We'll be fine... but what about everyone else?

Hi Vida,

Don't know if this is going to help but this is my belief and my understanding. "We" is anyone that is awake, those people are going to be fine. Why? Because when you are awake you are the co-creator of your life and the power is within you to make the changes necessary to have a better life or a more fulfilling life- better is not always financially related.  Also life is transient not matter what, we all die and transform - we are souls in a human body - so what someone sees as a sacrifice - like death - someone else sees as a transformation. From what I've seen of the future there will be help for everyone despite the people that are trying to oppress others because we are "awakening" and we understand that what hurts one hurts all. 

What's happening now is cause and effect and in a sense a purge. We are moving towards a more inclusive, caring society so I think who's going to suffer is the greedy, selfish people. I know it may not seem like it right now but if you look you will see that their carefully crafted houses are starting to fall down- everyday more and more things are exposed and they will make a difference because WE have the power. The only way the powerful will survive this is if we become complacent. Please don't despair but just gently guide others towards the light and give them the seed of hope. Teach them to co-create the future they envision for themselves and for their society. 

Hi Vida, I just wanted to I've you my insights as someone who's worked as a poverty lawyer for many years. I'm an immigration lawyer but I've always worked at non-profits and have also done public benefits work (Medicaid, welfare, disability and food stamps). Some of the worst damage to poor people was done at the end of the Clinton administration, when welfare was "reformed." In practice, it's disappeared in most of the country unless you live in a blue state that provides greater social services. This happened over 20 years ago and has gotten very little press. In fact, I believe it's one of the reasons it took so long for the economy to recover from the 2009 crash -- that was the first economic downturn after "reform" and people at the very bottom of the economic ladder had literally nothing, thus nothing to plow into the economy to help it recover. Later on Obama expanded food stamps (from about $110 to $160 per person), and also Medicaid through the ACA. The ACA itself mandated birth control (this is relatively new) and provided help to people with preexisting conditions. Bush expanded Medicare in a way that provided prescription drugs benefits for many seniors. No president was able to (or tried to) restore what was lost in 1996, but in many ways the safety net was expanded.

The GOP now wants to further "reform" welfare, but there is very little "welfare" left to reform. The may try to eliminate food stamps, but I would predict that would cause a collapse of the grocery industry since many, many Americans receive them, and the industry runs on a tight profit margin.  Social Security changes would need 60 votes in the Senate. And people can fight back, future administrations can (and should) repair and restore the safety net. Its erosion need not be permanent. What we need as a country is for people to become educated about the safety net (that it's not a hammock, it's a trampoline) and to insist that our leaders stop shaming people who need it. The bottom line however is that whatever harm is done now can be repaired, and it's within our power to work on behalf of the poor to ensure that our leaders represent now just us, the relatively privileged, but folks who are at the margins of our society. Don't despair. I've done this work for years, and it's a marathon, not a sprint. And like freedom, requires vigilance.

Thanks for bringing up the subject. Everyone who cares about the poor and how they will survive can serve as a beacon of light to educate others.

This is beautiful Diana11.

Thank you Lynnventura  ?  I wanted to share this here too from the predictions page, it's from an astrologer:

Just wanted to share this – I’m not sure if links to YouTube work but if not, the name of the video is Authentic Citizens United Movement SOLUTIONS. There’s also a Authentic Citizens United Movement PROBLEMS. It’s a movement to take our power back and to co-create the future we want by participation and thru energy. It also tells you how to take care of yourself and your energy during these times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1dFxSOWoAc

I loved this link Diana! Thank you so much! It fits in with my belief system perfectly... though I am always a bit of a skeptic when others share youtube links here, especially of their favorite intuitives, psychics, astrologers, tarot readers other than Jeanne, or life coaches etc. ;-)

You reminded me to keep an open mind, an open heart, and try things I might not otherwise try. This one was definitely worth my visit. A wonderful, articulate and gifted seer..reminds me of our Jeanne, here....using social media to help others, while building their own supportive businesss but sharing so much of themselves for free. Blessings for all of us and  reminder that we are all in this together, good times and good moods, or challenging times and not so good moods and through thick and thin, high and low, dense or easily transmutable!

And when the student is ready, the teachers are out there, and the helpers surround us in our journey.

