Archive for the ‘Values’ Category

Have we not lost our way when a U.S. Veteran having served in Iraq and Afghanistan languishes chained in a Mexican prison because he accidentally drove over the border with his weapons in his vehicle while our President and Congress are doing everything they can to fast track illegal aliens (many criminal) to becoming U.S. Citizens?

Have we not lost our way when President Obama personally takes time to call Georgetown University law student Sandra Flock to congratulate her for seeking taxpayer money to fund her choice of contraception while the same President does not take the time to fire the head of the Veteran’s Administration for a cover-up and total failure to provide medical care for our Veterans?

Have we not lost our way when a federally mandated academic curriculum called “Common Core” is designed to stifle creative and independent thinking while using public education to promote a political agenda while gathering intrusive personal data on both students and parents alike?

Have we not lost our way when you need a photo ID to obtain a driver’s license, obtain any hospital out-patient or in-patient procedure, purchase over-the-counter sinus medication, donate blood, carry out bank transactions (even deposits now!), cash A check or pay for purchases by check, purchase a gun, obtain Social Security benefits, be booked for arrest, visit a school if you’re a non-student, adopt a child, pick up packages at the post office, produce at a routine traffic stop…but not to VOTE?

Have we not lost our way when we march and protest over cruelty to animals but are indifferent to 50,000,000+ U.S. abortions (many of them late term) in the last 30 years?

Have we not lost our way when schools teach, as early as third grade, the intimacies and technicalities of sexual acts but teachers, administrators and politicians rebel at the mention of God in those same classrooms?

Have we not lost our way when a parent is arrested at a school board meeting for objecting to prurient and pornographic subject matter in his child’s textbook and every other parent, present with the same objection, sits by silently in fear without standing up for the father?

Have we not lost our way when we make believe that some politician will reverse the social and economic nightmare we are living rather than take responsibility ourselves for what needs to be done?

Have we not lost our way?

The next time Secretary of State John Kerry chooses to describe Israel as heading towards an apartheid state he would do well to closely examine the reaction of world Jewry to L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s bigoted remarks about African Americans. There is probably no other People on earth, living in or out of Israel, more sensitive to bigotry, bias, religious persecution and hate speech than Jews.

Sadly, the Secretary’s comment was founded in either 1) ignorance of historical fact or 2) his own apparent bias about Israel, its people and its government. I hope it is the former, although in a position of such gravitas requiring heightened diplomatic skills neither is acceptable nor excusable.

Arab Israeli’s make up approximately 20% of the population. Historically, Arabs living within Israel since 1949 have enjoyed more freedoms than Arabs living in any Arab speaking country. Since 1949, Israel has seen 70 Arab Israeli’s elected to the Knesset (with 13 serving currently). Arabs serve in the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the Israeli Defense Forces, the Israeli police, as emergency medical service providers, doctors, businessmen, entertainers, television personalities and in a multitude of positions within every aspect of civil society.  In 2004, Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered that every public company have at least one Arab Israeli on its Board of Directors.

Does this seriously lead anyone other than Secretary Kerry (or Arab extremists seeking the annihilation of the State of Israel) to conclude that an apartheid Israeli nation is a foregone conclusion? I think not.

Personally, I stand with former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, who today said that “children are running our foreign policy” and with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) who yesterday called for the resignation of Secretary Kerry.

Ignorance is only bliss when it does no harm.

“Divide and conquer” is a strategy as old as time for a reason. It works. The more you can disperse an opponents forces the weaker you make him. Of course, the converse is equally true…”united we stand.” So it should come as no surprise that entrenched power, wherever it is found, seeks to turn any opposition against itself with the intention being to distract and disperse.

Enter the Cliven Bundy story.

Initially Bundy, the Nevada rancher standing up to the Bureau of Land Management and thereby the Federal Government, was viewed as a modern day David against a modern day Goliath. Others saw him as a Patriot and rushed to his side to stand with him. However, as it became known that Mr. Bundy had violated the law on his way to taking a legitimate stand on States’ rights (by not paying his grazing fees) and further that he seemed to speak with bigotry about African Americans, the tide quickly turned against him. His less than stellar behavior quickly eclipsed the larger legitimate issue of Federal Government overreach via land grabbing.

