I realize I am not keeping my promise to stay out of politics. I was not going to watch the news, but sometimes nothing else is very interesting on television or computer even.
I realize many people are unemployed and disillusioned with the current administration. However, President Obama is really not entirely to blame. He inherited a huge national debt, as well as two wars, one of which he withdrew the troops although that was the plan, and is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. We cannot police the world any more. Yes we need a strong military, and although I am pro-Israel, Iran really is not a threat to us or Israel. From what I understand, a lot of this is propaganda.
The Romney Ryan plan would mean genocide to the poor, elderly, children and disabled. It would mean profit to the rich. A huge part of middle to upper middle class tax money would go to the rich. They are only for the rich. There is not one humane thing in their agenda.
Perhaps some think that if they were God forbid, elected, then the job market would improve. This is where I compare them to nazis. First of all they are not talking about making jobs. However Hitler used a notorious filmmaker to make a propaganda film against the Jews to make them think that the Jews were taking every job, and were basically horrible people. I have studied the history of pre-Nazi Germany, and the number of Jews holding positions such as doctors and lawyers, etc was staggeringly low. They did have some businesses, and in 1939 they had a Jewish mayor in Frankfurt, and now they have the first Jewish mayor since then.
I think this Paul Ryan guy is like Adolf Hitler, except instead of exterminating Jews, he wants to exterminate the poor through deprivation of life sustaining medication, lack of prenatal care to poor women, lack of neonatal care to their babies, lack of care for poor children, lack of care for the disabled in terms of medical transportation and some life sustaining medication as well as hospitals doctor, etc, as well as loss of health care for the elderly who most need it through the loss of Medicaid and the privatization of Medicare. He was trying to fool Florida by bringing his mother along to say that she is on Medicare. There are other seniors on Medicaid as well and who have serious health issues. Here in the south where I live, there is a high rate of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, blindness due to complications of poverty such as diabetic retinopathy and untreated glaucoma. I live in a conservative state, but Medicaid still helps many poor people in South Carolina, because we have a high rate of poverty. I have ridden the Medicaid transportation for years, because I am legally blind, for doctor appointment, and have ridden with very disabled and poor people, who would otherwise have no way to get to the doctor. There is also mental illness, which is debilitating to many people in this country.
Already many people with schizoprhrenia live on the street and are homeless. It is nearly impossible to work with this illness, having someone close to me who suffers from it. This illness comes on in the late teens to late twenties when a person has little to no work history and can only qualify for SSI and Medicaid. In order for a person with schizophrenia to function, they must have regular anti-psychotic oral medication or injections. This enables them to live with family, in a group home or rarely but sometimes independently and stay out of hospitals, jails, the street and institutions, and also enables them to possibly hold down a small job for wages or voluntary basis if high functioning. What would happen to these people? As a person who loves someone with this illness, I know much about it and am aligned with NAMI. Still there is very little support in the world. How can they pull the rug out from under them?
Under the Romney Ryan plan there would be nothing for these people. Although I have said that I am pro-life, I think it is inhumane to force a woman who is the victim of rape and or incest to give birth. Ryan wants people who have abortions to go to jail. Even Sarah Palin did not want that to happen. I saw an interview with her with Katie Kurik when she was running with McCain. If they do not want any health care for poor women and their infants, then they are forcing them to give birth so that both mothers and infants can die suffering.
You may think that I am really dramatic, but I am just passionately offended by what they are trying to do, not for myself, but for many many others who will suffer and die from this. Also, many poor people with cancer are on Medicare and or Medicaid, without Medicaid many of them will die, and hospitals take Medicaid now. What happens if there is no Medicaid for the poor and sick and old, young or disabled? Misery, sickness, suffering and death.
In '96 I made my last pilgrimage to India, and I am sure I will not go back due to finances, but I felt almost bad about having gone. I was thirty-five and at the time my younger child was only seven. In retrospect, I often feel that I should have gotten him back from his father and got him back in school here sooner after I got back from Colorado, but I was impulsive and went to India for all the wrong reasons. Tonight as I cannot sleep, I realized that maybe it was for a reason, reasons beyond my knowing.
