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MICHAEL JACKSON lives on… through his music, his charities, and his ability to have endured. Given the way he touched people world-wide, it is not an exaggeration to say that “The King of Pop” is and was the Eighth Wonder of the World.

The attendance at the July 7th Memorial Service, inside and on the streets of Los Angelos, will demonstrate the extent to which Michael Jackson made people “feel.” When he wrote and sang the beautiful and endearing song - We Are The World - he used “hope” to join together the global village.
During the rest of this year we’re going to learn more about Michael Jackson than we ever knew - his gifts, sheer genius, and love of others.
He was not only a talented child of God, but a fragile human being like most of us.

For those, such as one New York legislator who contends that Michael Jackson was a criminal and not deserving of “so much media attention,” we should not ignore that racism and notions of white supremacy are still present in our changing society. Ironically, the holder of such a minority view, does not himself recognize that he is a member of a minority and not a majority group.

Now is the time to bury this awesome talent who gave so much during his short 50 years and to give his family and fans time to grieve.
Would the world have been a better place without him? Absolutely Not!

We should thank the entire Jackson family for sharing Michael with the world for more than 40 years. And we should stand up to those who continue to try to diminish the man and his talent. Michael Jackson was a phenomenon, the likes of which we are not likely to ever see again. Rest in peace, M.J. - finally!

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Ego obviously is a terrible thing to waste. If that were not the case, then South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford would have had the good sense to have resigned before the 4th of July, rather than after. Instead Gov. Sanford is a poster boy for how not to be an elected official. He is experiencing such a serious form of “cognitive dissonance” - that is, entertaining conflicting thoughts - that he’s convinced himself that he is an Old Testament “David” who can be bad and good at the same time. In case he still doesn’t get it, let me say it: the governor is not fit to represent the good people of South Carolina.

Anyone who leaves his four sons on Father’s Day to travel to Argentina to be in the arms of the mother of someone else’s sons has a serious mental health problem. In fact, the more the Governor of South Carolina talks, the more he reveals just how mentally sick, he really is. Psychotic behavior has such symptoms as - making poor judgments, not seeing the consequences of behavior, having a sense of reality that differs from others. Pity his poor sons who have to listen to their “role model” say his soul mate is not the mother of his children or that he is “trying” to “fall in love again” with the woman who bore his children. What about his “boys” and the women who will eventually marry them?

Some might call it a mid-life crisis BUT like PMS that women experience… it’s clear what the governor is experiencing is temporary insanity. In fact, since the “randy” governor’s actions were premediated - he planned his frequent romantic ventures; purchased airline tickets in advanced; lied to his wife and kids more than once and even on Father’s day; and showed no sign of having a conscious when he lied to his staff and state… we should call his crisis what it really is: a mental illness.

Gov. Sanford needs psychological help for his addiction, not the enabling his friends and colleagues are providing. He blew it and his ego prevents him from admitting that he is powerless over his disease. The question isn’t whether he should resign, but when. His moral compass is so bent out of shape that other elected officials and the public should help him to help himself quickly before he totally self-destructs. He doesn’t want reconcilation; Gov. Sanford wants his soul mate. He’s already abandoned his family and supporters.

Like most men who have a mistress… it is ironic how much the other woman looks like the wife being betrayed. It is tragic that there isn’t an adult between the Governor and the other woman - Maria Belen Chapur; they’ve both lost their mind. It takes two in a relationship and I am constantly amazed the extent to which some women are willing to betray their sisters by knowingly sleeping with another woman’s husband. Watching Maria and Mark lose their minds is a cogent reminder that being bipolar

isn’t the only

mental illness that affects normal looking people.

Now that Barack Obama is an historical phenomenon… we can critically examine how he succeeded in re-constructing “identity” in the public square. The story is not about what happened to get him to the presidency BUT how he successfully changed the subjective and collective meanings of millions by creating a newly identified category - US!

The “us” is back in the USA!

When President Obama ended his oath on January 20, 2009 with the words… “So help me God” it was clear that he was the leader the nation needed for “the raging time.” Like children who can only mature when they move beyond a focus on “self,” God has given the World, the global village… an inspiring leader who is capable of getting the “me generation” to finally move on. Not surprisingly, consumerism itself is based on a “me-thinking” philosphy: it’s the individual that matters. In that kind of environment, we are definitely not the change we have been waiting for. In fact, the economic and political types of “me-thinking” are not compatabile with change; the status quo works.

But then the market failed in 2008! And, contrary to appearance, it did not happen suddenly. The footprint of economic collapse can be traced back to the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration, when political rhetoric and actions emphasized the deregulation of industry after industry. The removal or loosening of regulations provided an environment for less oversight. The “raging” financial storm grew stronger over the decades as individual greed kept feeding it.

