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Political Koans… Scozzafava, Rangel, Bruno, Pharma, AIG

Posted by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Deputy Managing Editor, Columnist in Health, Politics, Society.
Nov 2nd, 2009 | Comments

A koan is a short, often paradoxical idea, meant to tell the truth, or cause the ego to give up, or cause enlightenment, or all three.

Old well known koans:

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

What is the sound of a tree falling in the forest, if there is no one there to hear it?

I try my hand at koans. I’m no good at it, but I try.

Why it is so easy for ‘the base’ of any side to fall so easily into a Pavlovian rage by telling them half-truths which are purposely meant to make them cry out: “Look what they’re trying to do to us now!”

Why is the party of conservatism, liberally going all ‘jr. high schoolyard fight’ starring Palin, Scozzafava, Owens, Hoffman, Limbaugh and others.

What is oversight if no one is watching… Charlie Rangel, for instance.

If AIG with its multi-billions of dollars of real estate holdings said they stopped hiring their window washers worldwide to save money, what if it was really so no witnesses could see in the windows where executives in the glass towers were stuffing thousand-dollar bills down their trousers?

What is the sound of pharmaceutical lobbyists standing in line for the dole, while arranging for ill people not to be able to buy affordable medicine because someone drew a line across a river, saying a nation is defined only by landmass, and not by the life-sparing needs of the people.

I wonder about why Joe Bruno suddenly stopped showing up at Albany in his doublebreasted bragadoccio and who is suited up so late to investigate him and why.

And then, there’s this, a true koan, I think….

“If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket
would be elected swineherd every time,
no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.”
by Orson Scott Card, contemporary novelist

Except, there has to be an antidote to that, otherwise we’ll never make it out of the sty alive.

Something like…
if humans could discern before the fact,
the man with the slop bucket?
His real record at the slaughterhouse would be revealed
before he was ever allowed to declare he was running.

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spirasol

What if capitalism and socialism and democracy could be blended?
What if stockholders suddenly became naked and their bodies showed the rise and fall of their investments?
What would it feel like for a lobbyist to be lobbied on behalf of the people?
What if the world realized that the torch of democracy no longer burned from America?
What if the hypocrisy on the inside and hidden could be psycho-surgically removed?
Who is it power does not corrupt?
What if everyone set out to find the lost soul of America? Where would you look first?
What if politics was enshrined with nobility and Joe lieberman was banned from participating?
what if arrangements were made for us all to be paid in barter without taxes?
What if all those working full time insisted on working part time so that the unemployed could work beside them?
What if the congress was lobbied by heart workers who plead the case of the voiceless?
What if the powerful were made to go begging and the weak and infirm inherited all they had lost?
What if they gave a war and nobody showed up?
What if the war dead could speak? What would they say?
What if a politician got elected on the promise of transparency and reneged on his promise?

HemmD

Why is the cost of freedom calculated by lobbyists and paid for by the life blood of the electorate?

Why are politics local and corruption universal?

Would the Truth be accepted in Washington if it wasn't accompanied by a check?

tidbits

Archangel -

Your piece made me chuckle...and think a little. Thanks.

Here are mine, not truly koans:

If a question has no answers, how can we demand to know the truth?
If the assumption is false, can a valid conclusion follow?
If you cannot remember your lover's name the next day, were you truly lovers?

z of c

archangel

man, those are all good!

dr.e

Ghostdreams

When God cries for us, can those without a god see it?
If life is a dream, why are so many screaming for the nightmare to stop?
If life has meaning, why is the suicide rate so high and why is the state I live in cutting off 75% of it resources for the mentally ill.

Ghosty

Ghostdreams

If a church demands that a state Psychologist Association change their licensing regulations so that psychologists can not only discriminate against a particular group of people but will refuse to refer these people on to a therapist who can help them, would that church still be considered a religious organization?

Ghostdreams

That's not truly a Koan is it?
WELL.. I'm working on a way to make it INTO one! Honest! :P
heeh
Ghost

archangel

Ghost, you're funny with your postscripts. The koan about church demanding certain class of people to be not treated, is a good one. It's long, but I am not sure the idea is Haiku. So, long, short, medium. All good. Except for church lobbying state law to conform with spirit beliefs. Not good.

I like the one about When God cries, too.

And sadly, all the states that were bloated in their admin salaries and budgets now cut, always, the vulnerable. However Ghost, as soon as the groups who are cut out, rally and show up at the state legislature and speak to their congress people, things can change. I think the koan is something like the author I quoted, only If politician thinks he/she wont be re-elected because a significant block of people publicly think he/she is do-do, same politico will add slop back into the bucket and not, at least, slaughter those livestock who protested.

hang in there.

dr.e

ordinarysparrow

Does one vote make a difference?
How can one be so full of opinions and speculations & drink from such an empty cup?
If a politician is not the person he promises to be who is he?
Is it baseball or is it politics?
If politics is the art of the impossible what is possible for our Nation?
How can politicians be masters at self-deception if there there is no self?
Can one vote change the world?
What if every child killed in war was God's child?
If our politicans looked into a mirror whose face will we see?

spirasol

2nd try......What if we had the opportunity to peel back all the layers and found that at the center there was only an idea that flew away the minute the cage door was left open......

What if all the mortgages and holdings and stocks and portfolios and unpaid debt revealed that America was really owned by those who live outside her boundaries?

What if the dead soldiers returned in dreams to advise the seekers of peace?

What if as a prerequisite of war it was necessary to send members of your own family?

What if democracy were a creature or a plant slated for extinction?

What if democracy were a woman and we saw her standing naked before her wardrobe trying to decide what to put on today: the glittery trappings of consumer capitalism personified in the sleek sharp lines of a business suit, the loose fitting throw-on with its colorful integrated group-think social pattern which really asks only one question: what is best for all, or the drab gray dusty gown already rejected by all the most ambitious hunters (but embraced by most wolves), a wall flower guarantee, but in which she knows she feels elegant.

What if capitalism had a soul and it became lost ......

spirasol

This from Ariana Huffington:

What would candidate Obama make of President Obama? and what would President Obama make of candidate Obama?

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