2.5
February 23, 2011

Don’t Abort Planned Parenthood. ~David Telfer McConaghay


Planned Parenthood Is In A Delicate Situation…

((click the banner above or any red text in this vicinity to sign the petition!))

“The U.S. House of Representatives has just voted to bar Planned Parenthood health centers from all federal funding for birth control, cancer screenings, HIV testing, and other lifesaving care.”

This is simply unacceptable. It is one thing to disagree with the underlying moral principle of birth control; it is quite another to impose your view on the lives of millions of people, thereby preventing them from receiving the medical care they seek.

Of all the programs to cut… The people pulling the strings of our government constantly oversee such egregiously wasteful spending that this action to deny PP even a relatively tiny slice of the pie can only be interpreted as a slap in the face to anyone who believes that the facts about healthy sexual habits should be presented to those who seek them. Are they trying to infuriate the slumbering masses and awaken them into open revolt?

Planned Parenthood does not promote promiscuity; they simply offer information and services that allow people — men and women of all ages and ethnicities i.e. Americans — to make informed decisions about their lifestyle choices. Empowerment through knowledge is the only chance people have to exercise self-determination. If basic information is withheld, one cannot truly employ one’s free will.

Personally, I am of the opinion that individual free will is the most sacred gift with which we as humans have been endowed, and therefore, to purposefully impinge on another person’s ability to exercise it is as high a crime as could exist.

Photo: S.MiRK

The implied message of these cuts is that there is little or no value to the conversation about sexual activity and reproduction for which Planned Parenthood provides a venue. This is absurd. Concepts of sex and sexuality have been so perverted (no pun) in American culture that it is no wonder everybody is confused. We have Congresssmen trying to buy women on Craigslistor worse; rampant abuse in the church; and graphic quasi-nudity splashed everywhere in the mass Corporate media — and yet, everyone gets all bent out of shape when a middle-aged mother accidentally has her nipple exposed on national television.

The inherent hypocrisy is a symptom of a repressed obsession.

We want to think we are maintaining our Puritan heritage by preaching this O-so-Holy idea of abstinence (because who needs a free condom or an HIV test if practicing abstinence?), when in fact our behavior more closely reflects the odd practices of ancient Rome right before it burned (think: Senators and young boys).

Our only chance at this point is to have an open conversation, to let all the skeleton’s out of our collective closet and allow for their civil union! For many people, sex is a very scary issue, and though it does not necessarily have to be that way, it is, so we need to be brave enough to confront it and deal with it honestly before we have any hope of moving on to other issues…

Issues like, Why is Planned Parenthood losing funding (along with other honest institutions like NPR and PBS) while we continue to invest billions of dollars in new, more efficient forms of mass murder? Yeah, I said it: war is murder, and there is no excuse for it.

We would be far safer from our “enemies” if we stopped building bombs and instead used those resources to house, clothe, feed and educate people around the world. Then if anyone attacked us 9/11 style, the whole world would revolt against those shameless thugs who were insecure enough in their own existence that they found it necessary to attack an entity so benevolent as we. And even then, we would know to respond with compassion and humility, sending food to their families along with sincere condolences for their confusing loss. It’s called forgiveness; it creates space for healing.

Radical, I know…

I know full well that that last paragraph might come off as naive idealism, but I honestly don’t understand what is so complicated about it. It’s never going to be perfect, but are we even trying? I have no patience for politicians who attempt to placate me with their moralizing about the sanctity of marriage and the critical danger abortion poses to the very fabric of our society, who then proceed to vote for more war, more weapons, more suffering, more violent death. Do wars of aggression not register on their moral radar? Ohh but there is political pressure and my corporate constituency said I should blah blah…

Stop.
No.
Just don’t vote for it.
Say no.
It’s easy. It’ll feel good.
Try it.

Photo: Project Camelot

Why not say No to the next Pentagon request for “discretionary R&D funding?” These alphabet soup agencies (CIA, NSA, FBI, DEA, etc) have black (as in, you don’t know about them — until now) budgets that are basically black holes for public funds. Yes, they have developed some pretty amazing technology over the years (microwaves, LED lights, computers, for starters) but the stuff the public sees is ancient history and a mere smidgen of what actually exists. This is akin to treason; or grand larceny; or, high-tech petty money laundering. It should stop. As of, say, yesterday. At the very least, we the people ought to demand the distribution of free-energy technology and, once that is done, I would like to be shown our latest intergalactic aeronautical instruments (read: spaceships).

By now I realize I’m ranting, but there are so many dots to connect that my head might soon explode (in a sensual eruption?). Off the top of my head, there are the union-busters bustling about in Wisconsin, seeking to eliminate the ability of public workers to organize and demand fair compensation; the latest federal budget (an Obamanation?), which proposes funding cuts to programs for the poor — including heating assistance and health care programs like Planned Parenthood; attempts to cut funding for NPR and PBS — institutions that promote factual reporting and civil debate; proposed cuts to almost every EPA program… and, what else? Oh, here’s a good summary.