I sent my brother a letter today in which I was reminded of my father, how proud he was of his own writing, and before I left for India in September of that year, he gave me a poem or ghazel rather, which he asked me to read aloud in Mandali Hall with Eruch Jessawalla present, and I did.
My father also gave me twenty dollars to buy garlands of flowers to lay on the Samadhi. In India twenty dollars buys a lot of flower garlands in three weeks, and I used every bit of it on garlands of roses and other flowers from street vendors like the ones near the trust office where the bus comes.
Maybe I went there just to read the poem and lay the flowers with the help of others in the tomb. I am no longer very devotional, but in my heart I still love Baba.
Life has not been that kind to me over the years. My life has been rather difficult in a lot of ways, a lot of challenges. I hope that it will improve. I think that positive things will come to pass.
With all the evil in the political arena, and the fear of loss of all that is humane, I am trying to turn it over, let go and let God, and think of Baba and spirituality, rather than falling into the fears of some sort of 'may or may not be' holocaust.
I feel things are changing rapidly, but perhaps nothing bad will happen to America. I remember when the twin towers happened, I went to a program at the Meher Center. There was a letter from the Mandali in India, most of whom are gone now. They went into Baba's room and prayed for America. It touched my heart and I wept.
Oh Lord of love, God personified,
I am on my knees, a beggar's lament,
Must the dark clouds of doom and disaster crash down on those who have already cried, Is our devotion to You, and simple tragedy, though not Your crucifixion, still a metaphor
only for the magnitude that is You?
I beg you on bent knee at Your threshold, Lord of Love personified, not to again count the ones who died,
For how many sacrifices will one have to pay, for one hope's bright light ray,
For one image of Your golden chakra,
denying tragic karma?
A beggar, I lament to you: if I am not fit to live, then I will die,
For I am lost and have nothing to give but a song, a poem, a dance that none will see.
How many people must die before the ignorance of evil has released its dark impressions? When the bodies lie in heaps in black and white, where are you Lord of love, God in heaven, when the children go hungry, and the sick not tended, the blind ignored and stumbling in submission to a plight of darkness,
And in all of this, tell me where is oneness, will You save us from damnation on earth, from those that just do not care?
Lord of love, as a beggar I lament.
Truthfully Steve Harvey's book for women is a bit sexist. I will tell you why later. Being visually impaired, I receive talking books based on my preferences, other than the ones I specifically order, and although I did not order this one, I guess they know I am single, so they sent me Straight Talk... by Steve Harvey.
This book is for women, but from reading it I am learning a lot. For one, there is nothing wrong with a woman earning more than her spouse, but the type of man who tries to be supported completely, and I mean not temporarily because he is out of a job, but all the time, first of all does not really love the woman, but does not have normal instinctual behavior of a man.
Also, many of us over forty are tired of the dating scene, the games, the dos and don'ts. We all know it gets old, although I did feel a sense of empowerment when the last man I dated told me he was in love with his last girlfriend, (the kind I call always one girlfriend behind although truth be known, I was never really his girlfriend) and I told him after the party we went to which was with my friends, and he had never told me before hand that he felt this way, that I thought it best we not see one another again. I could not figure for the life of me why he did not call ahead to say he just could not take me to the party. I even offered that he drop me off and I would find another ride home. Strange. Being legally blind, I do not drive, maybe he was being nice and thought I would have trouble getting a ride, but he had a lot of time to tell me... Never mind that.
What I am saying is at a certain point it all gets old, not to sound trite or cynical. Another thing Steve says is that independent women who can take care of themselves, turn men off. I am legally blind, but I think I might fit that category, because I am very independent. Still, I think that although men do not usually like relationship books and so forth, there is a lot to be said for some of Steve Harvey's remarks. But, here is what I am critical of in his rhetoric. He says things like women should wait three months to sleep with a man, because if she does not, then he thinks she is not worth waiting for. Well, that sounds like a double standard if I ever heard one.
