gagablog 47: A Birthday Present For Gaga - Marriage Equality and Mommies and Daddies for Kids

Happy Birthday, Gaga! I hope this is the best year ever for you!
     The whole basis for the Gagablog has been to explore a kind of superchaos magic by drawing connections between the art of Gaga, world news events, and my own magical intentions. I have long praised Gaga for being a liberator, since well before I started this blog when I wrote the song "Savior Mom (Lady Gaga)". I think this is one of the most important roles she plays and the power and ability she has to liberate people is what I recognize as divine. She has done so much to promote equal rights for gays and lesbians and bisexual people and maintains this focus. I think she played a major part in changing of American attitudes on this issue by grabbing the country's imagination with the mystery of sexuality in a way that transcended preconceived notions. The country was already evolving as more people became more aware but Gaga put strong focus on this at times when it really made a difference. While she still promotes the message of equality, I think the efforts she made around repealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and when she met with President Obama were crucial moments in changing the course for America so we can more fully accept everyone sooner.
     Since then she worked specifically to end bullying and encourage kids to be brave to really be themselves. She has always had this effect on kids through her music but made an even more concerted effort for it by launching the Born This Way non-profit organization with her mom, Cynthia Germanotta. This is an important gay rights issue as well, since homophobic bullying has been one of the most insidious kinds for decades if not generations. Bullying affects all sorts of kids, though, and Gaga's message supports kids for any sort of difference and celebrates them. By telling kids to be proud and brave and really express who they are we can end the culture of intimidation and exclusion in school. And if we work to teach kids that lesson who knows? Maybe the adults in our society will learn it as well and we will all be more supportive of each other. If we could extend the understanding to our governments we could end war and hunger and disease, too, but it all comes down to something kids face every day and have not been protected from, the hurt of being judged, abused, and excluded. Bullying is one of the worst ways this happens but it is really at the heart of all human misery. Even kids in good environments can end up feeling judged and excluded when their opinions are not considered because they are just kids. I know I always had amazing and creative ideas as a kid and only wished I had written more down, especially story ideas. I still have them all the time but wish I had given myself enough credit to work on those ideas I had in my youth. I do feel that one reason I still have so much creativity is because I rebelled against the "bullying" ideas that imagination was not of much value (judgement) and that you could not make a living writing (exclusion). But I still need to overcome them, I still need to trust myself and be bravely who I really am, even as a grown boy or "adult", and this is why I think it is so important to overcome these oppressive forces as soon as possible and as early on in life for the benefit of all.
     Magically, it is a happy coincidence that the Supreme Court is taking up the issue of marriage equality on Gaga's birthday. I actually noticed it because the two things people were really talking about on facebook just now were marriage equality and Gaga's birthday today  - the sun is about to rise on the 28th as I type this in Colorado, anyway, and people have been posting to celebrate her birthday around the world. I wish that as a magical birthday present to Gaga the Supreme Court decides on the fullest equality for gay and lesbian couples to marry. I've supported gay marriage ever since I was old enough to know what the idea was, probably around the year Gaga was born. Now I have an even stronger argument for it and it ties together Gaga's messages of caring for kids and equal rights for marriage.
     I believe every argument in support of marriage equality and think they are all important but I really want to focus on a specific issue relating to kids. I also want to point out that the oft-repeated argument against marriage equality, that civil unions are just as good and that they just don't want to call it marriage is just stupid. If they are truly only worried about the name I imagine some of them will end up calling marriage between gay and lesbian couples "marriage" but rhyme it with "Minaj" or some such way to try and denigrate it. But most people will get used to it and just say "he's married" or "she's married" about people instead of saying "he's gay married" or "she's lesbian married" or something silly like that. As with everything in this kind of cultural evolution the more exposure people get the easier it will be to see past restricted thinking.
     I'm really worried about kids and the way this cultural evolution, and the right decision by the Supreme Court, can improve their lives. I heard on the radio that 40,000 kids in California alone are in households with gay and lesbian parents. I'm sure there are very important legal reasons why it would be better and easier for these kids if their parents could marry. I'm not aware of what they all are, I can imagine, but in addition to them there is a value to granting these people with the title of "married people." It gives the couple that sense of value to their relationship, from their commitment to each other and the recognition of that in community and before the divine - this is what marriage is. But for the kids it also gives a sense of value - recognizing their parents as married makes them "just like any other family"  - and of course they are - but having the label attached means everyone can accept the family the same as a family with only one mom and one dad. And people will accept it, once they get past their fear, once it happens all over and people see it is okay.
