Category Archives: political commentary

To the Third Power.

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In my senior year of high school, due to an oversight by the guidance counselor, I ended up choosing a higher math class instead of taking civics. Hated math, quit the homework, ended up with a D in the final, and saw my class standing drop from 18 to 26 – missing the highest honors by just a few points. It wasn’t until the last week of school that somebody told me I didn’t even need that math class to get accepted into college.

Nothing makes my blood hit boil faster than being told I should have done something differently.  Oh, except, maybe, being told that I should have done differently because my actions will have had a negative effect on outcomes, whether mine or those of another.

Since birth, I have been a creative. This means that, without knowing whence the impulse originates, I have been moved to make something – whether story, song, or visual image – and that, daily. Sometimes hourly.

Creatives don’t take kindly to being assessed for either their inherent value or the value of that which they are producing. During the creative process, there is no conscious attempt to meet any external standard. Praise is always thrilling, but that comes after the process has come to a close, and has no direct cause/effect relationship to the process itself.

Deadlines are the bane of the creative. We use time according to the nature of what is being made. If external deadlines are imposed, total control over the outcome is interrupted, and the quality of the end product correlates directly.

However, even in the life of a creative there are processes that take a line of reasoning, instead. Rather than make something, we are sometimes called upon to draw conclusions about events or people, taking any action where deemed appropriate.

Major decisions, regarded as important both by self and others, this creative makes with very great deliberation. Weighing multiple factors, I seek out as much information/data as can be obtained.  Once I determine that I have sufficient data, I draw my conclusion and then I act.

Now, such data to me might be factual, or it might be impression-based. It might be intuitive, knowing no linear path, or historically correlated. I suspect that what is required of the brain during the creative process is brought to bear in this reasoning, but how or where or wherefore I could not say.

What is key: I determine that I have sufficient data at the moment when I see my conclusion in sight.

With regard to the recent Presidential election, I can safely say that I spent hours of days over a period of many months gathering data, and then deciding which factors played a role in what I determined independently to be the priorities.

The wild card factor played a significant part in my readiness to meet its deadline.

When that wild card played, I came upon a vital collection of data within a time frame that had a rather sudden death effect on my final decision. Up until that point, I had gathered a wealth of impressions, and some facts; but, my nagging intuition kept informing the process, suggesting conclusion. This vital collection of data was historically relevant in nature; once I entered it into the equation, my entire body released all inner tensions. I knew that I had reached conclusion.

At that point, my vote was ready to be cast.
I chose a third party candidate, one occupying the outermost fringe of the landscape.

Post election, the uproar about those of us who chose to do so was almost violent. An entire army of party driven players since declared, some using allegedly mathematical calculation, that we who chose a third were the single, collective entity which decided the outcome of the election. And said party, convinced in their own minds that said outcome was absolutely vital to the survival of the species, deigned to pronounce the most condescending of judgments upon us.

No challenge to either the reasoning or the relative value of any voter’s decision is relevant, here. By applying a tiny percentage of votes not cast for one candidate to a total outcome, and discounting the massive percentage which weighted the lion’s share for the other candidate, those who do so only make themselves out to be Draconian imperialists, runt Napoleons pretending to fight Goliath with a jelly bean.

Being reactionary serves no one. Indulging in melodrama inhibits constructive solution. The third party may have wielded a mighty little exponent; but, each majority on either side of the equation still bears the responsibility of solving for x.

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© Ruth Ann Scanzillo  11/10/16     All rights those of the author, whose name appears above this line. Thank you for your respect. I Voted. Pardon Julian Assange.

littlebarefeetblog.com

“How Can We Lose, When We’re So Sincere?”

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“How can we lose, when we’re so sincere?”,  Charlie Brown bemoaned.

Sincerity has an indefinable ring to it.

Like a well worn song, it is always recognizable.

In children, it moves the hardest heart to tears, and silences – albeit momentarily – the otherwise blindly ambitious. In all its raw irrepressibility, sincerity always trumps deceit.

The Obamas have it.
And, Joe Biden – God! In abundance.

Bernie had it, until he was shut down.

Donald Trump.has.it. Granted, he is largely repulsive to most of us, with his unbearable absence of couth, his defiant arrogance, his inability to remember what he said or when he said it, and his awful, even cruel, sometimes infantile, attitudes toward people who are not like him.

But, deep within all of us, somewhere in our oldest brain, the stem maybe, we harbor a matrix of survival instincts. And, within this matrix is a sense for the authentic. We can’t, no matter how loudly we protest to the contrary, live without sincerity, because it is the embodiment of truth.

Julian Assange is openly reviled by many. He’s the single entity who brought down Hillary Clinton.

Or, is he? Could she not have been the victim of her own missteps, and did he just happen to find the footprints?

I know one thing. As a musician, I am always listening for pitch, tones that are matched with specific vibrational frequency. And, I am attuned to tone quality, as well, the timbre of a well-adjusted instrument and its player’s technique for bringing that out to the ear.

There was always something about Hillary, in her voice, her manner, that just didn’t ring true for me. I couldn’t name it; I couldn’t find it; and, yet, I needed to know it.

Less than twenty four hours before this election day, I finally made contact with its source. To my interpretation, she had something so profound to hide that the efforts to keep this from us were gargantuan. And, consequently, deceit permeated every cell in her body.

Deceit is distinct from dishonesty. One can make a recklessly untrue statement, and that can qualify as a lie. Even pathological liars are sincere. Deceit is deliberately obscuring the truth.