Lots of individuals who believe in fiscal responsibility, smaller government, the status quo, and individualism… successfully maintain a political identity that depends more on a “me,” than an “us” philosophy. To argue, for example, that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps assumes two things: (1) you have bootstraps and (2) you don’t need solidarity or help from others. The economic marketplace philosophy does not recognize the concept of community. Economists, for instance, focus on firms, not human beings who might not move in predictable or “estimated” ways.

Barack Obama changed the language. He directed attention to what had been excluded. The candidate stirred the public imagination by bringing more of “us” into the big picture. The language of HOPE and CHANGE ultimately results in political realignment when people no longer hold “blind allegiance to the competitive market.”

President Obama’s job has been to get more of “us” to see that we must take responsibility for the impact of whatever politics we practice. Who wins and who loses when we embrace selfishness and materialism as a society? To base health care on who has the resources to purchase it, is in essence, the same as letting the marketplace decide who lives and who dies. But while we don’t have a market mechanism to stop the growing disparities, we do have, as Barack Obama is teaching us, politics to enforce change. We have already witnessed the ethos of selfishness from those who have preached the loudest about a need for responsibility - conservatives.

President Obama’s conceptual task has been cut out for him. He’s had to bring back in what has been taken out or excluded (the sanctity of human beings, a spirit of community, the natural status of individuals helping individuals) and weave a new narrative around it - “Yes, we can!”

Thus, “we” have become the epistemological other; the unspoken, hidden and repressed social concept in corporate marketplace thinking. That is to say the president is helping us to reconnect to ourselves by moving the narrative away from “I” to “us.” By analyzing the process by which meanings are changed, my research focuses on the politics of identity. Words matter! If we are seeking a morally centered universe, then our stories and focus must change.

What makes Barack Obama’s leadership so different and inspiring, is that he gets that he is educating for change. But he is not teaching subjects, he’s teaching us how to think and redefine who we are. He’s teaching a different vision about community and connectedness with words like “unity.”

President Obama does not say, “I am the change,” the truth, or the light. His revitalized concept of power generates a new way of thinking that is inclusive. The Obama rhetoric makes it clear that the day of top-down power is over. Power to the people, too!

What the president has done, then, in creating a new conceptual landscape is to get us to recognize each other and the best in ourselves.

Instead of the human spirit shrinking, now thanks to the election of Barack Hussein Obama, we have a new identity in the 21st century that’s being changed by the language we used. The buzz in the air at the inauguration for the 44th president was about more than people being ready for change. People were excitied because they felt engaged. You could see it in their eyes. You could feel it in their voices and patience as they moved along with a million other individuals. They obviously got that we’re all part of a social movement that’s promising a new level of caring and results.

So the buzz of empowerment is growing as political rhetoric shifts to talks about improving the common good and serving others.

The new president has set the tone and challenged once dominant discourses. By reinterpreting the situation, Barack Obama is creating a different identify for us and the world.

CHANGE changes things!

Regardless of your political affilation there’s a narrative that frames your position. So a key question is - how did you learn to be a Republican/Democrat? Where did your political beliefs come from? More to the point, how do you know you are what you say your are?

Well, I asked a relative of mine who is a Black Republican and a friend of mine who is a White Republican - What is a Republican? My relative said, “I’m a Republican because I’m a conservative.” My friend said, “I’m a Republican because I believe in fiscal responsibility.” And, I said, of course, to each - “But how do you know you’re not a Democrat?”

So how do you know a Republican or a Democrat when you see one? Listen closely to the rhetoric either uses when telling stories about what needs to be done for America.

Senator Barack Obama, a Democrat is on the “left” side of the political spectrum because he doesn’t believe that the marketplace is the sole solution to problems in our society.

Senator John McCain is on the “right” side of the political spectrum because he believes that the marketplace is the answer to problems in our society.

This means that you can expect to hear rhetoric about government being too big and too meddling from Republicans.

When Senator Obama says some of the wealth needs to be redistributed so some of the wealth can be spread around, a typical Republican reaction is - “No, the focus should be on creating wealth not sharing it.”

In other words, inequality works for a Republican BUT the ideal of equality works for a Democrat.

What other words or stories have you heard that show the difference between the two political positions.  AND finally… what’s wrong with socialism? Is it really the opposite of capitalism?

It may just be that too often we’re mixing our metaphors. That is to say we’re taking political positions for economic matters or economic positions on political matters.

Here’s a place to share how you know you’re a Republican/Democrat? Let the stories begin…