Clear Thinking..

Nothing sharpens ones thinking like danger or the threat of it. Americans then, should be thinking quite clearly.  For, as in Alice's Wonderland,  it seems that danger hovers as near as the next breath.  The planet is warming, the economy has collapsed, and not even riches can save one from the deadly disease du jour..

But consider the emphasis we place on the problem compared to the whole picture:  Yes, climate is changing, and our late acceptance of the fact has focused American ingenuity on ways to harness cleaner sources of fuel and electricity.   Yes, the economy from which we are emerging violently shook the pillars of the capitalistic system we support and that shaking revealed the fissures in a system where the needs of humans and capital were grossly out of balance.; we can fix it.   And yes, changes in science, technology, media, and laws have fostered an explosion of new disease awareness, and simultaneously, Americans have increased their knowledge of the mental causes of disharmony and disease and the natural, medative and restorative tools for destroying them.

We are able to choose what to emphasize in our thinking.  That choice directly determines where we focus our time and attention.  Tomorrow will reflect the fruit of each choice we make today. If we choose to see the uncertainty and danger of the present moment as an opportunity for loving, courageous action, our clear thinking will lead us to create a healthier, saner and more genuinely prosperous America .


   



   

Who Owns You?

As a child, I often heard the question, "Who do you belong to?" It was asked by my grandmother and always launched me into a warm feeling of love and permanence. She would hold me close to her warm body and gently hug me when asking the question. I would always hug her back and say, "I'm your little girl," then squeeze her as tight as my little arms would let me.

But I am no longer a child, and chances are, neither are you. Nonetheless, the question is as valid as ever. Posed to an adult, the implications of the question are much broader; it encompasses who or what you allow to control your spiritual identity, who influences your thinking as a citizen of the world, and whether you think of yourself as a world citizen at all.

If we don't examine the "who owns us question," how can we understand the good and the evil tendencies in ourselves; and if we cannot understand ourselves, how can we control ourselves? And without self-control, we have no discipline over our appetites, fears, hopes, thoughts, and behavior. An undisciplined person is easily manipulated.

Human beings are not made to be puppets, we are made to think and feel and love and create. But what you think and how you feel and whom you love and what you create depends on your answer to this question, "Who owns you?"

I hope you will give this question honest thought. You are invited to share your insights here.

Leaders Use Now to Its Best Advantage.

I was feeling apprehensive about the coming elections. How would the steady diet of fear that American people have consumed since September 11, 2002 show up in this next round of elections? Would the constant bombardment of negative campaigning have its desired effect - disgusting the majority of voters to the point that they would stay away from the polls, giving the minority of voters the elected seats needed to impose their will on the majority of citizens?

The phone rang and it was my Congressman, with a recorded message telling me that I would be connected ot a live teleconference. I could ask questions of him or just listen in. I almost hung up - I had no time to listen or participate. But I changed my mnd. Wasn't this what democracy required? To have government of the people, by the people and for the people, don't busy people have to make time for leadership? So I put the phone on speaker, and I listened to my neighbors speak their minds. We should tax imported oil, said a man who lost his gasoline service station business; we should be ashamed of the low level of performance of our school children compared with others in the world; why couldn't elected people figure out how to get along with each other? My Congressman listened to each constituent and without ever pretending to know exactly what they were feeling, he responded as honestly as possible... there are international trade agreements to consider, but no one has ever made that suggestion to me before; I voted to take money from one educational opportunity and put it in one we hope will be more effective, balancing priorities and making these decisions is hard; who you send to Congress matters, 3 good democrats and 3 good republicians can sit in a room together and work out almost anything...his voice trailed off there.

The one hour call felt like 15 minutes. I'd been inspired by the promise of democracy. I began to look forward to the campaign work I had signed up for - it was a joy, not a duty. I and you have this election, we have now. We are one nation bound together by the greatest piece of poliltical literature ever penned, the US Constitution. If we value our freedoms, our commitment to each other and our leadership, we the people can each use NOW to its best advantage. We can each educate ourselves and others on issues and candidates. We can work to heal our nation by refusing to give in to fear or apathy. We can vote.

President Obama Speaks on Critical American Issues.

