money Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

We can’t be as chill as Cletus about this – Photo: L. Weikel

Put Up or Shut Up

Well, the jury’s still out on whether we’ll achieve any kind of a meaningful breakthrough in the Senate to protect voting rights. The latest I heard was that there’s an effort underway to at least bring back the ‘talking’ filibuster for matters pertaining to constitutional issues. This could also be known as the ‘put up or shut up’ amendment to the rule creating the filibuster. It’s not enough, but it’s about time we demand that any Senator who wants to join in a filibuster must stand and deliver some defense of their position.

I find it quite appalling that this could have such a dramatic effect on our esteemed Senators. Seriously – what do we send these people to Congress for if not to show up and vote? Or show up and explain their reasons for not voting for something?

It galls me when cameras slip up and we realize that what we’re watching on the television (such as an impassioned floor speech or two) is being delivered to a nearly empty chamber. Most of these Senators and Representatives deliver speeches to an almost empty room. Why? Where is the respect for their colleagues? Where is the respect for the institution itself?

I know. I’m letting my idealism show again.

Major Overhaul

It just seems as though we’re being shown in a myriad of ways how broken our system is and how cynical those who represent us have become. Not all of them – but certainly a shockingly high percentage. When you really dig down and take stock of how these politicians spend their days (many, not all) it becomes stunningly obvious that we have to get the money out of politics.

Money is the driving force behind everything in our governments, both federal and state, but especially on the federal level. And because it is so inherently ‘the game that’s played,’ there is no way any well-intentioned person can simply say they won’t play along and live (politically) for more than one term. Whether you think term limits are good or not, precious little can be accomplished in one term.

The only way to effect meaningful change is to overhaul the entire system. And we can’t fall back on the old trope of ‘it’s always been done this way,’ or ‘it’s too hard to change the way things are done,’ because it really is broken. It’s unsustainable. I realize that perhaps everything needs to fall apart before we can build again. And I hate that this may be our reality, but it does look like where we’re headed.

There’s probably one thing most Americans can agree on at the moment, and that’s the sad fact that our system is on a trajectory toward self-destruction. And only we can save it. We the people, I mean. Because clearly those who are feeding at the trough of power and greed cannot stop themselves.

Alas, reform will never, ever happen if we don’t secure the right of all citizens to vote easily and securely. Everything hinges on our right to vote. Everything.

(T+42)

Trouble

Look at the photo above. Brutus is flirting with disaster. And Cletus is providing an almost irresistible target. No matter which way you look at it, trouble seems to be the most probable outcome.

While the expression on Brutus’s face is kind of cute, the energy of this photo sort of captures how I’m feeling at the moment. I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it almost physically painful to even look at headlines.

With all the harbingers of a truly horrific downfall of our country beating us over the head, day after day, I am gobsmacked that a handful of people are essentially holding us back from taking a huge leap forward in reclaiming our status as an enlightened country. It literally hurts my heart to contemplate how selfish and bought these so-called representatives (Senators) are to be refusing to allow progressive ideals even the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives.

Honestly, I find myself without words and feeling despair in my heart.

Anyone Else?

It just feels like we’ve been through so much – and there’s no respite, no blue sky. We never get the chance to see our ideas and ideals implemented. We never get to see what exercising compassion at the root of our country’s actions would yield.

And all the while, the rich not only get richer – they get obscenely richer. And two people who profess to be part of the party that wants to implement change for the vast majority of our country – just two – have the power to derail what millions of people voted for last year.

There’s no point in me even writing about any of this. I know. And that simple fact takes my breath away.

That Light

I don’t know why I’m compelled to write from such a dismal place this evening. Thank goodness I’ve had puppies to focus upon lately, I guess. Because Spartacus’s sudden death knocked the wind out of me. And the utter intransigence we’re witnessing in Washington D.C. right now is having a similar effect. It’s sucking the hope right out of my sails.

The light I think so many of us felt last November is turning out to be, in all seriousness, the headlight of an oncoming bullet train that’s going to demolish the United States – at least the U.S. we were raised to believe we were.

I feel powerless to stop it and – damn, I have to say – I loathe feeling powerless.

Something needs to change. The system as it exists now has been so corrupted by dark money (and light money – and money of every shade in between) that the country we thought we had no longer exists. And if hope is extinguished in most of us?

Trouble will have found its home.