Thursday, August 30, 2007

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Enlightened liberals and a reconsideration of "emotional" political tactics

I've just finished reading the Power of Now which is a great spiritual inspiration and a call for emotional balance in one's life. The idea of enlightenment becomes simple...live in the present, the NOW and nothing should bother you! Become close to that watcher inside of you and you will be at peace (not necessarily HAPPY) all the time; plugged into God (the Source, the inexplicable unmanifested consciousness that unifies all of life) inside and shared by all of us; although we are our own point of consciousness within the greater whole.

One sign of an enlightened individual is one who can state their position without defensiveness, fear, anger, etc.

This makes me rethink the appeal to "emotional" voters. Anger and defensiveness are based on fear...and who needs to show or appeal to fear? The Right. I'm not against liberals "using" emotion to win elections; but we must acknowledge that this would be an absolute fake to such an enlightened individual. The only thing that Obama lacks, according to the Eckhardt definition if I may, is too much of an identification with Obama's ego. He must realize that he cannot control how the "image" of Obama is spun, he should not worry about it! It's like he's an artist and the artist's intention matter's very little to the resulting work of art, or in this case, to his political candidacy.

I haven't watched the Lehrer Newshour in months; I used to watch it daily. My husband and I started getting angry with it because they constantly put on a "liberal" and a "conservative" viewpoint. And usually, the conservative is living in La La land, in total denial, and lies are the truth. It's maddening to see it. So tonight I watched again and they had two former Justice Department officials on, I believe the woman was from Clinton's administration and the man was definitely from Reagan's.

The Reagan Justice Dept. guy was visibly angry when he made his arguments, that basically the Justice Dept. is just fine, it's the press and "partisanship" that are giving it all a bad name. DENIAL! His anger and defensiveness was clearly registering over the TV waves. I was actually thinking it was HIS partisanship that was making him defensiveness (criticisms of others are always about us--believe me, I'm angry and defensive a lot!). On the other hand, the Clinton (I think, possibly Carter) Justice Dept. veteran was cool and collected when she made her arguments. She spoke second. She absolutely disagreed with the Reagan guy but didn't get mad or seem upset. She made her arguments with authority and without passion. She was right--the problems in the Justice Department are real and she gave evidence of it. She had to say the obvious and the opposite of angry man to make her point! This is why the PBS news and other media news have become a farce--who takes anyone seriously when two people are saying the exact opposite of each other? It's ridiculous.

My point is, should we be won over by angry guy because he showed more emotion and passion in his arguments? Should we be even trying to appeal to voters who use emotional appeals to make their decisions? That's a ridiculous way to run a government!!

Hillary is probably the coolest candidate out there. She's seems to have her emotions well under control, and she uses humor, but she's also arguing for the status quo--so where is the passion in that? Edwards is angry and passionate about many issues that I'm angry and passionate about, and I think he's pretty enlightened about what's important in life. So is that our ideal candidate? Is he faking his passionate appeal? Maybe. Does that make him an enlightened guy who's faking emotion? Does an enlightened guy lie to show feelings...or does he go back to normal humanness and learn to exploit them instead of letting them pass through him without reaction (like I'm learning to do)?

Does Obama learn to exploit his spiritually controlled emotions for base, human appeal? I don't think he'd do it.

Looking at these three candidates, Edwards and Obama seem the most authentic. But Hillary acts like the most enlightened. Hmmm. Therefore, I think I'm in favor of voting on folks based on their ideas and values rather than their emotional and spiritual aspects. As much as we need enlightenment in this country, we could use a healthy dose of critical thinking in the interim.

Peace.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Humor and Politics

I went to blog about an article I read about Obama and found that Gonzales is resigning--finally. But it's not as if the damage hasn't been already been done some of which has actually been vindicated by Congress. So it's the right thing and substantially meaningless at the same time. It's not like Bush fired him. I'm curious to see how everybody spins it, though.

And here is another situation where we could use some humor from our candidates! I was reading GQ's profile of Obama and it was fairly complimentary and honest at the same time. I was thinking that the Democratic candidates I favor could use a big dose of humor when dealing with controversy and attacks!! For instance, Obama gets VERY serious when he is attacked which actually makes him seem "thin-skinned" according to many critics. I never appreciated Ronald Reagan or thought he was a particularly good communicator, he WAS an EMOTIONAL communicator, and that came through very well when he used humor to deflect attacks. It made Reagan seem untouchable, above it all, happy and confident in himself.

Please, Obama, Edwards, lighten up.

Monday, August 20, 2007

A warning about Sears on-line

After two days and a handful of mostly unfriendly and even possibly fraudulent* customer service reps, we have finally resolved our air conditioning order (we are in the process of canceling it) with a promise that we won't be charged anything for canceling our order. We ordered two air conditioners on Sat with a phone rep from Sears online. He did not inform us that our air conditioners would be sent to us via UPS (the previous week we had a dishwasher home delivered) which we would never have assumed since we were paying for someone to actually install one of the air conditioners. We had every reason to believe we were receiving Home Delivery. But alas, we were getting UPS shipment which is instantly processed and cannot be canceled! The customer can refuse shipment, and then incurs shipment charges! When we called Sunday to cancel our order that HAD NOT SHIPPED yet they would not cancel shipment or our order. Finally, we have been told we will have our shipping charges refunded (we have to REFUSE SHIPMENT!)...but this, we are told, is an exception to the rule!

Be warned!

*Yesterday we had one customer service rep tell us our order had a 95% chance of being canceled; yet our order was shipped first thing this morning.

Update: It's Sept. 11 and we have yet to be refunded by Sears. We had to tell UPS to return the items at our doorstep. Sears keeps saying we'll be refunded in a few days, then there's a new reason it's ANOTHER few days, etc. My husband wrote to the CEO yesterday and we're wondering how many letters he gets.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Congress 2007

My husband and I are in shock and mourning for the failure of this Congress, that we helped financially elect, on this critical issue (FISA and the "Terrorist Surveillance Program"). If Democrats don't soon gain a spine and a rational negotiation policy with the most criminal administration this country has ever seen (since you need help ask my husband, he negotiates for a nice living) we will no longer feel safe in this country. You guys don't understand the power you have in your hands against this President. If not you, who?

A message sent to Sen. Reid and Leader Pelosi via the ACLU.