Lincoln Stalin Churchill Obama – what has this got to do with

So its a given we live in a “whatever the marketplace wants” society. Which allows us and those who pretend to govern to say – we’re done with social programs that’s so 60s, now its the untrammeled free spirit. Get what you can, and what you get is your responsibility (and how you get it we wont say – unless , you know, you get caught – like Enron, like Conrad Black,etc, and then, well kinda depends on how we all feel that day).
So politicians who have free health care and transportation and flights to Goa to investigate…something (i.e. they have unlimited free social programs) -and do not really have to do anything, except sometimes take a call or…a lunch … And btw what happened to governing – as in serving? No-one gets into public office to serve these days do they – its a career, a hell of a job – great benefits, no real work, and a pension even if you screw up. Whats not to like.Serve ? Serve? who – those idiots tax payers – why, what have they ever done to deserve my attention, excuse me I have a flight to Goa to catch. Politics reserved for the petty, unvisionary and mean spirited – sign-up here…what was I saying ?….
O yea then there’s Obama – even if the machine allows him in – whats he gonna change? There is no political or social “will” in N.America to fight ” the marketplace mentality “(marketplace- read Corporations rule)
So – whats to be done, what can the lost in the wilderness individual do?

Well -Fight the battles you can win.

You know.

Now I like to complain but politics etc only catches my attention because it shows the lack of direction in N.American society, and the direction of a society can be changed , only by: -
a) a visionary leader who’s fanatical and prepared to do whatever to make his/her vision work, and I’m thinking Lincoln, Churchill etc but it also includes the likes of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler – so its kind of a hit and miss sort of deal.
Or
b) one person at a time out here in the wilderness of real life.
And what does one person at a time do?

Focus on their lives, to start. Focus on a little bit of service, where we can, a little bit of kindness, when we can, and a constant working to some form of inner awareness – not media awareness, not techno awareness, not “information awareness, a search for some inner, subtle, infinite, unbounded, spiritual awareness, that allows the individual to form a sense, a Common Sense, a sense of self and others, that can guide them/us.

We don’t need the Wall Street Journal, or “news at eleven”, or the latest cooking/media/techno/health/fitness guru -

Just us, just you, just me. Working away in our spaces on ourselves.

And as Arlo Guthrie says – first there’s a solo, then a duet, then voices in harmony and pretty soon you gotta movement.

A sense of the other. A common Sense