“I am unsuspending my campaign
for the Presidency of the United States.”
Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime. Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian. In my view as a U.N. human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide. This means the state of Israel in its entirety is culpable and should be held accountable. There is no reason to intentionally block the passage of humanitarian aid or intentionally obliterate small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses, and orchards in Gaza – other than to deny people access to food.
The speed of malnourishment of young children is astounding. The bombing and people being killed directly is brutal, but this starvation – and the wasting and stunting of children – is torturous and vile. It will have a long-term impact on the population physically, cognitively and morally. . . . All things indicate that this has been intentional.
I’m not sure if anyone knows the real truth about [this] story. I’ve seen the [CBC] documentary film challenging [Buffy Sainte-Marie’s] Indigenous identity. I think there is a lot of information in that film that is important to consider. . . . That being said, I’m not sure even Buffy knows the real truth.
Having known Buffy for more than 15 years, I believe that she believes that she is an Indigenous person and always has. . . . That is what she believes to be her truth. She has conducted herself throughout her life as if she is [Indigenous], and it is pretty hard to argue with all the selfless work that she has done to lift up that community, raise awareness around it, and give voice to a lot of people who otherwise did not have voices. I would like to suggest that she opened the door and laid the path for a lot more Indigenous artists to come into the forefront and share their stories.
I understand the controversy. . . . I understand the pain it causes a lot of people. But it is pretty hard to take away from a woman who is now in her eighties and has done so much for so many people for so long.
For The Wild Reed’s special series of posts leading-up to the November 10, 2017 release of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Medicine Songs, see:
Minnesota Friends of Marianne Williamson, a grassroots group supportive of the Democratic former presidential candidate, is urging voters to cast their votes for the progressive activist and author who is on the ballot for next week’s Super Tuesday Minnesota primary.
“A candidate who has suspended their campaign can still be voted for,” says Michael Bayly, a member of Minnesota Friends of Marianne Williamson. “Also, if they receive 15% of votes, they can get delegates.”
“Marianne may not gain enough delegates to secure a path to the nomination,” continues Bayly, “but she could use any delegates she gains as leverage to push for a more progressive party platform at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.”
“Yet even without securing delegates,” says Bayly, “a vote for Marianne Williamson sends a clear message to the party establishment about the much needed progressive direction we want to see the party and the nation go. It’s also important to remember that, like any candidate who has suspended their campaign, Marianne can unsuspend hers at any time.”
In an effort to encourage Minnesotans to vote for Williamson next Tuesday, TV ads in support of her, and funded by the super PAC We the People 2024, will air in the Twin Cities starting this, Friday, March 1.
St. Paul resident Ben Adams founded Minnesota Friends of Marianne Williamson in response to concerns about President Biden.
“I hit a point in mid-2022 when I reached the conclusion that Biden was underperforming as President,” says Adams. “I decided he should be primaried to address the issues I had with his performance, which include the failure of the Build Back Better Act, his failure to fulfill campaign promises such as a minimum wage increase, his poor handling of the rail worker strike, his approval of the Willow Project in Alaska, his complicity in what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza, and his inability to articulate a good, long-term plan for the Democratic Party.”
Minneapolis resident Kate Kulas shares similar critiques of the president and so plans to vote for Williamson on Super Tuesday.
“Marianne’s the real deal,” says Kulas. “I have much respect for President Biden and his long political career and sacrifices over the years, but he has not followed through on campaign promises.”
Like Adams, Kulas cites a number of examples of the president’s “unfulfilled campaign promises.”
“The increase in minimum wage is a horrific failure,” she says. “Biden is still using the default policy based on the Raise the Wage Act of 2023, where in 2024 the minimum hourly wage is $9.50 with some states still using $7.25. Currently $15 per hour is considered not a poverty level wage. IMHO, $20 per hour is what is humanly just.”
Another example relates to Biden’s environmental record. “Biden’s approval of the Willow Project is in direct opposition to his promise to protect our Earth and its people from further harm,” says Kulas.
“And finally,” says Kulas, “the president’s failure to demand a ceasefire from the Israeli government lost my support for him.”
In contrast, Kulas notes that Williamson lists 31 “Policy Issues” on her website, with explanations on why each is needed and how she will implement them.
