A Boring Week...

Not much going on this past week, I miss the media driven conflicts between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and Mit Romney versus Rudy Guliani versus Mike Huckabee. I would include Ron Paul, but he's from Texas and never had a chance. Oh, and there's Bob Barr, the Republican turned Libertarian, but nobody is quoting him and I doubt if he will be in any presidential debates.

Its time to change the Grand Old Party, make it into something that actually works and can come up with good ideas for our country. The right wing has been in power for the past 8 years, and they have fucked things up beyond recognition, been mean and vindictive to anyone who criticizes them. Even now, when the administration issues policy statements, they are then parroted in John McCain's remarks and on radio and television talk shows. Its as if nobody is allowed to think for themselves, having had their brains sucked out and intimidated by the Great Satan, Dick Cheney.

Locally, our candidates for Congress are trying to knock each other out by touting how they are the most conservative because this has traditionally been a very conservative district, probably from the amount of retired military folks. But most people are a mixture of conservative and liberal ideas that lead to a more balanced middle-of-the-road. It's the insane sociopathic people that always have to adhere to some set of ideas that's been spoon fed to them, and they brand themselves as true conservatives or liberals. They spend more energy demonizing each other and shutting their ears when we could be putting that energy to good use. Unfortunately, this cutting themselves off from the ability to listen and communicate rolls over into their personal lives as well, and is the reason why their children often rebel against them. Colorado is home to the Columbine massacre, which has become iconic to disaffected teenagers, and the killings at New Life Church, where a kid went over the edge and lashed out lethally at the institution he felt was responsible for his crazy-assed parents and his upbringing. Don't get me wrong, I would have shot him, too.

Linking closed minds is often religion. I thought that California was the home state for cults, but then I moved to Colorado... If your religion creates a divisive " us " versus " them," with everyone else in the universe being " them," then you have not been saved; you have been brainwashed. The problem is that Christianity is a mystical religion and most people are ignorant about mystical states, confusing simple epiphanies with grand religious insight. There is a saying: when God wants to destroy an ant, He gives it wings... In Zen, when a person has been acknowledged to have achieved " enlightenment, " it means that they have gotten the basics down, and they are now ready to continue on the path. They don't build their lives on a single epiphany, knowing that there will be many more to come.

Having a place that fosters growth for your faith is a blessing, but often when that place gets too big for the congregation, they become a money-making institution and lose sight of their original goals. Ted Haggard was seduced by being a player in Washington, he also preached divisiveness of the spirit and became two persons: one, who was a man of an Evangelical God, and two, a man who just had to suck a dick every now and then, using a little crank to mask those feelings.

The GOP needs to become a party of ideals and ideas again, not the cynical twisting of ideals to rip off the rest of us. It needs to harness the idealistic energy of young people, which Barack Obama is doing. If we can't spark hope and enthusiasm in people, then we have become bankrupt and need to be replaced.

- yiquan