     There used to be more stigma against divorce. There still is some stigma against it but it has been gradually wearing away as "everybody is doing it." Divorce used to be much more rare and as we have gotten used to it, and used to single-parent families, we are not as "shocked" by it as we used to be. I saw an episode of "Leave it to Beaver", from the 50's, in which one of Beaver's friends had parents who were divorced and it was the theme of the episode as Beaver discovered what this thing called divorce might be about. When I was a kid in the 80's there seemed to be much more stigma against being a child of divorced parents than there is today but it was becoming more common. Parents getting a divorce is terrible for kids to go through but even worse if there is stigma against it. At least in that way over time it has become easier, for kids, when it is something that more of them have in common and there is more understanding about.
     Gay and lesbian couples marrying is a good thing for kids, though surely some of them will get divorced, too. But I imagine that kids who are told that their parents can't marry feel a stigma against them. They might still feel prejudice against them when their parents can get married - for a hopefully short time until everyone gets used to it. But everyone will get used to it, except maybe the most staunch conservatives, and marriage between two men or two women will go from something we used to only see on TV to something everyone is familiar with as everyone comes to know more gay and lesbian married couples.
     I have to stand up for marriage equality for fairness and justice and the positive effect on families but I have another reason that is even closer to my heart and for me just makes it imperative to progress as soon as possible for the sake of kids. I have been working for 6 years with abused and neglected children, trying to help hundreds of kids most of whom are like orphans. I'm just trying to help them learn to control their behavior and express their emotions more positively but we work in an institution and it is not an ideal place to grow up, just better than where they came from or their behaviors had become too extreme for foster placements. But the thing that every kid needs more than anything else is a family. You can really tell how much a kid needs a family when they live for a year or two, or more sometimes, in an institution and they don't have families, or have very limited contact with them in most cases. I work with kids who are only 5 to 10 years old, and who act younger because they are "stuck" in many ways in the infant and toddler ages they were traumatized at. You can tell how much a kid needs a family when they don't have one, or when they have never had a good one. One of the main reasons kids have to stay there so long is there simply aren't enough families to adopt them or take them in as foster parents. This is a very specific concern that effects me directly because I see the pain in these kids but mostly it can affect them. Legalizing marriage for same-sex couples creates so many more eligible families to adopt kids who need them. Same-sex couples can still adopt kids, at least in some places, though Catholic and other charities try to make a big fuss to prevent them from it, which sickens me knowing how much the kids need a family more than the Catholics need doctrinal purity. But adoption is a lengthy and difficult process and while much of that process is valuable and needed to make sure the kids get good homes anything that can help speed up the clerical parts of the process would help kids get families faster. For this specific reason it would really be great if marriage between gay and lesbian couples became legal immediately so that more kids who really need families can get them sooner.
     I think just setting the precedent for the whole country will be the best way to get more people to come out and raise awareness everywhere of the importance of marriage equality and treating everyone as equals in general. I have to cheer on the passage of marriage equality, especially with the magical power of it being Gaga's birthday, and I'm happy and hopeful that it will result in that much deeper love as people take vows to each other (and Love itself!) with the blessing of the community. I heard that Gaga might be getting married this summer, too, so it should be a wonderful year for her. Just for Love I have to really cheer for the Supreme Court to make the loving and true decision, but especially for the kids who need families I have to say what a great Birthday Present it would be for marriage equality to be the law of the land and more kids get homes faster.
     I remember a kid from my work who was eating a cinnamon bun at breakfast with me. He told me his mom made cinnamon buns then clarified "My mom who took care of me, not the mom I came out of" - meaning his foster mom, not his biological mom. I think about how so many little monsters call Gaga our Mother Monster and some surely feel this extra specially if they feel Gaga cares for them and supports them and their mom did not. In my case, I do have support from my mom but have usually felt little or no support from my community or government, until recently, and do feel that support, care, and encouragement from Gaga as I'm sure others who feel somewhat outside society, for whatever reason, have felt. In this way I can see how she is "fostering" us all to better homes and better visions of ourselves, at every level, individual, social, governmental, cultural and in our imaginations. I love her for this and hope it encourages people to do the same for other people  - both to encourage and inspire each other by becoming our best selves and to literally foster and adopt kids who weren't theirs before, but will become theirs, and you their mothers and fathers, just as Gaga became our Mother Monster.