The mainstream, not-so-mainstream media and the population in general have been quick to be seduced by getting lost in the “he’s a good guy” no “he’s a bad guy” debate. Divide and conquer at work.

Our Federal Government is out of control and is incompetent and/or frighteningly ill intentioned as evidenced by its mismanagement of the economy, its overreach of federal powers, its foreign policy, and its redistribution of wealth efforts through Obamacare. However, if we allow ourselves to focus on the all to human Cliven Bundy, who has his strengths as well as his failings (as well all do) then we will be distracted from the larger issue… which is exactly where the powers that be want us.

United we stand or divided we fall. Each of us must choose. Focusing on common ground rather than our differences  serves us better now and is certainly true about what we will be able to accomplish in the future.

I’ve had an “aha” moment. This isn’t a conspiracy theory although it may read like one. Oftentimes, a new and innovative way of looking at the status quo, that calls into question an established view or pattern, can be misinterpreted as conspiratorial. Let’s not go there. Keep an open mind as you read on and you may have an “aha” moment of your own.

In his latest book “Focus” Daniel Goleman states:

“Survival in the wild, some neuroscientists argue, may have depended at crucial moments on a rapidly shifting attention and swift action, without hesitation to think what to do. What we now diagnose as Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.) may reflect a natural variation in focusing styles that had an advantage in evolution–and so continue to be dispersed in our gene pool.”

Goleman’s words gave me that “aha” moment.

We are living in a time when political, economic and social systems are breaking down all around us. Its certainly reasonable to posit that all the resulting chaos raises a “warning/danger” response in the primal area of our brains.  Accordingly, we are hard wired to respond to threats to our well being and/or our very existence exactly as Goleman and his neuroscientsists observed… “with rapidly shifting attention and swift action, without hesitation to think what to do.” Also known as A.D.D.

Here’s where you’ll have to suspend your tendency to conclude conspiracy.

Approximately 7.5% of school aged children in the United States have been diagnosed with A.D.D.  Unmedicated, they are also (to use Darwin’s phrase) the “fittest” for this phase of conscious evolution we must now navigate. I suddenly understood why the “powers that be” want to medicate A.D.D.  A narrowly focused population that cannot think expansively, change focus rapidly, or multitask with ease is more readily controlled that one that can.  These A.D.D individuals are the seers and the innovators of our day. It is they who will be the ones to usher in new ways of doing things in this age of breakdowns

If you have A.D.D, or know someone who does, perhaps you might want to pay more attention to the wanderings of that rapid mind….and less attention to what “the experts” say about medication.

All our futures may depend on it.

The “greenest” faction of the Nazi war machine was the SS.  Heinrich Himmler who headed the unit was an animal lover, a vegetarian and organic farming enthusiast. In fact, at Treblinka, the SS had beautiful picnic grounds and a zoo, while the last sight the Jews saw before entering the gas chambers was an exquisite flower garden. The SS advocated an ideology of “blood and soil” that rolled into one policy evolutionary racism, peasant agrarianism and environmentalism.

So, it is possible to be politically correct while simultaneously being inhumanely insane. Which brings me to Cliven Bundy and the Obama Administration.

Mr. Bundy is a fourth generation rancher in Nevada. He has been grazing his 500 cattle on Clark County, Nevada public lands as did his father and grandfather before him. He has paid his grazing fees to the County and the State. He has not, however, paid fees demanded by the federal government as it is his position, supported by the Governor of Nevada, that the U.S. Government and Bureau of Land Management have no authority to collect them.

The response to his refusal to pay those fees is now the theft of his private property by the Federal Government (200 cattle thus far captured and removed), armed marshals surrounding the remainder as well as he and his family, his son tasered and a dangerously escalating situation. Memories of Waco and the Branch Davidian Sect standoff come to mind. The prospects for this ending poorly increase exponentially by the day.

The regulation and legal basis by which the Federal Government is asserting its authority and claim was enacted 20 years ago protecting the desert tortoise of the region from extinction.

