(It's even possible that the Republican Party could be thrown onto the ash-heap of history, as has not happened to a major American political party since, a century and a half ago, the Whig Party disappeared, and was replaced by the Republicans who gained the presidency, under Lincoln, in only their second time out. Which, if that happens, the Republicans would richly deserve-- they, who gave us the most destructive, the most dishonest, the most lawless presidency in the nation's history.)
But this self-destructive behavior nonetheless serves the cause of the spirit of brokenness-- just as did the self-destructiveness of the Bushite evil.
This is part of the pattern of evil (see "Evil Leaders Destroy What They Claim To Love" at click here The Bushite evil was true to form, destroying the very things that the actors claim to be serving: in trying to assert an imperial U.S. dominance on the planet, they eroded American power more rapidly than any presidency I can recall; in trying to facilitate the wealth-grabbing greed of corporate America, they set the stage for the greatest loss of corporate wealth since the Great Depression; in trying to create a "permanent" Republican majority (their equivalent of the 1000 Year Reich), they've put the Republicans on a path toward ever diminishing power; etc.
I had some hopes that with the departure of the Bushite leadership, the Republicans might come out from under the influence of the darkness that had worked through the likes of Bush and Cheney. (The image I've used is the liberation of the monkey-minions of the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy's bucket of water has melted her and all her "lovely wickedness.") But instead, it seems that America's right wing remains a channel (or vessel, or container) for the same dark spirit that worked through that presidency.
Self-destructiveness is but part of this shared pattern between the Bushite regime and the current craziness. It is useful to look at other such shared patteerns, because these patterns represent the "shadows," as it were, that this "spirit" cast upon our visible reality, and thus allow us to infer the underlying spiritual reality that we cannot see directly.
While there are many such patterns in common between the Bushite presidency and the present anti-Obama virulence --one could add "divisiveness" and "dishonesty" to the pattern of destructiveness-- there's one particular pattern I want to emphasize.
ONLY MY WILL, MY POWER, CAN BE ACCEPTED
Look at the evils of the Bushite regime: trampling on the law and the Constitution with torture and warrantless wiretapping etc.; signing statements and claims of the Unitary Executive; using bogus claims of executive privilege to block Congress from functioning as a check and balance; expanding the "commander-in-chief" role to usurp power and place it beyond any check from legislative or judicial branches; dismantling regulation for the corporate powers embedded in its power system; etc.
What all these have in common is A REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE ANY LEGITIMATE POWER THAT RUNS COUNTER TO ITS WILL.
Now, look at the craziness that's arisen on the right in the wake of Obama's election. The craziness can be boiled down to this: IT IS A REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THEY LOST A LEGITIMATE ELECTION, AND THAT THEY ARE NOW SUBJECT TO A LEGITIMATE POWER, FROM THE OTHER SIDE, TO WHICH THEY ARE OPPOSED.
(This is the second straight time --the other being 1992-- when A substantial part of the right has refused to accept the legitimacy of the assumption of power by their opposition. This was not true, so far as I know, in any other presidential election --not in 1976, not in 1960, not in 1932, etc.-- and from this we can perhaps date just when it was that the right became possessed by this dark power: i.e., some time between 1976 and 1992.)
These right-wingers make Obama out to be unAmerican, to be threatening everything the country stands for, to be a power-grabber. They're talking about secession, about a Second American Revolution, about resistance, about becoming "armed and dangerous."
What they are not doing is ACCEPTING that in a democracy everyone wins some and loses some, and that when one loses one must SUBMIT to the rule of the legally constituted powers, selected by the means agreed upon in our "social contract," the Constitution.
At the human level, one can conjecture about the kind of brokenness that feeds this refusal to submit to any power that is not of one's Me or Us, and whose will might run contrary to one's own.
The pattern suggests traumatic experience from being on the receiving end of injurious power, presumably in a very vulnerable situation (such as childhood). Most likely, this experience of injurious power would have been during the process of being socialized into the family and culture of one's origin-- a process in which what was felt to be an alien and hostile power or authority required one to submit to what felt like intolerable demands. The conscious mind henceforth identifies with that injurious culture and authority, but at the same time the unconscious mind must still deal with the residual fear and rage. And the culture provides an outlet by teaching one to direct that antipathy against acceptance and subordination toward any power that is not an extention of the sacred "Us."