I mean it makes it sound like men can be man whores and that is just fine, but women are supposed to withhold sex as long as possible to ensure a commitment. Truthfully, I do not believe in sex outside of marriage due to my religion, but still being an enlightened feminist I find this type of attitude a bit offensive. He says women have all this power, and in a sense we do sometimes. However, I have found that once a man gets disenchanted with me, I have no power. I realize this is self deprecating, and maybe I should become a comedian like Steve, since comedians are self deprecating sometimes, lol.
Also he says things like "leave the house coats and hair rollers until he's really into you." That is stupid and sexist. It gets really tiresome to impress a guy, and you know how Cole Porter songs always have lines like, "you obviously don't adore me", "you can't see your future with me", and Adam Duritz from the counting crows, "so much rejection in every connection," or Alanis Morrissette's song, "I feel so unsexy for someone so beautiful, so unloved for someone so fine, so boring for someone so interesting, so ignorant for someone of sound mind." I think people often feel these ways. But, truthfully although confidence is good, I find this rejectedness a little endearing, maybe because these are songs. It is not that I have not rejected anyone myself. I have and still feel bad about some of it.
I just think it is kind of dumb telling married women, "as long as you keep looking good..." There is no excuse for cheating, etc. and frankly I think Steve Harvey is a chauvinistic guy who is full of crap. LOL
Recently I got way too emotionally meshed with my views and actually took it to a level where I think I acted inappropriately, because although I have a right to feel a certain way, that gives me no right to wig out about it.
I also was taking fb too seriously I think, and there were other factors going on I will not go into, but I lost about three friends in a day and was called names, but so what.
I took a good look at myself, a searching and fearless moral inventory to look for the source of my being that upset, where I was coming from in all of that hysteria.
I realized that although my resentment was well founded, I could only have gotten that upset if I felt in some way threatened emotionally, that it had to be my sense of security, my sense of wholeness, my sense of self, self-esteem, or my sense of wholeness as a person. Maybe I felt that I was challenged in some way.
Maybe I felt like I would have liked to have more than two children as selfish as that sounds, and as spoiled as that sounds, since many people cannot have children at all, and I have more than enough children with my two sons. Perhaps I felt bad for people who cannot have kids and want them badly, when some can have them and do not want them.
But, in truth, it is none of my business what they do. I should not take personally the decisions of others, nor should I judge them, because as I said my resentment is rooted deeper. So, maybe I am trying to apologize to anyone who witnessed this, not because I think my beliefs are wrong, but because I may have been imposing my beliefs or ethical ideals or values in an inappropriate manner and lost my poise or equipoise and peace of mind, but I know it is even more complicated, but I want to say that I am taking a good long look at my own self and what my triggers are in terms of what makes me angry or upset.
All in all, it may just be feelings of my own sense of deprivation, not literally but in Course in Miracles terms, my own sense of inadequacy figured in with perhaps some feelings of loss and lost last chances. I realize I may not be making sense to my readers, and I apologize. I just do not know how to word this without baring my soul. I have realized that anything I publish or put on fb can be baring my soul, and I do not want to do that anymore. I want to keep my integrity and dignity.
I want to clarify my political views in case they were misunderstood. I am not a Republican or a Libertarian. I do believe in the rich paying taxes and I do believe in the government helping the poor, children, elderly, blind and disabled. I am not a Tea Party member either. I am still a Democrat, but I have two fairly conservative views, which I have already discussed, but I want to say for the record that even though I believe in the second amendment I do think guns are not being regulated closely enough, such as assault weapons. However I believe that someone should be able, if they can get the license and pass the shooting test, etc., have a rifle for hunting or a rifle or gun for safety, with very careful handling and know how, and never around children. Also, never around alcohol. People get crazy sometimes where alcohol is involved.
I also wanted to say that although I am pro-life, I do not judge anyone's choice. I would just prefer people stop using it for contraception, like women who have had one after another. Also, I do not like the late ones. I think that is really horrible. I do think that there should be an exception in rape, incest, or some severe abnormality, depending on how the mother feels about it.
Also, I am basically pro-Israel but have empathy for the Palestinians. I do not like the whole Guantanamo thing, but I am not going there. So, for anyone who may have misunderstood, I wanted to make things clear.