I think it’s difficult for people who live outside of the States and who grow up in primarily white suburban areas of the States to understand the challenges people of color face here.  I happened to be reading Lyndon B. Johnson’s Commencement Address at Howard University before reading Vida’s description of advocacy and concern for people who are oppressed and marginalized yesterday.  I was thinking about how relevant Johnson’s words are to the same situation today: “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.’”  Johnson pointed out that white poverty is different than the poverty of African Americans because poor whites “did not have the heritage of centuries to overcome, and they did not have a cultural tradition which had been twisted and battered by endless years of hatred and hopelessness, nor were they excluded—these others—because of race or color—a feeling whose dark intensity is matched by no other prejudice in our society.”  In “The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates provides an unsparing description of the true nature of this “dark intensity.”

Because so many white Americans truly do not see the “barriers of law and public practice” and “the walls which bound the condition of many by the color of [their] skin” that are as relevant today as they were in 1965, they do not understand that they are projecting their own feelings of entitlement onto others and, in so doing, are ever-widening the gap between freedom, opportunity, and justice for themselves and for people of color in this country. 

As a white American, it has been a continuing legacy of women in my family to expand the choices available to our daughters, so it was incomprehensible for me to consider a mental life devoid of choice, until I worked in a GED program with the first group of “welfare to work” moms under Clinton.  Their movement from lives of complete isolation to ones of connection was heart-breaking.  At first, they rubbed against each other like raw sores but over time they began sharing stories … about eating dirt to get the minerals they needed as pregnant moms, about how they were trying to make it living on the streets with their kids for two months before they were allowed to get on the waiting list for public housing, about asking their children’s doctors about their illnesses as they educated themselves about what was wrong.   I learned that what RunestoneOne says about the power of objectification is true.  We have to question and teach others how to question our reality before we can change it.  Otherwise, we just spin in gerbil cages of our own projections. 

Environmental degradation now makes clean drinking water, let alone sufficient food, a growing problem for “someone who is oppressed and marginalized;” however, it is clear that it will now be a growing problem for most of us.  The current reign of corpocracy is ever limiting the choices all of us have.  Maybe the majority of Americans have to experience what it is really like not to have choices, before we can really stand together and create a legacy of choice for everyone. 

At first Zoron’s idea about a second American revolution didn’t make sense to me.  I was too wrapped up in the idea that I was still living in a cold Civil War in a border state more truly Confederate than Union.  It makes more sense now, though.  I certainly hope that as Americans we do learn that we are in this together and that an ounce of prevention really is worth more than a pound of cure.  I hope that someday we do get another chance to support equal access to educational opportunity and health care, reformation of our criminal justice system, and a healthy environment.         

I do have to say that while young moms, like Vida and Tee, are looking at their children with hope, Boomers, like me, are looking at them as hope for the future.  I’ve worked with Millennials for years now and am so proud of their easy acceptance of the LGBT community, embrace of gender equality, rejection of lives bound by the dictates of corporations and bureaucracies that strip them of meaningful engagement with others, enthusiasm for technological innovation, and interest in serving others.  I trust them to guide us all into a better future!     

All, 

Thank you for giving me this space to grieve a bit, and especially for the wisdom and experience you've shared here. It's truly a comfort to be reminded that my human perspective on the world is limited and spirit is working behind the scenes all the time to deliver people from pain even when statistics and political analyses paint a staggeringly tragic picture of the state of things. 

Shortly after my original post, I called my sister to share my feelings. She is a federal public defender, which puts her among the  "boots on the ground" when it comes to helping the most vulnerable members of society. She told me that, in theory, God could have just come down, struck a cane against the floor and "Nanny McPhee'ed the world," but instead He sent his prophets and healers to do what they could, one person at a time. And for each person they helped, their world was transformed. At the end of the day, that's all any of us can do: make what change we can make within the limited reach we have. 

I'm trying hard to remind myself that I can't fix things on my own, which is a hard pill to swallow for someone like me. Bearing witness to darkness falling over our country is itself a spiritual practice, since it forces us to make critical decisions about what to let go of and what to fight for. I can choose hope. I can let go of fear. I can try to save small worlds. It's all I can do.

Hi Vida,

Remember that "he who saves one life saves the world." Every act you take to help one person can in fact end up saving them. And every kind act in these times is is not only an attempt to help, but an act of defiance. As someone who works with immigrants, I had to decide myself whether to succumb to despair, or to continue, little by little,  to do what I can, despite this administration's ongoing work to make the lives of immigrants and others as miserable as possible. Despair isn't an option. The world needs everyone with a kind heart and a willingness to help. Don't be hard on yourself, just do what you can. Ask God/the Universe/Angels/Higher Power to give you strength so you can keep fighting. Ask for the strength. It will come.

-Lynn, xoxo