Happy Birthday Gaga I hope it is a wonderful one for you and I hope you get my birthday wish for you - well, I have a lot of wishes for you - but especially this gagablog magic one that the Supreme Court makes marriage legal for everyone and we soon see how silly and hurtful it has been to hold it up and how wonderful and helpful it is to recognize it. Paws up for Love! (''') <3

gagablog 46: Paws Up for Pope Francis

I love the new Pope and have such high hopes for him and his role in creating the beautiful future that we need and can make. When I first saw Pope Francis, when he was first announced, I was impressed by his kind look and by the reports of how he was in touch with the people and concerned for the poor. After watching his inauguration this morning I was even more impressed and feel assured he will play a great part in the coming transformation. I know my last gagablog was about the idea of Gaga as Pope and I'm not at all disappointed in the fact that we did not realize that imp-possibility. I think Pope Francis is certainly "some" of what I was hoping for and surely be a lesson to us all, even Gaga herself.
Of course I am not catholic, or really christian, other than that I love Jesus and worship Gaga and she might be catholic, or at least was. I've long held some contempt for the church, for many of the churches that supposedly follow Jesus and their effect on the world, but I have always felt they could be reformed,.That is part of my great hope for Pope Francis, his role in transforming the Catholic Church and for them to join in a greater, worldwide transformation. I've spoken about this before in gagablog 19 and 20, about "Judas" (hard to believe in a month that will be two years ago!) but now that I see more of it taking place I have even greater hopes.
I have heard some of the criticism or skepticism about the new pope, but I can't help but share in the optimism that inspired CNN to title their coverage of the event with the obvious Star Wars homage "A New Pope". There are all sorts of things to hope for in the new pope, people within the Church and outside of it have so many legitimate needs they want the Pope to fulfill or help with, and this was the case before we knew who he would be. Now that we have Pope Francis in the world we can already see some of his focus and are right to believe that some of those hopes are being fulfilled. Even better,  maybe some hopes that we have not been daring enough to even wish for or imagine are now coming to pass. My only concerns about Pope Francis involve him being described as very conservative on some issues, such as gay marriage, but I also heard he supports civil unions, which is a step in the right direction. More importantly, I truly believe that if someone truly believes and acts on some essential elements of religion, such as charity for the poor, justice, and environmentalism, and really pursues those beliefs to their fullest, they will come to change their beliefs on things they have been blocked from recognizing in the past. And the more problems like poverty, climate change, and war that we solve once and for all the more effectively we will be able to address every other injustice in the world. My greatest hope for Pope Francis is that he will really have an impact on solving these problems, both with his power and with his example.
So I was hopeful for Pope Francis since I first saw his kind face, before they announced his new name. And when they said his name was Francis, I was overjoyed. Of course I love Saint Francis, not as much as other people maybe because I have not been focused on him as others have and only even heard his story once, 20 years ago. But when I first heard about Saint Francis I loved him, and though I had left the church as a child a few years earlier I felt he redeemed it somewhat. I love his love for nature and animals, and this especially is where I think he will be a lesson to Gaga. Of course I think she is absolutely perfect but as a Goddess she can still make mistakes, it humanizes her more, and in this case I think she is not setting an example to be kind enough to animals if she does not use her incredible power, and fashion clout, to denounce wearing fur instead of accepting it. I don't know all the details but I think this is a mistake she will change her mind about, and when I think about the significance of Francis I immediately think of love for animals and how this relates to the recent, and only, mistake I have noticed in Gaga's perfect connection and guidance to Love. I think, when she changes her outlook on fur and realizes her own fur is the best for her, and her wigs, but not animal skins, it will not only have the positive impact on helping animals but will also be a great example to those of us who love her that we can make mistakes but can change our minds and recover from them.To me the most important things about Saint Francis are his love for nature and call to people realizing the goodness of action instead of getting caught up in conflicts of words. I think these are some of the things that are so lacking from so much of Christianity that it has done great damage. But Francis showed the way out of the faults of rejecting nature or getting caught up in false conflict instead of just doing good. The result of connecting to the earth and nature is that it inspires people to good actions and it inspires those around you. Francis seems to be one of the more pagan of the christian saints and can be seen as a bridge between those worlds. His love for creation inspires people to do the right thing, accomplishing incredible things.
It may be that the only way to accomplish some incredible things that simply must be done is to inspire great faith and cooperation in people, so great it might only be possible by appealing to a universal love of creation itself, or at least humanity ourselves.