As an animal lover I would never want to see any animal harmed, let alone extinct. But when we reach the point where the survival of the tortoise is grounds for abrogating the U.S. Constitution and basic human rights, we are dangerously close to…if not over…the same line the SS crossed. That story ended poorly as well.

We need to understand our connectedness to one another,to all living things, and to the environment within a well-thought through balanced approach. No one aspect of that triad should prevail at the expense of the others. Every American should be appalled and vocal about what is taking place in Nevada. As German Lutheran Pastor and vocal Nazi opponent Erik Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Not to speak is to speak. Not to stand is to stand.”

Do you remember the scene in the “Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy’s dog, Toto, pulls down the curtain to reveal the “Wizard” to be nothing more than an old man who has intimidated a land and its inhabitants with his “smoke and mirror” powers? And do you remember that as the fallen curtain exposes his fraud to Dorothy, Tin Man, Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion the old man continues to speak into the microphone and turn the wheel of his deceptive light and sound show in a last ditch, desperate attempt to hold onto the fiction of his power? Yes? Your recall it? Good.

Now pause for a second and think about the world in which we have been living.

Think about President Obama and Vladimir Putin and Hafetz Assad and Monsanto and Wall Street and the mass media and the pharmaceutical industry and an almost endless list of other apparent power brokers. Notice any similarity? Get the picture?

The Light (a/k/a Toto in my Oz analogy) has pulled down the curtain that’s been obscuring the illusion of power and control under which humankind has been living for thousands of years. What we are seeing and feeling, if only we will open our eyes and our hearts, is the end of illusion. True power, the power given the free-willed individual to understand and live her or his own connection to Source, and to all sentient beings, is what has emerged.

Look at Ukraine or Egypt. Look at Justina Pelletier now being returned to Tufts Hospital for the medical treatment she desperately needs because of public outcry against Boston Children’s Hospital and Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.  Look at the stunning Homeland Security decision issued today that flies in the face and reverses Eric Holder’s and the Justice Department’s efforts to extradite the Romeike family who have been seeking political asylum in the United States under grounds of religious persecution in Germany. These are each inspiring and remarkable examples of an awakened Consciousness that finally sees past the illusions of fear and control that has kept we humans confined and dependent upon our keepers…like animals trapped in a zoo.

Both we and the animals were created to be free.

The curtain is lifted. There is no omnipotent power called government or DOW Jones or GE or Google running your life or mine. There is no “cost of living” increase the government or the corporation needs to provide for your financial security because there is no “cost of living.” Life is a gift. The only way to pay back is to pay it forward, in gratitude to Source, by way of service to one another

Breaking News: Look behind the curtain. You are the Wizard of You… and We are the Wizards of Us.

Its been an astonishing week for the Light…if you know what I mean. If not, keep reading anyway and you’ll understand by the time you finish the post.

1. The Federal Communicatons Commision (FCC) has backed off an intended study of American newsrooms that would have violated the First Amendment. They did so because Republican lawmakers and media personalities and groups reacted swiftly and forcefully to the intended intrusion.

2. Thousands of people flocked to Twitter and the hashtag “#FreeJustina” demanding that custody of 15-year-old Justina Pelletier be returned to her parents. Custody was taken from them when Boston Children’s Hospital and the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families conspired to reverse a prior medical diagnosis of the child’s condition made at Tuft’s Hospital and substitute a psychiatric one in its place, denying the child any and all medical treatment.

3.  In Kiev, capital of Ukraine, a true revolution by the people overthrew the corrupt government, ousting the President, and now intending to implement justice and freedom modeled on a more European rather than Russian model.

4.  In Italy, Matteo Renzi, age 39, was elected as the youngest Prime Minister in the country’s history. He is politically center-Left and supports Israel, seeing Iran as the major problem in the Middle East.

5.  In Mexico City, authorities there captured the world’s most powerful drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. His organization is the leading supplier of cocaine in the U.S.

So now do you know why it was a great week for the Light?

