Election Observe-Up – Day by day Meditations with Matthew Fox

In yesterday’s DM I wrote of the one-month anniversary of Trump’s re-election.  One response went like this:

Glorious Matthew … hope, braveness, religion, fierce revolutionary love, making good bother, preserving the steadiness between contemplation and motion (Richard Rohr), dancing, singing, hugs, tears, laughter, “this too shall cross”, trepidation, uncertainty, one step at a time, first issues first, day-to-day by day … a messy combine, a simmering pot, bonding with this neighborhood of sojourners. 

Encourage everybody, be brave, consolation the troubled, afflict the snug, free prisoners, launch the oppressed, bind the broken-hearted, love extravagantly, act justly, stroll humbly, observe The Method … Namaste

One other stated: That is so disturbing. I simply can’t appear to get my head across the chaos and struggling that will probably be unleashed. So chilly and methodical.  I really feel like a hostage in my very own nation. 

She was referring to an article which she enclosed by Heather Cox in regards to the cuts in veteran’s advantages that could be forthcoming within the Trump administration to pay for tax deductions for billionaires and firms.  Presently 9 states have set off legal guidelines to finish their growth of Medicaid if federal funding is decreased.  As many as 3.7 million folks in these states would lose well being care protection.  Social Safety, Medicaid and Medicare are on the desk, says one Georgia congressperson.*

Trump promised to reject Biden’s financial imaginative and prescient and resurrect the system of the years earlier than 2021 during which just a few people might amass as a lot wealth as attainable. Simply ten days after the election, a Texas choose overturned the Biden administration’s extra time pay rule, allowing employers to cancel the raises they gave their workers to adjust to that rule.

Bruce Boccardy in commondreams shares his ideas in regards to the current election.  “The oligarchs had been led by Mr. Trump, a charismatic, convicted prison cult chief” underneath whom “projectile mendacity turned the brand new norm” in political discourse.  The precise financial numbers assist clarify why working folks had been interested in the bombastic model of Mr. Trump. The torrent of scabrous lies didn’t matter; It was Mr. Trump’s tone that resonated with many working folks.

That is key: Tone. Feeling, anger, resentment, grievance: That is what elected Trump.  “Our financial mannequin has not benefited them for many years.”

Says Boccardy: Political consultants had been nonetheless bewildered by the big demographic of working individuals who supported the toxicity of Mr. Trump in opposition to their financial pursuits.  Many years of crumbs and empty guarantees from the company Democratic Celebration created a political backlash that Mr. Trump appeared to treatment.** 

The Congressional Price range Workplace projected that to let the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs expire in 2025 would profit the GDP “by about 6 fundamental factors.” However Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, chairman of the Senate Price range Committee, noticed that“the looting has begun….The subsequent Trump tax rip-off will make hardworking households worse off, shrink our economic system, and blow a $4.6 trillion gap within the deficit.  All this to complement billionaires whereas “robbing households of residence heating or childcare.”

David Kass, govt director of American for Tax Equity stated, the incoming administration and congressional Republican should reply why they plan to make hardworking Individuals worse off shrink, our economic system and improve the deficit by $4.6 trillion.

And this optimistic information from a journalist who demonstrated each backbone and conscience. Harry Litman give up his position as columnist with the Los Angeles Occasions as a result of the billionaire proprietor kowtowed to Trump to protect his billions.*** A lesson and instance for all activists and resisters.

*Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, December 4, 2024 

** Bruce T. Boccardy, “The Democratic Celebration Reaped What It Sowed,” CommonDreams.org, December 1, 2024.

***Harry Litman, “Why I Simply Resigned From The Los Angeles Occasions,” December 5, 2024.

See Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Remodeling Evil in Soul & Society.

And Fox, Trump & MAGA as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.

Adam Buck and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Imaginative and prescient For a New Technology.

Banner Picture: “Poverty in america.” Picture by Wasfi Akab on Flickr.

Queries for Contemplation

Do you sense conscience and backbone and resistance and caring gathering steam after the election?  And contemplation and motion and carrying grief whereas going to do good work?

Advisable Studying

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Remodeling Evil in Soul and Society

Visionary theologian and best-selling writer Matthew Fox gives a brand new theology of evil that essentially adjustments the normal notion of excellent and evil and factors the best way to a extra enlightened remedy of ourselves, each other, and all of nature. In evaluating the Japanese custom of the 7 chakras to the Western custom of the 7 capital sins, Fox permits us to assume creatively about our capability for private and institutional evil and what we will do about them. 
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a greater imaginative and prescient and depth of notion far past the grasp of anybody single science.  A breath-taking evaluation.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, writer of Quantum Theology: Religious Implications of the New Physics

Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

Matthew Fox tells us that he had all the time shied away from utilizing the time period “Anti-Christ” as a result of it was so typically used to unfold management and concern. Nonetheless, given in the present day’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables on this guide using the archetype for the reason for justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a second, for analyzing the archetype of the Antichrist, it’s now…Learn this guide with an open thoughts. Good and evil are actual forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For quick entry to Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE. 
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white photos, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE. 
To obtain a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for quick obtain.

Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Imaginative and prescient for a New Technology

Authors Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox encourage us to make use of our abilities in service of compassion and justice and to maneuver past our damaged techniques–financial, political, academic, and spiritual–discovering a spirituality that not solely helps us to get alongside, but in addition encourages us to reevaluate our traditions, reworking them and within the course of constructing a extra sacred and simply world. Incorporating the phrases of younger activist leaders culled from interviews and surveys, the guide supplies a framework that’s intentionally interfaith and speaks to our profound craving for a life with religious function and for a greater world.
“Occupy Spirituality is a strong, inspiring, and important name to embodied consciousness and enlightened actions.”
~~ Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and writer of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Girl, and the Battle to Save the Redwoods