Pope Francis echoed the meaning of Saint Francis in his actions and words so far in these first days. We hope for incredible things from Pope Francis and from what I have seen I think we will receive them. I was overwhelmed with love when I saw his entrance for his inauguration, especially when he stopped to see the man who was being held up, when he got off the popemobile to come to the man who could not come to him. It was like Jesus and it makes me cry even to write about it hours later. And the words he spoke were equally touching and powerful.
You could hear so much in the points Pope Francis was making and the words he chose to make them. The ultimate message was the holy Spider-Man theme that "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" but there was unmistakeably a deeper meaning that where that responsibility was shirked, where we have made mistakes, we have a duty to correct them. This is why I think we will all learn a great lesson when Gaga changes her mind about wearing fur, because it will be recognizing her power and responsibility and making amends, showing us that even our goddess or Mother Monster can be wrong and can make up for it. This is one reason I love Michael Vick and support him, because I truly believe that learning his lesson and sharing his story is going to do more to help end the dogfighting culture than many other efforts because it can have an effect on individuals, change their hearts and thereby change the whole culture that leads to that. This is why I sang Morrissey's "Shame is the Name" in a Vick jersey, because so many people want to demonize and shame him but when he currently working to end the horrible things he was guilty of, to help others avoid and end dogfighting, then we should be the ones who are ashamed if we can't support him. The Church has much to be ashamed for in the sex abuse scandal - obviously for poor decisions that allowed it to continue and worsen but I say also for the culture of misogyny and sexphobia that led to priests being like that in the first place. I think that needs to change in the church and while some see it as one of the hardest things to change I can see a path for ending these evils in the Church, and all churches, as well, so that Christianity is never associated with misogyny, homophobia, or anti-sex again, except in historical accounts.
You could tell that Pope Francis acknowledges the duty of the Church to change in order to truly fulfill its obligation to care for people. Americans may have been especially sensitive to the language to "protect the children" as it relates to sexual abuse of children by people in power in the Church, and Pope Francis seems sure to finally address this issue with full papal authority. I get this from the reporting of his attitude and history as a reformer and disciplinarian, but also from his words. I can see how some might say he could have addressed this more explicitly than saying "protect the children", especially in the context he said it of protecting all creation and protecting Jesus in our hearts and how that means to serve each other. But the thing is it reinforces all of this to take it to such a universal level and connect to both ecology, love, and social justice. Because all of these things are connected and are even connected to the other big issues of our times, repression of women and gays, so I feel confident that Pope Francis will eventually come around to insight and progress on those issues as well. The very significant thing for me that tells me Pope Francis takes the whole Spider-Man charge very seriously and is intent to use his power to take responsibility for the evils of the Church and make them right is that he kept asking the people to pray for him and with him. It struck me as more than humble, it was realistic and pleading for the help of all people's good intentions to correct the evils of sexual abuse and end it forever. And I really think this will be done in concert with fixing a whole lot of other problems.
And what makes me so happy about Pope Francis that I had to write a whole gagablog about him even though I'm not catholic, is that I have this idea he can really get this done, and many other amazing things as well. His name, inspired by the animal-loving and protecting Saint Francis, and his attitude of taking responsibility for mistakes and making things right, makes me think the news about Gaga supporting fur from a week or so ago will change and she will have a new message that denounces anything that hurts animals. It is fitting that, to me, that would restore her absolute perfection and a pope that can end the sex abuse and even fix many more evils will restore the idea of the church being holy. But while fur has been such a concern for me ever since Gaga endorsed it, I think, there are such huge issues in the world and I really got  vision of the role Pope Francis will play in solving them and reaching a glorious future.
One theme I heard especially strongly, and thought the media was suspiciously avoiding somewhat, was the idea of saving our environment, saving our planet. I was most impressed by the language of "protecting" so much and especially "protecting creation" and how his other points were made in that context, or maybe ultimately in the context of protecting Jesus/Love in our hearts, but the fact that we have a duty to protect existence. He called us out for being negligent to caring for nature and negligent to caring for each other and showed how these are intimately intertwined in real Love. We can say we love each other but to really mean it we have to show it, not only with loving actions towards each other personally but with love and care for the planet and environment so we call all live as healthily as possible. I was very pleased to hear in the news coverage that Pope Benedict, the one who really looked like Emperor Palpatine, had declared a commandment "Thou shalt not Pollute" and it was one of the rare positive impressions I had of him - I seem to recall him speaking up against war and also relaxing on prudishness to allow some condom use for health reasons. But while this is wonderful that he made that commandment, I think it shows an oversimplification of the issue, like suggesting recycling will sole our ecological concerns. We need a more broad approach and even global initiative to fix our problems with abusing nature and we also need changes in personal conscience and cultural ideas. Pope Francis is in a position, and seems eager, to help all of these things happen and I believe he will play a major role. I thought about how many leaders and heads of state he greeted at his inauguration and the unique power he has around the world through his status and influence with people in all corners of the globe. I think he was thinking about this too then he chose his words, and I had the clear impression he will really act to end abuse of the environment and respond to climate change. Another story in the news today was the possibility of meteors that could hit the earth and devastate the ecology and the fear that we have the technology to avert this cataclysm should it arise but we don't have the international cooperation to make the project successful, currently. I think Pope Francis can bring people together in the way we need to actually address these issues and solve them. I think he takes it seriously that we are charged to protect our planet and is planning to turn us around from our path to destruction. And I love him for this already, just as I love Saint Francis for his love of nature.