Right, see? Capital-T “They” are de-funding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, removing “FCC allocations for enforcement of Net Neutrality” (meaning soon enough, an article like this will just get censored, and not even the 19.5 people who would normally see it will see it), and, oh by the way, They voted to”continue $53 billion in oil subsidies.” This, while our armed forces — who, mind you, are fighting and dying in distant deserts essentially to protect our petrol interests — are welcomed home by substandard conditions at VA hospitals and a bouquet of bureaucratic prevarication and political double-talk? WTF!

Between the black budget ($56 bil) and the oil subsidies ($53 bil), it seems to me that, given the austere economic times we’re told we’re living in, there is a lot of discretionary spending happening that doesn’t promote the general well-being of the greater population of our country or that of the world as a whole.

Couldn’t we squeeze out a couple billion to subsidize green energy technologies? Or, a few million here and there to make sure we don’t have people freezing to death because they can’t pay their heating bill — even if it means that some people have to start taking the bus (at least until we can start mass producing H2O-fueled cars) because they can’t afford gas at $5 a gallon? How does that calibrate on your humanitarian scanner? How difficult are these decisions, really?

Like Saul says,

Many philanthropic and charitable organizations have pointed out that the vast sums spent annually on defense, weaponry, and wars is far, far more than is required to provide abundant food and shelter for all on the planet very easily. Unfortunately, many people bought into the fear scenario that claims “If we don’t protect and defend ourselves we will be annihilated!” and still believe that spending vast resources on myriad organizations of a military nature is essential to their well-being.  Now the foundations of this catastrophic belief are crumbling as you see these organizations being deployed to subdue and even destroy the very citizenry it is alleged that they were created to protect.

It would all be quite funny if it weren’t so entirely terrifying.
Anyway, I had a point… Right,

Sign The Petition In Support Of Planned Parenthood

and the one to

Save NPR & PBS

then join or start a

Meditation Flash Mob

in your community and take conscious, collective action to transform the global thought-atmosphere and thereby hasten the day when humanitarian values and authentic service of the Highest Good will reign in governance around the globe.

In case you haven’t noticed or felt it yourself, life is accelerating, rapidly spiraling in on itself as we soar through the climactic hours of what has been a beautiful and abominable age. The monstrous transition (away from being monsters) we are now experiencing is not to be a source of fear, but it is an invitation for a serious reevaluation of our collective values.

We are being asked to not only examine those professed principles, but to determine to what extent the content of our lives reinforces or undermines these ideals. As time speeds up, so does the boomeranging process of action and reaction; therefore, we are all experiencing the consequences of our choices on a quickening timetable. Instant Karma, coming right up.

Notice Yoko knitting blindfolded. (It’s a metaphor.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqP3wT5lpa4

Once again, I implore you to embrace the fear that comes with removing the blindfold, so that we can at least see the ugly sweater we’re knitting, and not blame it on Grandma when she doesn’t get you anything for your birthday because her pension and benefits have been severed. Yes, embrace and then banish that conditioned sexual shame and recognize this increasingly unstable, transitional time as the blessing it is. We are given the opportunity to experiment with 0ur existence and to soon discover that which is aligned with our Higher purpose in life; or, equally, to learn about that which is disharmonious with our most optimal path. Don’t you just love learning opportunities?

Developments in quantum mechanics have established a consensus in the scientific community that we are all interconnected through a subtle web of essential energy which exists prior to, concurrent with, and infinitely beyond any material manifestation (just like sages have been saying for centuries). Individuals are awash in a sea of ideas belonging to no one and everyone at once. We are helplessly affected by the joy and chaos that subsumes every human mind. But at the same time, we are equally empowered to enact influence within that unseen field (commonly known as the noosphere (also see here)) and radiate vibrations of peace, justice, and harmony if we so choose. The slow distortions of feelings like fear and hate quite literally cannot keep up with the high frequencies emanating from beings stabilized in a state of love.  “It’s science…”

The human body is a lightning-rod of consciousness.
“Reality” is no more than a heavy collection of very dense thought-forms.
We are saturated in a complex illusion of collective co-creation.
Collective experience flows from the specific energetics of individuals overlapping.
Massive practical change is rooted in individual actions, be they grandiose or mundane.
A mob is made up of men and women — a man and a woman, standing hand in hand stating humanity’s demands so they may be known and felt across the lands and sea where another man and woman have knelt, awaiting an intuitive trigger to help them to see that the time is now to rise up and Be.
Maybe this is why there are so many personal revolutions happening simultaneously alongside the widespread uprisings against oppressive governmental regimes.

In closing, I will say that the only war that matters is the one currently being waged for the relative quality of your consciousness. Like a blindfolded bird in a cage, we need to remove the veil before we can see that the door is wide open.

So please,
just be
aware of That
with me.

Thanks.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________


David Telfer McConaghay was born on planet Earth. Since that fateful first day of Spring in ’86, he has wandered across its surface in search of something which, when found, kindly insists that he continue searching. His immediate family lives in Minneapolis, MN, though he also feels at home in Washington D.C.; Grass Valley, CA; Bogotá, Colombia; and now, almost Boulder, CO. He completed his B.A. in English & Creative Writing at The George Washington University in 2008. The Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm (Vrindavan of the West) is the primary source of any yogic inspiration David aka Sri Nivasa may express. He plays on Facebook HERE.

Read 7 Comments and Reply
X

Read 7 comments and reply

Top Contributors Latest

Elephant journal  |  Contribution: 1,375,390