The United States of America faces many critical issues-the economy, educational failures, immigration reform, and skeptical citizens. Yet, the lack of willingness of Republican leaders to work with Democratic leaders may be the problem most urgently in need of solution. President Obama articulates the cost of this "cooperation gap" in his speech to Hispanic leadership at the 33rd Annual Awards Gala of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

All Americans have the opportunity to encourage their elected officials to work cooperatively with their colleagues on behalf of the American public.

See the clip here:

http://cspan.org/Watch/Media/2010/09/15/HP/A/38202/Pres+Obama+Remarks+at+Congressional+Hispanic+Caucus+Institute+Awards+Ceremony.aspx

Travel Observations.

Traveling in Asia and noticing that appreciation, gratitude and love are universal ice breakers. I would like to hear from you on your observations of these three traits. How have you found them to affect human interactions and leadership.

New Beginning for Leadership Light Now.

Hi friends,

Welcome to a new Leadership Light Now. After a year of regular posts and a second one of fits and starts, I've returned to this medium with which I have a love-hate relationship, because it is effective. And, although I have looked, I find little in today's electronic media world encouraging dialogue on the critical topic of Leadership. Leadership, especially courageous and intelligent leadership, matters.

The new Leadership Light Now will be a monthly blog, published the first week of each month. It will focus on leaders and leadership qualities. Starting now,we will also include stories about leaders and how their lives affect yours. I hope you enjoy the new format. Sign up for RSS and you will automatically receive notification of new posts. I want your well-researched stories and encourage your comments and suggestions. Thanks to those off-line friends who encouraged this new beginning.

The August posting is an essay by writer and professor Elaine Clift in celebration of the leaders whose just stuggle gave American women the right to vote. Enjoy, share, evolve.


REMEMBERING THE WOMEN WHO BROUGHT US THE VOTE


August marks an important anniversary. Ninety years ago, on August 26, the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote was signed into law. This momentous event – passage of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment – followed ratification by Tennessee, the last state needed to ratify, on August 18. That state’s ratification came only after one young man, who held the make-or-break vote, received a note from his mother before he entered the state house to cast his vote. His mother told him she wanted him to be a good boy and do the right thing. At the eleventh hour, he changed his vote from Nay to Yeah. The rest, as they say, is history.

However, only a few people know what it took to get that vote. Some know that Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with the help of many other active, brave women, gave much of their lives to women’s enfranchisement. They know that the struggle began in 1848 when the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, NY. They know that after the Civil War black men could vote but women couldn’t and that abolition trumped women’s suffrage as a political priority. They may even know that Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in 1872 and was denied a trial by jury. A year later, after losing her case, she refused to pay her fines and the matter was dismissed.

Some people know that both Anthony and Stanton, along with all the other pioneering women who worked with them, went to their graves without having achieved the one simple success they sought. They know that Alice Paul formed the National Woman’s Party in 1916. But they may not know that 500 women were arrested for protesting at the White House as “Sentinels of Liberty.” They never heard the stories of the 168 women who went to prison simply because they wanted to be counted as full-fledged citizens of the country in which they’d been born. Here are some of those first-hand accounts:

“The guards fell upon us. I saw Miss Lincoln, a slight young girl, thrown to the floor. Mrs. Nolan a delicate old lady of 73, was mastered by two men. … The whole group of women were thrown, dragged and hurled down the steps. I was thrown, with four others, in a cell with a narrow bed and dirty blankets.”

“The men were not in uniform. They looked as much like tramps as anything. … Mrs. Lewis said we demanded to be treated as political prisoners. Whittaker said, ‘You shut up! I have men here glad handle you. Seize her!’ … We were rushed into a large room with brick dungeons on each side. Mine was filthy; it had no window save a little slit at the top and no furniture but a sheet-iron bed and an open toilet flushed from outside the cell.”

“I saw Dorothy Day brought in. Two men were twisting her arms above her head. Then suddenly they lifted her up and banged her down over the arm of an iron bench, twice. One of the men yelled, ‘The bloody suffrager! I’ll put you through hell!’ … Mrs. Lewis, doubled over and handled like a sack or something, was literally thrown in by two men. Her head struck the iron bed and she fell. We thought she was dead. … We were told by the guard not to dare to speak or we would be put in straight-jackets.”

“Alice Paul is in the psychopathic ward. She dreaded forcible feeding frightfully, and I hate to think how she must be feeling. I had a nervous time of it, gasping a long time afterward, and my stomach rejecting during the process.”