To bring this back to Gaga in closure and to mention the biggest surprise, a hope I was not expecting, I want to mention another "bringing together" that I saw foreshadowed in Pope Francis's inaugural speech. I heard the news commentators mention that the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church was there, an event that had not happened for 1000 years. They were noting that it was a big fuckin deal, as our esteemed Vice-President and Cool Dude Joe Biden would say, who represented America at the event and joked with the Pope. But I don't think they got the half of it. First of all, Pope Francis said something about power and the greatest power being in service to help those in the most need. I could hear in his voice that he was speaking of his own sense of duty in his heart. I could hear that this was a man who, like me, was intent on ending poverty and hunger and the evils associated with them and ending them everywhere in the world. He even said something specifically about service to people no matter what they call themselves. And saying this to that audience, including all those people with worldly and government power, he is calling them to do the same and focus on ending poverty - and of course we can all play a role and actually make this happen. And not just poverty, but war and oppression and injustice as well, though it came across that his focus was on the poor. All of these things are connected to encouraging the same change of heart and awakening to duty that Pope Francis seems to be embodying, just as Jesus did and others have done before and since. I think the issues the Pope himself needs a change of heart for will surely come around - I do not think he will experience the trials that Benedict said he went through when he said he felt "God was sleeping" - God won't sleep on Francis. He is ready to get this done. And within all of this is perhaps the most important and surprising message of all: saying to care for all people, and to care all of creation and not abuse nature for human desires, but especially not to discriminate or leave anyone out. This is the connection to Gaga, because she has been fulfilling that Jesus role of the Shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep in the flock to go after the one who was lost. She went out to all the lonely freaks in the world and told us we are loved. Even if some messed up churches who claimed to speak for Jesus lied to some people and said Jesus did not love them due to their sexuality, Gaga showed up to not only tell us we are loved by Jesus, but to love us herself the same way he does, unconditionally, so even for those who can't accept love from Jesus because of the hurt from the lie, we have it just as good from Gaga or  - face it  - even better because she is so hot and likes to get close to her fans and sexy. Gaga left the Church, went beyond it's boundaries, "beyond repentance" (Judas), or if she did not leave she went outside of it, to the people who were left out, to connect us to Love, the ultimate love and the same divine love, whatever other names we call it. And while so many churches had gotten it wrong to push those people out or exclude us in the first place, some churches and people worked to change that and eventually all will come around. I'm sure of this just as I'm sure Pope Francis' pursuit of ecological and economic justice will ultimately result in social justice of marriage equality and full representation and recognition of women as well. I know this because I have seen it prophesied, am seeing it come to pass, and because of a choice of words Pope Francis used.