We are living in extraordinary times. Most of us realize the almost daily advances and breakthroughs in technology. But how many of us are aware of the powerful and life-altering influx of Light upon the planet that has created a metaphysical platform for nothing short of revelation. I’m not talking religious revelation. I’m talking exposure of deceit, manipulation, enslavement and the use of fear as a tool for control.

The 5 events I mentioned in this post are escalating examples of 1) how powerful the individual is when aligned with like-minded poeple and 2) that those who have perpetuated deceit, manipulation and victimization will no longer be able to hide in the shadows. In the presence of the Light, all will be known and those who seek power at the expense of others will increasingly find their plans thwarted and their intentions exposed.

THIS is hope and change. Welcome to the new reality.

In the book African Genesis the author puts forth the concept of “Blessed Anger.” Blessed Anger is what an animal in the wild exhibits when the minimal amount of space it needs to survive is encroached upon.  Animals have an instinct to “stake out” conceptually where that line of safety is in relation to their location. If another animal approaches, there will be no action taken unless the approaching animal crosses that invisible line. Should that occur, the resting animal will go on offense and attack the incoming foe.

I think its reasonable to assume that such Blessed Anger would be exhibited, and justifiable, by any parent in regard to their child. Anyone who has ever had a child knows the instinctive, protective feeling of rising to meet any person or force that poses a threat to your child’s safety and well being. With that in mind, meet Joe Pelletier.

Joe Pelletier has today been charged with Contempt of Court for violating a gag Order imposed by a judge in Massachusetts. Mr. Pelletier is, in fact, in violation of that Order. He knowingly and willfully chose to speak out publicly about the kidnapping and medical malpractice that his teenage daughter, Justina, is now the victim of as perpetuated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.

Mr. Pelletier’s decision to violate that Order was made in an effort to save his daughter’s life. Justina suffers from mitochondrial disease, a medical condition diagnosed by Tufts Hospital in Connecticut and for which treating physicians there performed abdominal surgery, where, among other procedures, an elimination tube was inserted in her torso. Yet subsequently and without basis, Boston Children’s Hospital has found that Justina has no medical conditions but rather a psychiatric condition whereby she imagines all of her symptoms, one of  which is continual pain. Therefore, the hospital has denied her ALL medical treatment and forces her to attend psychiatric sessions. Further, with Justina now in a wheelchair as her physical condition deteriorates, Boston Children’s Hospital has transferred her to a facility that houses only non-medical, short-term recovering psychiatric and drug rehab patients.

As a former lawyer who practiced Family Law for 13 years and had my share of custody cases involving the state and agenicies such as DCF, I can assure you that the abuses perpetrated by both the Courts and state child protective service agencies can far exceed the conditions from which the child has been removed under the legal standard of “in the best interest of the child.”

Justina Pelletier is my child and your child. She is everyone’s child. And this is every parent’s nightmare. Justina is running out of time. The Pelletier family is mentally, physically and emotionally devastated. They have been financially ruined.

We are the reserves and the reinforcements. Each person reading this must choose one of the below listed methods to be heard and immediately do something about it. Every minute you hesitate is another minute you now know the Pelletier family is suffering. Ever minute you hesitate Justina Pelletier is deteriorating and denied medical attention.

You now have knowing. You now have personal responsibility. We are all connected. You have the right to Blessed Anger.

Allow it to move you.

 

Governor Duval Patrick
Phone: 617.725.4005 (out of state)
888.870.7770 (in state)
email page
Fax: 617.727.9725

Olga Roche, DCF Commissioner / email: dcfcommissioner@state.ma.us

Martha Coakley, Massachusetts Attorney General
Phone: (617) 727-2200

Boston Children’s Hospital
(617) 355-6000

Free Justina facebook page

Twitter

 

 

 

I’m not often compelled to write a post that leaves my readers feeling anything but optimistic or at least hopeful.  Its not that I shy away from difficult stories.  Its just that my style is to always seek the high ground, and so, when writing about the most negative or fear-based events I seek, and generally find, the inspirational take-away.

Hopefully, this post will stay true to that intention; although as I write I am momentarily at a loss to see how.

