Ep. 52 Bonus Episode: State Of The Union & Impeachment Anger, Forgiveness, Equanimity and Homeostasis plus advice from Albus Dumbledore

Welcome to an unscheduled episode of the Modern Moron… I thought that instead of delivering a regular episode days late I would put one out ahead of time.  What a concept.

I never ever ever thought in a million years I would be talking so much about politics.  It’s crazy. I never gave a rat’s ass about politics but now i find myself researching and talking about it a lot not so much because I have a political opinion or a party affiliation but from an anthropological perspective and the behavioral science between the way us rats are reacting to each other in this cage.  It’s crazy and pretty interesting if you can stay detached long enough to observe it.  

Boy, a lot of stuff has gone down this week.  The two most prominent events are the State of The Union Address by the President heading in to the presidential election and the Senate’s Impeachment vote.

Okay State of the union on Tuesday… according to The Hill, skews  to the right but not as much as say Fox News stated that viewership for the address dropped by 20% except for Fox News.  That shouldn’t be a surprise.

If you didn’t watch because you can’t stand Trump, you did yourself a service as he basically used this forum as a formal kick-off for his 2020 reelection campaign.  Republicans were whooping and hollering in support and approval in standing ovation after ovation making me think that is odd behavior for a political party that very, very reluctantly took him as their candidate.  But there they were yelling approval for him as he touted victory after victory in different areas form our economy to preferential financial assistance to black universities and colleges to keeping Social Security safe and protecting us from Socialism especially socialist health care.  Did I mention that several times he looked exactly like Benito Mussolini with their downturned mouth? Seriously, you should look at some side by side photos.

There was some entertainment in watching Nancy Pelosi sit behind Trump and try to sit still.  She couldn’t. She was just beside herself looking at papers in front of her that turned out to be Trump’s printed speech.  I’m sure you know by now that after the speech she stood up and tore the speech in half. Between that and Trump not shaking her hand before the speech, there are two of your top elected officials not getting along.  And it’s easy for Republicans to call the democrats petty because after all… they’re kinda winning right now whether you like it or not.

So in the President’s State of the union address, he stated that things are about as good as they’ve ever been and has some statistics to go along with it.  That may have you seething with disdain over whether or not it’s true. Or who it might be true for.

And then in his traditional “I can do whatever the f**k I want” style, he stopped the whole show to give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Conservative Radio talk show host and shock jock Rush Limbaugh. 

Here is some of the wonderful provocative stuff that Rush has said over the years to earn him the Medal of Freedom courtesy of a CNN Report, the link is included:

And there is your latest recipient of the Presidential medal of freedom.  Congratulations Rush and good health to you sir.  

The republican party has let Donald Trump off the hook except for Mitt Romney.  Totally partisan all the way except for Mitt Romney. We need more Mitt Romney’s… politicians who will police their own party as much if not more than they point their fingers across the isle.  You may not like Mitt Romney because of his party affiliation but he’s gained a lot of respect by simply holding his own party accountable. I’m going to play a snippet for you from one of the greatest professors of our time for one of the world’s finest institutions.  The institution is Hogwarts and the professor is Albus Dumbledore. Yes I’m a moron for bringing Harry Potter into politics but I have to watch this movie damn near every night or my daughter won’t go to sleep.

But at the end of the move if you remember, Dumbledore gives a speech where he awards a few extra points that eventually change the house cup from going to Slytherin… (Trump) and instead goes to Gryffindor.  He awards Harry’s extra points along with Hermoine and Ron’s points which brings it to a tie between Slytherin and Gryfindor and then he makes one final award:

C’mon.. Ya gotta admit that’s a tear jerker moment for old Neville Longbottom.  The pudgy, nerdy kid who’s so unassuming. That one always gets me. The actor who played Neville turned out to be tall slender and like model handsome in case you didn’t know by the way.

I play you a clip from attorney Joseph Moreno.  He is a former Justice Department national Security prosecutor who is now in the private sector and chimed in on this CBS news piece on the end of the impeachment trial….

I have a link to the entire CBS News Impeachment trial summary and it’s worth taking a look at.

So you’re pissed at Trump or you might be enraged at Nancy Pelosi or Adam Schiff for the fiasco of impeaching a president when they had to know full well that it would not go through congress and that ultimately they were wasting their time and therefore our tax dollars.  Because this isn’t over there are more investigations to clog up our courts and our political system.

Lindsey Graham in the Senate still wants to go after the Bidens, not that he doesn’t deserve it.  The House committee chairman is still going to investigate other alleged wrongdoings by the President, not that he doesn’t deserve it.

