Judy's Homegrown Blog

Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on January 8, 2012

Politics can be a downer. Here’s the way I’m going to handle it today. First, I’ll post a “Male” segment. It’s logical, it makes sense, it’s all left-brain. Then I’ll follow with a healing “Female” segment that is meant to erase the negativity of the first segment. It’s soft, it doesn’t follow logical reasoning, but it is nonetheless effective. If you’re an alpha male, you can skip the second half of this post. But if you’re like most people, you’ll need it.

WHAT WORRIES AMERICANS THE MOST about the national economy? Here’s the top 10 answers and the percentage who said it, according to an early January Gallup survey.

1.    Jobs/unemployment                                                               26%

2.    National debt/Federal budget deficit                                      16

3.    Continuing economic decline/economic instability               10

4.    Outsourcing of jobs overseas/creating jobs in U.S.                 6

5.    Obama not doing a good job/no plan/lack of leadership         5

6.    Political bickering/Congress                                                   4

7.    Healthcare/Medicaid                                                               3

8.    Corporate corruption/corporations run the government          3

9.    Housing crisis                                                                          3

10.  The future of our children                                                        2

11.  Eight other responses also checked in at 2 percent

Thinking ourselves somehow separate from life, we conclude that our safety and well-being are dependent upon our ability to control our circumstances. Trying to control circumstances, we actually separate ourselves from the rest of life to such a degree that we end up bringing to ourselves and others misery instead of the promised safety. Lao-tzu teaches us to let go. We let go of the belief that control is possible, that our efforts at control will keep us safe. We let go of the countless conditioned beliefs that have promised safety and happiness, only to deliver anxiety and suffering. We eventually let go even of the ideas of who we are as a separate ego.

It’s ironic that only by letting go can we find peace.

Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on January 7, 2012

My grandfather was a product of the Depression. He struggled his way through his late teens, going door to door offering to mend or tailor clothing. Poverty lit a fire under him to rise above his situation, so with a small loan from some family, he was able to start a business in formal wear and then costumes that prospered over the next sixty years.

He also saved gold and silver coins, and grew his own food in a garden behind his house. He bought a farm and told us that we should sell crops to Campbell’s Soup Company one day.

Such was the thinking of a Depression-era survivalist.

Not much has changed: people still think that gold and silver, and growing your own food are the order of the day during hard times. Yet, is that the best way to handle an economic downturn of unemployment and poverty? (Over 15% or 46.2 million of USA residents live in poverty as of Sept 2011.)

I maintain that there are only two things that are worth fussing over in hard economic times. No, they aren’t silver and gold. They are much more basic than that. Two main aspects of our country give it its strength and its capital. They are: healthy land, air, water (real estate) and people (hard work, brain power, relationships). Everything else is secondary. You can’t eat metal or paper when times are hard, and gold is cold company. And if your air, water, soil is unhealthy, then medical problems will eclipse any hard work you intended to do.

People act like money is the answer to everything. You can have all the money in the world and still get cancer. You can make wads of money and still not find happiness. When it’s time to answer to the man at the pearly gates, he won’t be asking how much you made, but he might ask what you did with all that time you had here on earth. Did you make the world a better place or contribute by omission or commission to its detriment?

Originally posted at Writeindependent.org on January 1, 2012

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”

—President Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919), An Autobiography, 1913

In 1922, John Hylan, Mayor of New York City from 1918 – 1925, said in a speech:

“The warning of Theodore Roosevelt has much timeliness today, for the real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over City, State, and nation… It seizes in its long and powerful tentacles our executive officers, our legislative bodies, our schools, our courts, our newspapers, and every agency created for the public protection.

…They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use the leading men of private organizations, and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business.

These… interests control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government.”

For extra credit, guess who these two men are speaking/writing about?