fox News blaring, as he takes in all of the narcissistic propaganda. Whenever we all gather together for the holidays, he always respects my wishes to not inundate our collective Bodymind with this fear mongering. However, I am now at his house and I believe in mutual respect. My 71-year-old mother is preparing for work - a 14-hour graveyard shift at the same hospital that she has spent the past 30-years nursing at. My parent's old school ways have always amazed me. Our relationships are deeply flawed and, yet, there are some things I must accept that I cannot change. San Diego will remain a home base for me so long as they remain in this house that I grew up in.
Perhaps, I need to apply this same logic to our political system, yet I'd like to believe that the people who first began the ways of this country did so with the full knowledge that change is the only constant we can rely on. And, that transformation is not just a basic need - it's a dire necessity. My rallying cry for this election year of 2012 is that we scrap all of it, altogether - it simply doesn't work. We need to begin anew and we need to begin by acknowledging that how we began wasn't just - we mass murdered the millions of people who were already here on this continent and then we stole people from exotic lands to help grow this one. One way forward is by honoring the grave mistakes of our past. Otherwise, we may just perpetuate - in our homes and in our hearts - that which we say we fight against elsewhere. True lasting change begins here, now - there is no other way.