They’re all acting like police investigators but who’s policing the police?  And as my father would say, how is any of this contributing one cent to the Gross National Product of this country.  The answer is zero. The only ones who win in litigations are the litigators, which is why there are so many jokes about slimy sleazy attorneys.  Attorneys out there?.... You know I’m right don’t you? If you want to hear a scathing joke about attorneys.. Ask an attorney to tell you one. They know ‘em all.

Executive privilege of the president comes into question not only for this president who by the way is a GREAT guinea pig to test the boundaries of his own privilege.  I can do whatever I want. Whether it’s to use tax dollars to conduct an investigation against one of my opponents or to give the medal of freedom to a right wing shock jock radio host right in the middle of a state of the union address.

Be assured that although the Trump impeachment trial has ended, investigations will go on and on and on.  And apparently they’re happening on our dime. Think of how much of our elected officials time has been spent on this.  Not on passing bills but instead investigating each other. It makes me think we need to have a separate branch of government just so those idiots can investigate each other.  It probably already exists. I guess it needs to be done. All of them seem to be dishonest to some degree and they all seem to be catoring not to the voters at large but to their biggest campaign donors.  They tell you in their speeches that they’re representing individuals but they’re just really good actors who are acting on behalf of the organizations that give them the most money and craft their message to disguise that fact and make you think their acting on YOUR behalf.  Yuk.

So now I would like to focus on a couple of different words.  Not politics or impeachment but equanimity and homeostasis… I feel so f***ing self righteous right now…

So check out this definition of Homeostasis: Homeostasis is any self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival. If homeostasis is successful, life continues; if unsuccessful, disaster or death ensues. The stability attained is actually a dynamic equilibrium, in which continuous change occurs yet relatively uniform conditions prevail.

Either way, I think we can agree… can we?  That the nation generally is divided and our current president evokes a lot of emotions, he taps into the emotions of us for better or for worse.

So how do you, how do we, detach from all of that discord without burying our heads in the sand.  A LOT of people have stopped watching the news altogether. That can work to an extent but that is a version of denial and it’s not completely realistic

Playing the blame game creates a hostile outlook.  Grievance, blame, or life is unfair stories lead to a downward spiraling treadmill of discontent with all things.  

Don't’ do it because if you do you think “Trump wins”.  Don’t do it begrudgingly… do it for your own wellbeing. If you happen to be a religious person, do it because the icon or icons of your religion would want you to forgive with a loving heart.  Yes, I just said forgive with a loving heart okay. Lemme add a sound effect so I’m more grounded in reality. But you know what I mean.

Forgiveness is a change in story.  It changes you from the role of a victim to a role of simply being free.  It changes your story. Not Donald Trump’s story, not Adam Schiff’s story or a political party’s story.  Your story. Make your story more peaceful and pleasant. I know I need a shitload of this type of stuff just to keep the crazy bastards trying to run the show in my head calmed the fuck down.

We are of the age where our generation of boomers remember the driver’s education films like red asphalt and other road splatter films that were intended to scare us straight and be careful on the highways.  Why the hell do I bring this up? Here’s why and I can’t find the goddamn source for this so you’ll just have to trust me.

An experiment was conducted with subjects who were shown disturbing images such as those found in the film Red Asphalt.  Then another group were shown the same images after a period of guided meditations and loving kindness meditations. Not surprisingly the second group was able to view the disturbing images with a more detachment and calm than the group that did not.

SOOOO… imagine the thing you have a visceral reaction to… Trump, Pelosi, Washington DC and politicians in general… as the red asphalt.  The disturbing images that make your heart race and give you rage or anxiety. The mediation and forgiveness is a tool that can help you free yourself from those toxic emotions.  And it doesn’t have to be as grandiose as politics. It could be the way others conduct themselves on the freeway or take 12 items into the 10 item or less isle or the entitled attitude of your kids when they expect a nightly dinner menu rather than graciously thanking you for whatever you prepared.  (machine guns)

Those stories exist everywhere for all of us.  And it’s behooves you to find some tools to let that shit go.  Do it for you, not because you think someone else will win.  You are losing, I am losing by carrying that shit around. And I carry a LOT of that shit around.

Here are a couple of people who have messages I think could be of value to you:

Ram Dass, formerly Richard Alpert, who passed away only a month or two ago.

Dr. Fred Luskin - He’s a professor at Stanford University who teaches a program in …

“Forgiveness is an assertive creation of peace in the present.”  So from this reference, forgiveness is something you do for yourself as opposed to doing it for someone else by saying I forgive you.  

 

 Radio personality Rush Limbaugh's controversial history - YouTube | CNN

Senator Doug Jones says he'll vote to convict Trump on both charges - CBS News

What Is Forgiveness? | Fred Luskin, PhD - YouTube

Learningtoforgive.com