The reason Trump won the Presidency is being hotly debated well into the morning hours of this new day, by those far more qualified than I to say a word about it. But about this, there is no denying: the sheer volume of American people who craved sincerity over deceit trumped all.

Now, the rest of us must live in that light. And, our ears are ringing.

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© Ruth Ann Scanzillo   11/9/16    All rights those of the author, whose name appears above this line. Thank you for your respect. I voted for Jill Stein. Good night, John Boy.

littlebarefeetblog.com

An Independent Candidate.

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The final debate between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, prior to Decision 2016, is now one for the record books. Televised pundits are all over the fact that the GOP candidate reserved commitment, regarding public support of whomever is elected, until the time comes; to them, this seemed the most outrageous take away from the debate, simply because it was unprecedented.

How about we take precedence one step further.

After the second debate, this writer declared support for neither party’s candidate for the office of President of our [persistently dis-]United States. Here’s why.

Party politics are restricting and divisive. They pit legitimate ideas against one another, drawing a hard line between them and, on the grounds of dubious, yea, evolving “platform” position, preventing any potential for fusion or synthesis. Yet, pragmatic solution is all about selecting from among many kernels of verifiable truth and grafting them into something that bears digestible fruit. Nobody in the midst of this invariably creative process gives a preponderance of thought to the sources of the truths. The sources aren’t relevant.

In a world where robotics rule the surgical rooms, drones fly unmanned, and computer chips track the activity of countless populations, this writer (yours, truly) feels almost at home designing her own Presidential candidate.

She’ll borrow from a dormant category long since deemed irrelevant, and call hers an Independent. (After all, can you name the Independent PARTY candidate? Yeah. Thought so.)

This Independent candidate distinguishes between human rights issues and civil liberties, realizing that the right to choose extends far beyond the debate over a woman’s power regarding her own body to include the right to choose from among a variety of medical treatment options and physicians, even places of residence; to marry, or to cohabit; to study, or to create; to work, to earn, save, invest, spend, and bequeath; to live, even to die; and, that defending civil liberties, while they include the right to bear and collect arms, to consume the foods and substances one prefers, to worship according to one’s beliefs, and to live in the privacy of one’s home in whichever lifestyle suits one’s liking can sometimes be a foil for extreme behaviors that are at heart both harmful and subversive.

This Independent knows the Constitution by heart, and also understands how and when the context of an issue factors into its application. While neither judge nor jury, this Independent realizes that he or she represents the integrity of that document as leader of the free world.

Maintaining a cogent world view, this Independent knows both his or her place in the universe and the role of nation in an increasingly global society. This candidate is both a peace maker and a protector, knowing the difference between keeping the people informed and holding defensive strategy close to the vest. This Independent avoids employing sanction or no fly zone tactics, as these are a predicate for war.

For this reason, this Independent is neither imperialist nor isolationist.

Regarding relationship with other civilized nations, this Independent respects the right of place and resource without greed or covetousness, and works to foster interdependence by sharing what is plentiful and graciously receiving in kind what is found to be needed or valuable. Trade agreements are made in the spirit of symbiosis, and enforced without rancor or a mentality driven by any need to acquire.

Concerning human resources at home in America, this Independent pays keen attention to inventive minds and ways in which those with outstanding drive to accomplish and contribute can be paired with emerging markets. Education is given priority as an institution, and both sound philosophy, proved pedagogy, and experimental methods share the stage in any implemented plan. This Independent abolishes the assembly line mentality and, overriding outmoded notions of class and segregation, provides education for the entire population with equitable opportunity.

This Independent is not a taker. Rather, this candidate is a gatherer, knowing that successful mobilization of people with widely varying cultural histories and traditions requires a deep understanding and respect for individual differences and a magnanimous acceptance. This Independent knows the value of building community without attempting to enforce behavior.

With regard to those from other countries interested in becoming citizens, this Independent is able to balance amnesty with programs that facilitate rapid assimilation, using the educational models established a priori. A defender as well as protector, this candidate firmly enforces border security by providing both practical guidelines for distinguishing threat and the resources to address them.

Finally, this Independent knows that hard work in any arena deserves recognition and reward. Beholden to no corporate entity, this candidate is free to accept support from all peoples, irrespective of old notions of race, creed, or socio-economic demographic. With regard to the dispensing and allocating of government funds, all such decisions are made with every facet of the needs of the people in mind. If money is required of the people to support programs that serve them, these are collected according to the amount of income generated and distributed using a system of accountability that prevents fraudulent appropriation. Because there are no lobbying entities, the system of accountability is free of infiltration by vague language which creates loophole.

This Independent accepts the role of leadership neither emboldened by prior party successes nor shackled by previous party failures. In this way, such a candidate can only move forward, with eager anticipation of a multitude of opportunities to serve the nation and its people.

This writer would vote for such a candidate. At this writing, this writer isn’t ready to vote.

So, before we are all asked to cast our ballot, perhaps both party candidates might do well by taking one step away from their platform, just long enough to see the world from a truly independent perspective.

Perhaps this might generate an outcome unprecedented in our time.

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* Any similarities found between this blog post and any other such treatise? ex: George H.W.Bush’s letter to Bill Clinton, or the preamble to PeeWee Herman’s Playhouse are, as God is my witness, purely coincidental. WordPress.com will vouch for the post time of this piece as preceding any press releases containing similar material.

© Ruth Ann Scanzillo   10/20/16       All rights those of the author – an American citizen, a woman, and an Independent. Thank you, and God Bless America.

littlebarefeetblog.com

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