We have a President who has serially lied to the Nation and who disregards the rule of law. He’s lied so many times that I am astonished at his hubris, given the existence of video recording. His repeated contradictions and outright untruths are both stunning and deeply disturbing to anyone with an understanding of how the U.S. Constitution has kept this great experiment in governance from going the way of so many failed efforts that came before it that tried to create a free society.

The President has gone so far in overstepping the Constitutional bounds of his office, and done so without any opposition from Congress or clamor for accountability by the populace, that he now feels safe in saying such things as “I’ve got a pen and a phone…and I can use that pen to sign Executive Orders (referring to Congress’ reluctance to support his agenda) and “The good thing about being President is that I can do whatever I want” (while touring, of all places, Jefferson’s Monticello).

I have witten before on this blog about the imperial nature of this First Couple and I am not alone. Others have expressed similar observations…just not enough others. So now I feel compelled to say that if you, reading this post, stand by while this bastion of liberty is highjacked by an arrogant, self-annointed, dictatorial President who YOU elected, then there will be nowhere to go and no one to see when all of his actions converge to reach critical mass and result in the economic and societal collapse of this Nation. Its show time, folks. Use your voice or lose your voice for a very, long, dark period of time to come.

Yet it pains me to end on other than hope. So here it is.

If you refuse to be silent or complicit or in denial any longer, and there are enough of you, then you will yet be able to tell your grandchildren that in a critical hour of American history, when much of what this country was founded upon to abolish was in jeopardy of being destroyed. you found your voice… and stood… to speak truth to power.

Dear Amy,

I have read your blog post titled “I Look Down On Young Women With Husbands And Kids And I’m Not Sorry.” Your perspective is mildly interesting and somewhat angry in tone. However, your conclusions are inaccurate. I’m not sure what you’ve done with your life, but I’ve been both lawyer and mother and am, therefore, qualified to respond with authority to your assertions.

First, allow me to give credit where credit is due. My experience is that you are correct. It is nearly impossible “to have the time, energy, freedom or mobility to be exceptional if you have a husband and kids”… at least not “exceptional” by your definition. You define exceptionalism as having scored a certain title, salary, or satisfied some personal wanderlust. True, there is little time for such accomplishments when you are caring for, nurturing, and providing ethical and moral guidance as a foundation for the life of a child as yet unable to do so for themselves. True, there is little time for such things when you are providing a nurturing home environment and emotional support for a partner who is out in the world each day working at providing financial security for you and your family.

When I practiced law, I was accomplished and successful at my practice but not so much at being a mother. When I gave up my practice, I became exceptional at being a mother. I can tell you with certainty and pride, that between the two alternatives, “mothering” is more demanding, difficult, exhausting, creative, challenging, joyful, and dare I say satisfying than being in the workplace in any capacity.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved the practice of law. I loved helping my clients as well as the respect and even, yes, the egoic praise that came my way. It was great to feel so accomplished and validated. But accomplished and validated are not the same as exceptional. Exceptional is what you become when you are challenged to override and set aside your own self-centeredness and do so because your child needs you to get beyond yourself, and your own needs, in order to understand theirs. Exceptional is what you become when that child grows into a worthwhile, contributing member of society exemplifying values and principles the seeds of which you planted in the hope they’d take root.

As a single woman I have traveled the world. As a single woman I have practiced law. As a married woman I have practiced law. As a married woman I have practiced law and raised a child. As a married, stay-at-home mother I have raised a child. You pose the question “Do people really think that a stay-at home-mom is really on equal footing with a woman who works and takes care of herself? There’s no way those two things are the same.” I agree with you. The former is self-sacrificing and the latter self-serving.

But before you or anyone else jumps all over the word “self-sacrificing” let me assure you that to repair a world we have broken, only self-sacrifice and restraint in all areas of our lives will accomplish that end. The “me” generation took us down a barren and deserted road you are still traveling. My heartfelt wish for you is that you awaken to the exceptional power and, yes, self-satisfaction, in knowing you devoted the necessary time and energy to positively influence one individual life and did so willingly, at the expense of your own need to be “accomplished” and “recognized.”