Our political system has made both major parties totally unresponsive to the wills of their largest constituents. In an addictive effort to gain and maintain power, politicians of this corporate duopoly have become totally beholden to a small minority of people with seven and eight digit incomes. In America bribery is not only legal but mandatory for elective office.
I am not sure how to slay this two-headed beast but I know such a coup requires that Americans across the political spectrum understand the difference between an enemy and a rival. Rivals are competitors who play by the same rules and will sharpen one another through open debate and find win-win ways to move our country toward the blessings of life, love and liberty.
As things go now we are being manipulated into moving in just the opposite direction. Like the ancient Romans we are baited by the principalities and powers, the rulers in high and dark places into cheering on the gladiators, believing that when our team loses we lose to our rivals and the only way to victory is to utterly destroy them.
Deep down we know that the game is rigged for no one's benefit but the sponsors of these despicable distractions.
With gatekeepers at every entrance and exit, we cannot enter without a ticket and when we enter, we cannot escape the kill or be killed atmosphere on the field and in the bleachers.
O that we would boycott the putrid festivities of these pernicious parties and form our own. The seeds are there... Green, Libertarian and Constitution but we buy the lesser evil plant and eat the fruit to our own destruction.
However, too often when we dare venture into one of these new parties, we find people running the show who are addicted to the same old tribal tactics and filled with sectarian certainty of their exclusive claim to righteousness.
O that we could find some organic seed uncontaminated by the wind blown patented lies that hybridize and homogenize us. And every time we get a toe hole in the cement, we are sprayed over until every grass root is replaced with mint green astroturf.
O that we could find some common acreage to sow our separate plots. Would that our plots were not against one another but aware of one another's mutual needs and common enemy, and that this mutuality and commonality would lead us to share resources and burdens and open us to bartering for one another's crops, growing to appreciate that each has something different that can make a difference for all.
But let us not pretend that we alone or together will be triumphant this side of the eschaton. The gatekeepers of our real enemy will become advanced forces with heavy artillery should they smell what we have cooking, they will send insurgents to divide and conquer as they have always done. But let us be ready to turn our enemy rather than scapegoat our friends.
O yes! Rivals can be or become friends. Most of us come to know our rivals in our own families. Why should we be surprised at such a gift given for our mutual advantage to all who will gladly grasp it?
Green, Libertarian, Constitution... and let's add Labor to these truly representative parties. Although we have separate priorities and agendas let us not deny the dream of reconciliation even as we work for the the only way forward through equitable and principled compromise.
And let us be clear that election precedes legislation as deliverance precedes the law. Let us meet each other where we are in this wilderness, knowing we shall never enter the promised land as separate tribes and that there is much good work yet to be completed even in a land flowing with milk and honey.
After we cross the river we will find giants ready to devour us. We will certainly be scattered and have to resort to guerrilla tactics. Each of us may find ourselves with a captain not of our tribe on their gerrymandered fields. Let us be willing to sacrifice our desires for immediate and total victory so that we may use the best available weapon to vanquish our real foes.
On a field annexed by a tribe riding elephants, it may be better to use a Constitution sword or a Libertarian catapult. On a field occupied by a tribe driving donkeys, it is probably better to draw a Green bow to launch a Labor arrow.
Remember that many of our families were forced to labor in our homeland while we were exiled to islands and deserts. If we could cut through a few little briar thickets, we would find we have friends among the groves of a great forest. When they see us emerge in the distance, they will uproot every diseased tree. And when our jubilee is complete we shall sow new gardens with plows made from our swords and reap a plentiful if not final harvest with pruning hooks fashioned from our spears.
Let everyone with ears hear what the Spirit is saying in the assemblies.
