In a dynamic column, "The Left Has Nowhere to Go," Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader team up to deliver a damning analysis of the impotence of the left in the US. They both clearly shine a light on the toothless progressive movement and why, without it, this nation is headed for darker times.
The portion of the article I will share here (I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing) concerns the myth that the Obama presidency is an improvement over the Bush administration that proceeded it and a McCain presidency, if the Arizona senator had won instead of Obama.
I'm not holding my breath.
Sigh.
The portion of the article I will share here (I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing) concerns the myth that the Obama presidency is an improvement over the Bush administration that proceeded it and a McCain presidency, if the Arizona senator had won instead of Obama.
There is no major difference between a McCain administration, a Bush and an Obama administration. Obama, in fact, is in many ways worse. McCain, like Bush, exposes the naked face of corporate power. Obama, who professes to support core liberal values while carrying out policies that mock these values, mutes and disempowers liberals, progressives and leftists. Environmental and anti-war groups, who plead with Obama to address their issues, are little more than ineffectual supplicants.When will progressives wake up to see the "hope" they were promised was nothing more than a well laid out subterfuge to garner votes? When will they come to acknowledge that the basic framework of the Bush years -- years they swear they loathed -- are still in play?
Obama, like Bush and McCain, funds and backs our unending and unwinnable wars. He does nothing to halt the accumulation of the largest deficits in human history. The drones murder thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as they did under Bush and would have done under McCain. The private military contractors, along with the predatory banks and investment houses, suck trillions out of the U.S. Treasury as efficiently under Obama. Civil liberties, including habeas corpus, have not been restored. The public option is dead.
The continuation of the Bush tax cuts, adding some $900 billion to the deficit, along with the reduction of individual contributions to Social Security, furthers a debt peonage that will be the excuse to privatize Social Security, slash social services and break the back of public service unions. Obama does not intercede as tens of millions of impoverished Americans face foreclosures and bankruptcies. The Democrats provide better cover. But the corporate assault is the same...
I'm not holding my breath.
Sigh.
How is this at all related to Taoism? In fact your negative approach seems very "un-zen" to say the least. I don't want to seem to judge you, in fact I only say these things to you because I am concerned for you. From Taoism I have and continue to learn that the world will shape itself as it will, because it is the way of the world. It is only in my power to let go, and allow positive energy to consume me and the world around that surrounds me. It is by doing good works that lead to positive thinking that I can change the world around me for the better by doing and promoting that which is good. I find it sad that in times of economic struggles me and my loved ones have felt hardly the pinch while others who hold so tightly to materialism and petty political ideals suffer. The fact that you have spent so much time on your blog tells me that you truly want to help others- help them by reminding them of the way and how to better manage themselves and their world.
ReplyDeleteTaoism is about the world. Lao Tzu & Chuang Tzu wrote stuff to influence not only our own individual mindsets but much of their writings were directed to the leaders (kings and lords) of their day.
ReplyDeleteWhen we get into the latter half of the Tao Te Ching, this becomes far more direct. Many of the verses specifically focus on armies and how the kings/lords should comport themselves.
I don't hold myself out as some sage or guru. Like almost anyone else, I struggle with combining the lessons of philosophical Taoism with being an active participant in the social realm of humanity -- a realm that is becoming more ugly and separated from the Way.