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Commentary on the Video "8
Years" - by SillyMickel
On this
website, Primal
Spirit: Powerful Catalysts for Fundamental Growth of Self,
Society, and Planet, we haven't
yet had occasion to publish too much, some...not a lot, on
the "powerful catalysts to society" part of the
title . . . until now. For just as on the individual level, as
in primal therapy, hidden TRUTH must be uncovered, faced, dealt
with, and ONLY THEN put behind oneself; so also must society
uncover its hidden truths or it will be sick. And by sick, I
mean the same thing that Santayana meant when he said "A
society that does not remember its history is doomed to repeat
it."
Everyone
quotes that. How then can no one seem to make the connection
that your history has to be TRUE HISTORY not a web of lies
hiding deep and festering wrongs. So it is just as important for
nations and societies to uncover its repressed truth, in order
to heal, as it is for the Individual
And
just as on the individual level, if our nation -- specifically
right now our government -- continues to deny,
refuses to let our truth rise up to heal us, or simply, as Obama
may end up doing, look the other way on the grounds that there are
more important things to deal with, well then as a nation -- just
as individuals, we are driven to continually re-enact our biggest
mistakes over and over despite our best efforts not to -- so also
on the level of the nation or society, we will fix a problem only
to see it rise up again during the next election cycle. In fact,
it is exactly that lack of facing the truth that Reaganomics not
only almost quadrupled the national debt during the 12 years of
Reagan and Bush, Sr., not only did it severely unbalance the
budget, but it caused a recession so important that it led to
Clinton winning the Presidency on the slogan "It's the
economy, stupid!"
Despite
the fact the Clinton reversed that downswing dramatically by
REVERSING Reaganomics; and despite the fact that his policies
helped create one of the most prosperous decades in recent
history, even leaving a surplus for the next administration. But
our country was not about to call Reagan wrong at that time; too
many idiots felt that somehow we had to treat him like a nice
Grandad and not say anything unseemly, regardless of how the rest
of the country would fare.
And
it was just that lack of truth-telling of the obvious, so as not
to smear Reagan, though his economics was a horrible failure and
it had been proven to be so, that allowed Bush to come in and go
about doing Reagan's mistake, only doing it several powers greater
and doing it sooner. Bush came in and gave the budget surplus to
the wealthy, without a peep from any in the media or any outrage
on the part of Americans, most of whom had suffered through the
recession only a decade earlier.
But
the average American would not know economics like the experts,
the media, and the government. So it was tragic to refuse to point
out that Bush's ideas had already been tried by Reagan and his
father with horrible consequences. Everyone kept quiet and
suppressed the knowledge of their own experience.
What
happened? We "were doomed to repeat it," only karma
seemed to have a part because we are not just repeating it. We are
being punished severely with one of the worst economic downturns
in America's history; and it seems to me we deserve it because
obviously the lesser medicine did not teach Americans and their
media and leaders a damn thing; but with this one; oh, well, NOW,
we are hearing that trickle-down Reaganomics started it all. So if
we are too stupid to learn from a mistake, that mistake will come
back bigger and bigger until we wake up and realize that the path
we are on is not working.
Now
this is very important, why?
Because
scholars have determined that in studying the actions of
Bush-Cheney, America, for the first time in its history, went into
a dictatorship, meaning that their policies, which involved
tossing out the Constitution, and pillar-by-pillar removing the
foundations of our rights, our freedoms, and our democracy,
including even the right to have a vote that will be counted, or
more specifically, will be counted in favor of the person you
voted for, not counted toward the opponent. Consider that the ones
with expertise in poring over all the documents and data have
determined that we had a smokescreen of democracy and freedom
talk, but that actually we were living in a dictatorship.
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Now,
if that is something that we do not face, or we turn our heads
from; well we didn't have the concentration camps, but not all
dictatorships do. But just as when we didn't learn our economics
when we had received a good spanking in the early 90s for giving
money to people who didn't need it - and wasted it - while people
who needed money were getting budget cutbacks, and the standard of
living and the average pay in America was going down for the first
time.
After
you look at what happened under Bush, and there are scholars
galore putting out books delineating the ways in which our
Executive Branch acted as literal traitors, and worse, to America,
and list the grounds upon which Bush and Cheney would be tried for
murder, for starters, if they were anyone else in America. And it
is too painful for me to even read what they did, though I do read
it, and just let the crying come. But you're going to have to do
that for yourself, because it would be even more painful to
delineate it again. Others are doing that job. I will have to
pass; but I will make my point based on the work they've done.
And
my point is this: If these truths are not faced by our country,
God help us. For just as voodoo economics returned, with results
many, many times worse than the first time; well, what can we
imagine would happen if we don't face the truth about the
dictatorship of George W. Bush, the loss of rights and freedom and
honest elections?
For
one thing, consider how easily this dictator rose to power. Our
supposed democracy didn't stop him, like it is assumed democracy
will. If we don't take in that lesson, not only are we doomed to
repeat these horrible eight years, but we are leaving a door wide
open for the next one; and if you think you have to have
concentration camps in order to see dictatorship, well, gee, just
guess what you are going to get under the next American dictator.
And
this will surely happen for it is simple common sense that anyone
would understand if it were related to something in their
commercial life. You don't see farmers feeding the wrong kind of
grain to their livestock more than one time, do you; can you even
imagine it? Than why would we think that we can ignore finding out
what happened and fixing it in order to keep something worse than
it from happening in the future when it comes to politics?
Is it
that we think that as Americans we are immune from something so
horrible? Then are we a nation of Pollyannas? And how many
Katrinas, Iraqs, Vietnams, Bush-Cheneys, being rated at the bottom
in health care among developed nations, having one of the shortest
life expectancies among developed nations, having one of the worst
educational systems, and having one of the lowest standards of
livings among developed nations kinds of events is it going to
take before people stop engaging in magical thinking, believing
the things that pandering Republicans will tell them to hide these
facts, instead of taking their truth from the experiences of their
own lives?
For as long as we refuse to notice that being an American doesn't
any more (and I think once it did) give you any advantage over
other people in the world, and we continue our complacency in the
face of our problems, and we continue to think that we can look
away from unpleasant truth and just "put it behind us"
then just as Hitler wasn't the last dictator, wasn't the last
individual to be able to enslave a nation; then also Bush won't be
the first and only dictator America will see; and sure as hell the
next one will be worse, perhaps far worse; and then the next one,
if we still don't face the truths of what is possible in this
country and discover what happened to make it now possible when
once it wasn't; then I shudder to think what monster will be in
our country's future.
Towards reversing that and hoping to raise some consciousness
about the truth of our recent history, I am offering the
accompanying video. I hope all Americans and our representatives
will resist the tendency to run away from the unpleasant past and
instead find ways, and there are plenty of easy ways, to turn and
face the darkness behind us, so that we will not be forced to walk
through an even blacker and more horrible darkness before us.
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