I am not running for office, lol or an ego trip or anything, like my views are the only good ones. I am constantly growing and changing and realize, if you have gotten this far in my article without thinking I am too redundant, like a broken record or 'Jack' in The Shining by Stephen, writing the same sentence repeatedly, that all in all I would rather be happy than right.
Just one thing I wanted to add: Some people think that Americans are crazy and paranoid with conspiracy theories like Alex Jones for instance, to site an extreme example, but many feel that if the holocaust could happen, who can really trust their government entirely? That is how I feel. I really do. It is not paranoia, just not being naive about the world, looking back over history and events around the world.
Recently I went to sleep feeling sorry for myself. What was the trigger? For one, my mother well meaning, said that, "your father thought getting married would solve all your problems." She meant well I know.
My marriage ended and I lost my home and the children were living with my ex-husband in Colorado. I was out there on my own and Dad with his companion (Mom and Dad were divorced by then) came out to get me. I was having a severe nervous break down having driven all the way to Colorado with my older son to rejoin my younger son and his father, but their father was already living with his present wife and I was allowed to crash on their couch for one night only, her rules. Imagine you are a woman and your kids are living with their father and he is your ex and is sleeping with his girlfriend while you are pitifully crashing on their couch for the night. Pathetic. You see, even then because I have RP, I was not allowed to drive at night, because retinitis pigmentosa causes night blind and gradually worsens over time. It was nightfall when Teddy and I arrived in Breckenridge. We had stopped by 8:00PM every night since it was summer, but the sun was sinking and the car was failing from the altitude. I was crying sitting in the drivers seat when Ron came to greet Teddy at the passenger door. Truthfully, to my knowledge I had no agenda of trying to be with Ron, my ex, in fact I thought I was heart broken about someone I had broken up with. Now I am all mixed up about it, wondering was I really hoping to put my family back together deep down? All I know is I was homeless, temporarily jobless and had enough on my mind to sink a battleship.
I went to stay with a friend in Boulder who was this really happy all the time kind of guy and was irritated by my 'going through stuff.' We road bikes to the health food store where we purchased me some rescue remedy. I had worked at a health food store back home and was familiar and in fact hoping to work at that very health food store since that was sort of my field then.
We bought groceries and I cooked a vegetarian burrito meal for everyone. We went to a sufi dance that was very enjoyable. I always enjoy the whirling dervish type things. Guess I am just that 'airy fairy' type. But, Paul, my host did not have as much time for me as I hoped after that, and I ended up hanging out with the nice old man who owned the house, wrote for the theosophical society and left banana and orange peals on the stairs, but he was pretty cool. We listened to old blues records together on a turntable. I sat looking at space while my only companion was Marianne Williamson's book Return to Love. I wanted to go to Pearl Street and look for a bar or some fun, but I could not move, as if I were frozen, and then again I could not drive at night. I only slept for short intervals, and then would get up and make myself herbal teas. I had no meds, had never been diagnosed with anything what so ever in terms of mental problems and I was thirty-four going on thirty-five, and they would have shown up by then. That is why I always say if you have a life like mine and keep it together til you are in your thirties, you are most definitely sane and need no labels, as no one does really, but it helps for some who have illnesses like schizophrenia because meds make a world of difference having someone close to me who has the disease.
Well, I cannot tell you everything, because it is quite frankly a little too personal to even blog about, but in the end Dad came to my rescue, with his companion because he was totally blind and little did I know that he would die only two years later.
Once the crisis had passed and we were staying at a lodge in Boulder, I said, "you guys just go home. I am fine now. I'll just stay here. I have my car at Paul's. He can bring it in the morning." They would not hear of it. Paul did bring it in the morning and apologized to me while we were getting bagels and coffee to go that Dad had given me ten dollars for, for not realizing how bad a state I had actually been in.
Dad thought he seemed glad to get rid of me once we dropped him off back at his house, but that was Dad for you, and probably right as usual.
I got to spend time with my children before we went back. They came to the lodge and my father, his friend and I took them out to lunch and shopping on Pearl Street, and I was able to see them and spend time with them before I returned to South Carolina to get a place and my old job back and 'get my life together.' Then we reunited later.
We went back to South Carolina in my car, and Dad was not in good health but a good sport all the way.