“Just look up ‘Climate Action’ and ‘Economy and Peace’ on her website,” says Kulas. “Marianne isn't just another politician saying things designed to make people feel good; Marianne Williamson is telling us exactly how these can be achieved! She says, Yes, we can! and then shows us how. I truly believe she will work for the good of all Americans. On Super Tuesday, she has my vote for President.”
Above: Standing on the shores of frozen Trout Lake in northern Wisconsin, listening to the groaning of the ice. And, yes, it’s a very haunting sound.
[P]artisan Democrats, from the president on down, responded with anger and defensiveness to [the recently released] Hur report. This is so unfair! How dare he use his office for a partisan hit job! To which I’m inclined to respond: Stop whining! The reason Hur’s comments seemed damaging is that they confirmed what most of the country already believes: Biden is too old and frail for the job he holds right now. So the prospect of his serving another four years is a reasonable source of concern (especially because his vice president is as unpopular as he is).
How did we end up in this situation? The lion’s share of the blame belongs to Biden himself. His decision to run for reelection, after initially indicating in 2019 that he’d probably serve only one term, is understandable in human respects but indefensible in political ones. It’s very common for an aging person – especially a man – to deny the truth about his decline and the need to pull back from responsibilities. Such transitions typically involve a painful, arduous struggle for any family facing the situation.
A good part of it is stubborn pride. But decline itself can impair judgment. Close family members, equally disinclined to accept the reality of what’s happening, can also become complicit in the self-deception. (I’m looking at you, Jill Biden.) Whatever the source of this problem, Biden is putting his self-regard ahead of the good of the country. As a result, both he and his party are badly undermining the most compelling rationale of the 2024 campaign, which is the need to do everything possible to prevent Trump from returning to the White House. If the prospect of a second Trump term really poses a dangerous threat to American democracy, why is the Democratic Party depending on an incumbent president with an approval number lower than Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, or even Trump himself were facing at the equivalent moment before their failed reelection bids?
Many Democrats will say it’s too late now. And that’s true if we’re talking about having an open primary season in which voters get to decide on an alternative nominee. Except for [author, activist and progressive Democrat Marianne Williamson’s and] Representative Dean Phillips’s quixotic primary challenge[s], the party has chosen to circle the wagons, angrily swatting away any talk of Biden making way for someone else. For God’s sake, why?
The Democratic Party appears to be stuck in a self-destructive contradiction, combining stupefying risk aversion (We can’t change horses midstream! It’d be chaos!) with unjustified arrogance (Republicans are such morons to nominate Trump-the-loser again! That plus Dobbs means we’re golden! We’re so likely to prevail, you might as well ignore the polls!). I’d wager that precisely this unstable mixture of emotional responses helped produce the kind of unseemly displays we’ve seen since Hur’s report, in which just about everyone on the center left has been pretending that everything would be fine and dandy with the Biden campaign if only the special counsel hadn’t played his dirty tricks and the media’s both-sides-ing hadn’t amplified his dishonest insinuations.
Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past.
In you, as in each human, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. In the ancient teachings, it is the Christ within, or your Buddha nature.
Finding that dimension frees you and the world from the suffering you inflict on yourself and others when the mind-made “little me” is all you know and runs your life. Love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting inner peace cannot come into your life except through that unconditioned dimension of consciousness.
If you can recognize, even occasionally, the thoughts that go through your mind as simply thoughts, if you can witness your own mental-emotional reactive patterns as they happen, then that dimension is already emerging in you as the awareness in which thoughts and emotions happen – the timeless inner space in which the content of your life unfolds.
How easy it is for people to become trapped in their conceptual prisons. . . . The thinking mind is a useful and powerful tool, but it is also very limiting when it takes over your life completely, when you don’t realize that it is only a small part of the consciousness that you are.
Wisdom is not a product of thought. The deep knowing that is wisdom arises through the simple act of giving someone or something your full attention. Attention is primordial intelligence, consciousness itself. It dissolves the barriers created by conceptual thought, and with this comes the recognition that nothing exists in and by itself. It joins the perceiver and the perceived in a unifying field of awareness. It is the healer of separation.