(I have explored this human dynamic in various essays here, including "Here’s the puzzle: How is it that many remarkably decent people can support leaders who are remarkable precisely for their lack of such decency?" which can be found at click here />
But at the level of the spirit, one can see that this kind of enraged rebellious spirit, this refusal to submit to the not-Me and not-Us, is a powerful strategy for the dark spirit, whose project is the destruction of Wholeness.
But this self-destructive behavior nonetheless serves the cause of the spirit of brokenness-- just as did the self-destructiveness of the Bushite evil.
This is part of the pattern of evil (see "Evil Leaders Destroy What They Claim To Love" at click here The Bushite evil was true to form, destroying the very things that the actors claim to be serving: in trying to assert an imperial U.S. dominance on the planet, they eroded American power more rapidly than any presidency I can recall; in trying to facilitate the wealth-grabbing greed of corporate America, they set the stage for the greatest loss of corporate wealth since the Great Depression; in trying to create a "permanent" Republican majority (their equivalent of the 1000 Year Reich), they've put the Republicans on a path toward ever diminishing power; etc.
I had some hopes that with the departure of the Bushite leadership, the Republicans might come out from under the influence of the darkness that had worked through the likes of Bush and Cheney. (The image I've used is the liberation of the monkey-minions of the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy's bucket of water has melted her and all her "lovely wickedness.") But instead, it seems that America's right wing remains a channel (or vessel, or container) for the same dark spirit that worked through that presidency.
While there are many such patterns in common between the Bushite presidency and the present anti-Obama virulence --one could add "divisiveness" and "dishonesty" to the pattern of destructiveness-- there's one particular pattern I want to emphasize.
ONLY MY WILL, MY POWER, CAN BE ACCEPTED
Look at the evils of the Bushite regime: trampling on the law and the Constitution with torture and warrantless wiretapping etc.; signing statements and claims of the Unitary Executive; using bogus claims of executive privilege to block Congress from functioning as a check and balance; expanding the "commander-in-chief" role to usurp power and place it beyond any check from legislative or judicial branches; dismantling regulation for the corporate powers embedded in its power system; etc.
What all these have in common is A REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE ANY LEGITIMATE POWER THAT RUNS COUNTER TO ITS WILL.
Now, look at the craziness that's arisen on the right in the wake of Obama's election. The craziness can be boiled down to this: IT IS A REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THEY LOST A LEGITIMATE ELECTION, AND THAT THEY ARE NOW SUBJECT TO A LEGITIMATE POWER, FROM THE OTHER SIDE, TO WHICH THEY ARE OPPOSED.
(This is the second straight time --the other being 1992-- when A substantial part of the right has refused to accept the legitimacy of the assumption of power by their opposition. This was not true, so far as I know, in any other presidential election --not in 1976, not in 1960, not in 1932, etc.-- and from this we can perhaps date just when it was that the right became possessed by this dark power: i.e., some time between 1976 and 1992.)
These right-wingers make Obama out to be unAmerican, to be threatening everything the country stands for, to be a power-grabber. They're talking about secession, about a Second American Revolution, about resistance, about becoming "armed and dangerous."
What they are not doing is ACCEPTING that in a democracy everyone wins some and loses some, and that when one loses one must SUBMIT to the rule of the legally constituted powers, selected by the means agreed upon in our "social contract," the Constitution.
At the human level, one can conjecture about the kind of brokenness that feeds this refusal to submit to any power that is not of one's Me or Us, and whose will might run contrary to one's own.
The pattern suggests traumatic experience from being on the receiving end of injurious power, presumably in a very vulnerable situation (such as childhood). Most likely, this experience of injurious power would have been during the process of being socialized into the family and culture of one's origin-- a process in which what was felt to be an alien and hostile power or authority required one to submit to what felt like intolerable demands. The conscious mind henceforth identifies with that injurious culture and authority, but at the same time the unconscious mind must still deal with the residual fear and rage. And the culture provides an outlet by teaching one to direct that antipathy against acceptance and subordination toward any power that is not an extention of the sacred "Us."
(I have explored this human dynamic in various essays here, including "Here’s the puzzle: How is it that many remarkably decent people can support leaders who are remarkable precisely for their lack of such decency?" which can be found at click here />
But at the level of the spirit, one can see that this kind of enraged rebellious spirit, this refusal to submit to the not-Me and not-Us, is a powerful strategy for the dark spirit, whose project is the destruction of Wholeness.
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