^ Pulpit Programming
I have been wrestling with ghosts a lot lately – ghosts ofdead programming. One would think that if it’s dead it couldn’t dictateanything, that it couldn’t direct my thoughts or actions. But this programmingis deep, hard-wired in there when I was just a wee tot. I dig at it and dig atit, but it seems never fully eradicated.
In researching paganism, it became clear that the goddessreligions were very matriarchal, with nurturing maternalism rooted in femininedeities. And the traditions of Judeo-Christian religions were verypaternalistic, with male gods who are demanding and punishing. Certainly thisfeminine mystique, the root of the Sacred Feminine that presumably waseradicated from the christian by “church fathers” in Nicaea,was appealing to me as a woman. And I began to see this disparate conflict ofmale/feminine energy in many things besides religious history, especially inpolitics. The (current) conservative party in Americais very paternalistic; this was true before they got co-opted by the ReligiousRight, with their “Angry and Jealous God” (Nahum 1:2). Political progressivesare much more maternal, with their benevolent government largesse.
There are many reasons why I disdain the conservativeplatform (more so now than ever, with the Religious Kooks driving so many oftheir positions). It’s inherently schizophrenic, with its reverence for “smallgovernment” while lauding a very LARGE government that intrudes into a woman’sright to procreate, a government that deigns to know best which gender itscitizens ought to share sheets with for a lifetime, a government thatlegislates a narrow flavour of morality that’s rooted in religion (somethingspecifically prohibited by the First Amendment to the Constitution), agovernment that “praises the life of an unborn zygote that can’t draw its ownbreath” but casually and smilingly executes living and breathing humans itfinds guilty using a flawed system that occasionally murders innocents. Thesame “conservative” movement profligately squanders natural resources anddrives our national deficit into the trillions. What is conservative about anyof this? It’s insanity!
I claim no political party. There isn’t a party out theregood enough for my membership. Even the Green Party doesn’t do it for me(although it comes close). I’m an American without a political party I cansupport, and I suspect I’m one of millions who feels this way. I end upsupporting the closest party I can imagine is good for everyone and not justthe elites and the WannaBe Elites. (Not everyone can or should be aMillionaire, people. And raping the country’s natural resources and myopicallyfocusing on what things USED to be like instead of on the future, wherepresumably humans will be capable of evolving out of this sad state of affairs… it’s just short sighted horseshit.)
It’s Bully Pulpit Programming, and not the “bully” thatTeddy Roosevelt meant. (Back then, “bully” meant “wonderful.”) THIS BullyPulpit is mean-spirited and money-grubbing. And too much like church. I amreminded of another bumper sticker:
