{"id":78078,"date":"2019-07-30T08:39:21","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T13:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=78078"},"modified":"2019-07-30T08:39:23","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T13:39:23","slug":"the-view-from-the-balcony-whats-love-got-to-do-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-view-from-the-balcony-whats-love-got-to-do-with-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The View from the Balcony: What&#8217;s Love Got to Do with It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There are some strange things going on\nin this election of the next President of these semi-united states. Strange\nindeed. I\u2019m not talking about orange tans or colossal comb-overs or\nRevolutionary War airports. I\u2019m not talking about our current Comrade-in-Chief\nor the Grand Old Party at all. I\u2019m talking about the Democrats!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ve been having these elections for over two hundred years and without exception \u2013 to my limited knowledge \u2013 all of them have primarily been about the candidates\u2019 agendas. Through the years these platforms have been about bringing the country together, social reforms, strengthening the military, international relations, civil rights\u2014you name it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s common for candidates to tell us that politics as usual isn\u2019t working and that they have the answer. But until now, as far as I know, no Presidential candidate has ever proposed that the bottom-line solution for America\u2019s problems is love. The very idea!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enter Marianne Williamson\u2014best-selling author, lecturer, and activist. She wants us to fix the USA by harnessing the power of love. It sounds to me like she wants us to not just \u201ctreat the symptoms\u201d of a sick society, but Williamson also wants us to do things to cure the actual cause of the disease. Imagine that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/manicpixiedreamcandidate-1024x800.jpg?fit=900%2C703\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-78079\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/manicpixiedreamcandidate-1024x800.jpg?resize=1024%2C800&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/manicpixiedreamcandidate-1024x800.jpg?resize=300%2C234&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/manicpixiedreamcandidate-1024x800.jpg?resize=768%2C600&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Why, Marianne Williamson even wants us to \u201cwage peace\u201d! She wants a cabinet-level department called \u201cThe Department of Peace\u201d! Here are some things \u2013 directly from an email she sent me \u2013 that \u201cThe Department of Peace\u201d would do:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>pursue a strategic, scientifically\nbased approach to reducing violence and heal trauma,<\/li><li>create a cabinet-level position to\nadvise the president on all matters of peace,<\/li><li>strengthen the connection between\nthe Department of State and Department of Defense research and promote\npeace-building techniques and strategies in America,<\/li><li>E\\expand existing policies and\nprograms that effectively address violence, suicide, domestic violence, and\ndrug abuse,<\/li><li>invest in community development,\nconflict mediation, trauma-informed education and community wraparound services,\nand<\/li><li>provide a federal platform to the\npeace-building community.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Somebody needs to tell Ms. Williamson that, while he wasn\u2019t so brazen about it, Jimmy Carter tried to spread some spiritual love around and look where it got him. He couldn\u2019t get much of anything done (except the Middle East Peace Treaty\u2014which was huge), and he didn\u2019t get re-elected. Why? Because, with few exceptions, Washington D.C. doesn\u2019t speak the language of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That great musical theologian of the 80\u2019s and his disciples\u2014Huey Lewis and the News\u2014sang about how great the power of love is. Why, they went so far as to say that love just might save your life. If that\u2019s true, could it save an entire nation\u2019s life? Then, pray tell, with all the brains we\u2019ve got in the USA, why hasn\u2019t a Presidential candidate ever run on this platform before? I\u2019ll tell you what I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think no one\u2019s run on a platform of love because, up until now, no one\u2019s had the kahunas to. Even in a country supposedly founded on Judeo-Christian principles (that I think have a lot of teachings about love in them \u2013 correct me if I\u2019m wrong). Many have said, \u201cWell, all that love stuff is just fine in its place. We all ought to be helping our neighbors. But it just don\u2019t work that way in the gov\u2019ment. You got your \u201ccommunities of faith\u201d out there. That\u2019s where love outta be the rule, but you cain\u2019t have it in politics. Never was meant to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0\u201cThey tried all that in the 1960\u2019s an\u2019 \u201870\u2019s. It was a part of why we had to get out of Viet Nam. It was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. And it sold one helluva lot of Coca-Colas. All them damn hippies shoutin\u2019 out \u2018All you need is love\u2019 \u2013 if those peaceniks had held on a little longer, we\u2019d probably all be wearin\u2019 flowers, holdin\u2019 hands, and singin\u2019 \u201cKumba&#8211;f\u2019n-ya\u201d today. Could you imagine that?!\u201d I could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About 2000 years ago some Jewish guy tried putting love into politics. He got killed for it. But love didn\u2019t die. It just keeps on changing folks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What\u2019s love got to do with it? Everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hey, Marianne! You go, girl!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2026and that\u2019s the view from The Balcony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"25\" height=\"16\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg?resize=25%2C16\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14544\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are some strange things going on in this election of the next President of these semi-united states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":39753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11902],"tags":[5,4,10286,10878],"class_list":["post-78078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-randy-weeks","tag-mississippi","tag-oxford","tag-randy-weeks","tag-the-view-from-the-balcony"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-5-11-View-from-the-Balcony.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}