Many of the
leaders in our society are guided by unhealthy
intentions.
Instead of seeking to serve the people and heal
our nation's
ills, their actions and decisions are primarily
motivated by
their desire for power. Many of the people
running our
country are run by their addictions to approval,
sex, power
and control. Unfortunately, few truly healthy
individuals
want to submit themselves to the necessary
abuses
inherent to our political races - the verbal abuse
both given
and received, the huge amounts of money spent,
the
integrity sacrificed through the concessions, lies and
manipulations
offered in order to win.
Our system
of
electing our
officials is so corrupt that there is little
possibility
of attracting a person with a strong, personally
responsible,
loving inner adult self. This is not to say that
none of our
elected representatives are honest and caring.
Some are certainly
motivated by positive intentions but,
unfortunately,
they constitute a minority.
There is no
training required in personal responsibility to
run for
office. Our leaders are not required to heal their
dysfunctional
aspects in order to become honest and
trustworthy
people. The prerequisites for political positions
mostly
include having enough money, enough powerful
people
behind the scenes, being male, and being white.
Our
political arena is designed to attract wounded people who
need
approval and power in order to feel worthy and validated.
Obviously,
such a person, with little or no internally derived
sense of
self-worth and integrity, is very susceptible to
corruption.
As the adage says: "Power corrupts and absolute
power
corrupts absolutely." Power corrupts when a person
is motivated
by his or her desire for power over others, and
few people
have accomplished enough inner healing to
transcend
the desire for control over others.
A healthy
person in office who is more concerned with serving
the people
than with getting re-elected could accomplish a
great deal.
Such a person was depicted in the movie Dave.
In this film
the actual president is in a coma and the White
House
officials, seeking to conceal the truth from the public
so they can
maintain control, put a look-alike into the
president's
seat. Dave, however, is a man of heart, and rather
than
allowing himself to be controlled he sets about making
necessary
changes - cutting money where it is not needed
and
allocating it into more crucial avenues, like child care
and the
creation of jobs. He even takes responsibility for the
corruption
of the actual president and gracefully "dies" as
the actual
president is dying so the vice-president, a man
of great
integrity who was maligned by the power structure,
could take
over in his rightful place. The movie is, of course,
a fantasy.
Sadly, we would never elect a man of such
integrity -
a straightforward, honest, caring, and financially
middle-class
man like Dave. Our election process does
not allow
for this.
Revamping
our election process would give people like Dave an
opportunity
to run for office. We desperately need people who
care more
for the common good than for their own popularity.
We need
brilliant, creative, honest and caring people to lead
our country,
but this will never happen with our present election
system. We
have incredible talent in this great country of ours,
talent that
could eliminate hunger and homelessness, and heal
the internal
wounds that create health problems, drug abuse,
racism,
violence and crime. But this talent is rarely tapped
because
running our country has been based on the earthly
values of
greed and power over others rather than the spiritual
values of
honesty, compassion and caring.
Unfortunately,
neither our government nor most big businesses
are based on
the spiritual principles of compassion and caring
about the
common good. I have no doubt that if our government
was based on
spiritual principles we would not have the hunger,
homelessness,
crime, health problems, and drug abuse that are
endemic to
our modern society.
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