Snapshot of the week: My two in bloom orchids and The Gold (angelfish,) and Archie the swordtail looking forward.
Now for some Political Mashinations:
If the general election were held tomorrow with the two expected running, I’d vote for Biden. I think he has done well in many areas, not least of which he has good character in contrast to who he is likely running against.
My reservations are not so much for Biden’s age. That is an issue but a broader one relating to the steadfastness of babyboomers and older, which affects all of the branches of government. The reason I say it isn’t an issue for Biden is, the first names that popped in to my head of who my ideal candidates would be are Bernie Sanders and Noam Chompsky who is in his ’90s. We are just in a weird time.
In my opinion, there are a lot of things Biden has done which have been very good, like all the newly fixed roads in my local area, and the return to a civil discourse in comparison to his predecessor is refreshing. At no point would I ever have voted for Trump. I respect him as a human being, but he shouldn’t be in power. He seems to me like Boromir who successfully stole the ring from Frodo for awhile. (I am reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy and just finished The Fellowship of the Ring. I couldn’t resist.)
What makes me nervous is the return of 80’s cold war antics which seemed to start right when Biden was elected. Maybe he is reacting to things he didn’t have a hand in causing. Maybe they were organic events of the world. Maybe the previous president played a role I don’t know about. I don’t claim to know enough about some aspects of foreign policy to have a strong opinion, but I pray to God (sometimes literally) that dynamics take the world into peace not escalated war.
I am an individual who is almost a pacifist who was raised in one of the hearts of the war industry in the US. (Colorado Springs) I say one of them because there are so many. I value each soul who serves, but we could have evolved our country to be more peace corp and diplomacy oriented rather than bomb-leading and hawkish over the last 50 years. I think that and only that makes us actually more safe. I guess I am in the minority with my point of view because here we are.
When I sat in front of the ballot I paused to reflect on where I stood in relationship to the people running. I was wondering why except for Marianne Williamson and Joe Biden I didn’t know a soul on the Democratic list. I like Marianne Williamson very much and nothing I have heard her say I disagree with. However, I knew in the general she wouldn’t win and could possibly be a spoiler which is a dynamic that seems to come up a lot in this crazy two party system.
I wrote in Mark Barden in on the Democratic ballot even though there was no write in line. As a Sandy Hook dad, he reluctantly presses forward along with all fighting the same cause for the same reason (way too many.) It is a cause they never asked for and never wanted. As they fight to hold in tears to say their case over and over again, they seem to me to be the real version of Jesus in our country. They represent something real to humanity, something viscerally heart-felt which affects us all, and yet their efforts all too often are countered by big money and legalized bribery (lobbying.) They stand for what I perceive to be one of the most pressing problems of our time.
Of course, my little vote was more a statement than a serious vote since I knew Biden would win handily. Us Independents can do weird things like that which is why I am proud to be one. Mother Teresa would make a lousy U.S. president. I would too for the same reason. At its core the U.S. president, especially now, seems to be a custodial military position to hand out arms for the endless military industrial complex. My strengths and interests exist in other areas, and I have found life is best when you stick to what you do best.
Thankfully, it is not all up to me anyway. I trust my fellow country-people. The tides of pop culture politics spin dizzyingly quickly especially if you ingest too much television, but there is a rational core operating more intelligently and methodically. I will continue to read and educate myself and play my part because I know my point of view and vote is important. I will respect the end vote because I know all other views are also equally important.
When you turn on the television, it appears this country is very divided. I have not experienced that in real life. I have experienced a lot of wonderful human beings who care about one another and help each other. When arguments break out, it often is because of differing opinions depending on which TV network fills their minds and point of view. I think the most common phase on TV network news as of late is “This country is so divided.”
Seems to me, a lot of that is coming from newcasters who don’t have a clue how the population they cover really thinks… not really. They shove microphones in a lot of faces, but a lot of it is surface for sound bites for their own political horse-race games. They must have the political ideology of their employers to remain in their positions. So then the question becomes who are their employers and what ideological interests do THEY represent?
This doesn’t describe all of the reporters. I appreciate good, solid, insightful, researched, compassionate reporting. They are needed for the system to work and it seems many of the best ones come under fire in our current system. The public needs to be represented, and the public needs to know what is going on.
My personal experience is at the core we are all in harmony. In our cores, we all want similar things which above all includes peaceful co-existence with our fellow humans. Lets hope we can continue to work toward manifesting that in the country and in the world.