All this grotesque suffering just for the right to vote.

Some states yielded. First came Wyoming, then Colorado, Utah and Idaho before the turn of the century, followed by Washington, California and others in the early 20th century. (It is noteworthy that all these states were west of the Mississippi, where women were pioneering alongside their husbands.) But state-by-state victories were not enough. So Alice Paul began organizing, modeling her work on the suffragists of Great Britain. She and her followers managed to embarrass President Woodrow Wilson, which is partly why they were subjected to torture in filthy jails run by sadists.

Just for the right to vote.

When the country went to war in 1917 women participated actively in America’s war effort. It was impossible to continue denying them the vote. But it took another fifty years or more for women to begin to make inroads toward becoming legislators themselves. Today that struggle continues as we strive for parity in our parliament.

On the occasion of this 70th anniversary, I honor Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, the Grimke sisters, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, and all the lesser known women who made women’s enfranchisement a reality.

And I shudder to know that still, some women don’t vote.

# # #

Elayne Clift writes about women, politics and social issues from Saxtons River, Vt.

Leading Myself From Fear to Confidence.

The news that the Supreme Court of the United States had voted to allow corporations to donate to political campaigns aroused such anger in me that I had to look closely at what lay beneath that emotion. I waded through disgust asking myself, "How could the justices who were sworn to uphold the US Constitution have so little respect for that magnificent document as to treat a corporation as a "person," a homosapien, with morals and life?" Next I found frustration, "What is wrong with our system that we would elect members of Congress who would put such dead people on the Supreme Court?" At the bottom of my anger, I found fear. Fear that the corruption so rampant in the US political system would only worsen now that cowardly humans could hide behind the corporate shield and make donations to political candidates and parties. Fear that the magnificent promise of a free people governing themselves would be destroyed by 5 little people on the Supreme Court. Fear that more men and women would be sacrificed as corporate soldiers in needless wars cynically cloaked in powerful words like "freedom."

For two days I could hardly sleep, my appetite became erratic and vascellated between a craving for asparagus and no hunger at all. I fretted that a cynical minority of self-serving people would succeed in completely turning American citizens off to voting by funding confusing, antagonsitic political campaigns or that they would succeed in confusing those who did vote, or that elected officials would ultimately be totally beholden to corporate interests and the effect of individual human voices would be lost because no honest person would be able to afford to campaign for public office.

Sunday came and as I sat in church I heard these words:

"There is only Love. God is love and nothing else is real." Slowly I felt my shoulders relax. The knot in my stomach began to unwind. I prayed to feel the truth of those words. Gradually, the fear and the chatter in my mind eased. I began to recognize the wisdom of the founders of the US. They, having lived under the control of economically powerful rulers who were unaccountable to the people, had designed a system that placed the liberty of the individual human being into the hands of a government made of human representatives elected from among the people. In the US, no one would assume the right to govern by reason of wealth, power, or birthright. To assure the continuation of this new kind of government, the founders had created a three level system of checks and balances. The President could not govern without the Congress and the Court. The Court could be overruled by the Congress and the rules of the Congress could be tried in Court. Although imperfect, those founders set up a system that people all over the world have adopted. The strength of the entire system rests with a population of people driven by the spirit of love for the right of each person to be self-governing and free. Because of this, the Constitution of the United States of America has withstood 200 years of attempts by would be "kings" to weaken or destroy it. As I let myself feel the love that led my family and friends and thousands of others to sacrifice their lives and limbs in defense of the Constitution written for human beings, I felt fear transform into confidence.


Americans must now join together to fight for their right to self-government. It is not a war of blood but of truth over error. We are not Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Greens, Libertarians, or anything else. We are Americans first. And we are human beings. WE, not corporations, are the US Government. We must not be timid, or turned away by digust, or made to ignore our responsibility to let our elected members of the US Congress know that we expect them to introduce legislation that states clearly that "The word "people or person" in the Constitution of the United States of America is defined as human beings, homosapiens, and specifically excludes corporations and other organizations and entities."

As the Preamble to the Constitution states,

"We the people, (not corporations) of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, enusre domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves (human beings) and our posterity (children, also human), do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Don't let America be stolen by corporate interests. Let your local newspaper, your mayor, your state representatives, and your congressional representatives know that we are people of love and respect , that the government is our responsibility and that we will not tolerate the corporate takeover of the USA.