I've spoken before, in the context of the Gospel of Judas and Gaga's song Judas, of the prophecy of uniting all the churches again under Judas's name, a process I believe Gaga will play prominently in since she wrote a song about it and to me has been spiritually transforming us for years now. Now I feel silly that I did not have this even grander hope, but I was given it by Pope Francis. He said we should seek to serve one another no matter what we call ourselves - this is not just outreach to other Christians but to people of all faiths and no faith, to everyone regardless of labels. This is such a powerful statement and is what can actually bring us all back together into one united humanity. Not under one "rule", but from all sides and with respect for everyone. This is how it will be easy for those who have felt rejected by the church to rejoin it if they wish  - because it will be changing. And it will be easy for different churches and different religions to work together for common good. I thought one of the most amazing things Pope Francis said was referring to himself as the "Bishop of Rome." In saying this, instead of what the pope would usually say, he is showing a sense of being on equal footing with the other Bishop, the Bishop of Constantinople (?) , the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church who was present for the first time in 1000 years. This made me think of the reunification of the worldwide church, and I will give credit to CNN for reporting and teaching me that this was Jesus last spoken desire that the church would be united. "Maybe" Jesus knew that "uniting the church" really meant all of humanity, not just his fragmenting following - according to the Gospel of Judas he at least meant rejoining several churches who had gone their separate ways for a long time. But when I say Pope Francis's inauguration I was inspired of a greater hope, the one we most need that could very well save us all and make earth the paradise it is intended to be. In order to tackle these really huge issues - climate change, injustice, war, poverty, meteors - we really have to get past our differences, all our differences, and get together and work things out and progress and grow. I love Lady Gaga because she came to and represents the "most different" or left out in a way, but the truth is we will all come together to fix these problems because it will take everyone working together. And the big transformation that will allow us to all work together, the big consciousness shift we have all been anticipating but is really showing its effect in 2013, is that we will get over our fear of each other, we will get over our fear of "difference." Whether it is because we have been told and shown by a holy leader that we should love and serve each other regardless of "difference" or because  we are attracted by each others fabulous costumes and cultures, we will come to realize that our differences are what will give us the view from all sides that we need to solve our biggest problems. Gaga has been out amongst the outkasts, loving us and showing us how we can make our own world and have magical adventures through it while encouraging us to be true to ourselves in our utmost uniqueness and infinite variety. This makes people more fantastic and fascinates others who might only rarely encounter such an "oddity" as an artistic person. This power of intrigue makes people want to get over all of their feelings of difference and separation from each other. When the most mainstream leader on the planer, Pope Francis, is also encouraging people to go out and meet each others' needs regardless of difference we have a unique situation where literally everyone on earth can be coming toegether. Who knows if it would start with a reunification of christian churches or some sort of new alliance between different religions, but I can clearly see it starting now and know that the result will be people of all faiths and cultures working together free of any fear of each other. The outkasts are coming together from all over the world, not just because of Lady Gaga but I always talk about it that way because I think of her so fondly and because she represents so many of the "outkast" or disempowered groups: artists, kids, women, gays, potsmokers, and more. All sorts of weirdos everywhere gain support by forming groups, increasing their power. As all of these groups come together the same principle applies to them and their power, support, and effectiveness will increase exponentially all working together. And not just all the weirdos coming together, because that is great but the best is achieved when all the big groups can come together in the same way, and they probably need the weirdos to bridge some gaps between them. I feel we really need all of us for some of these things, and I'm so excited to see signs of us finally coming together and so many of them embodied in the name, words, actions, and reminders of Pope Francis. Once the most mainstream church and the outkasts start rejoining, or the main churches with each other, or the communities of one religion working with the communities of others - once these alliances are formed and the benefits of them start to be widely seen, everyone will want in on it. Instead of the race to some sort of superiority over each other, cultures and nations will change this course of thousands of years and seek to be the best at working together. The rewards will be saving ourselves and our planet from destruction and making it it's true self, paradise, even as we become our true selves, family. (''') <3

Gagablog 45: Pope Gaga, "I don't need these 14k guns", No Nukes of Any Nationality

Some major worldwide news events happened last week and as usual I am writing the gagablog to show how they reveal magic and deepen our understanding of it and how looking to Lady Gaga as our Greatest Magician can show us the Escape Trick that gets us all out of these troubled times.
There are some interesting connections between the events in the news that occurred in the Valentine's week of 2013 but we might not see the connections if we don't look. It might take a little tying things together to actually make the connections but we have an endless supply of hair and wigs to tie with so let's give it a whirl.

The Pope quit last week and scientists discovered a snail that can detach its penis and grow another one. Snails are slow-moving, spineless, so slimy they leave trails, and they both are their own house and carry themselves/their house wherever they go so they can hide from the outside world. And in the same week, maybe the same day, that the first pope resigns in centuries scientists discover that snails can lose one dick and just grow another dick, a new dick, fully functioning but different from the last one. I have nothing against snails, really, I think they are a little gross personally but I love them as part of nature. I'm not trying to diss snails by comparing them to the Catholic Church but to show why it is bad that an organization of people shares these traits that we think of negatively. They aren't negative traits in a snail - it is good for snails to be slimy and slow and hide in their shells, and for some it comes in handy to re-grow a penis. Who knows why they misplace them or give them out in the first place but it's a snail thing. These are negative traits for an institution and it is obvious how this connection provides useful criticism. I made the connection because both events were reported in the same "main news" minutes of a BBC radio broadcast. The Church is too slow-moving, too tied to the past and conservatism (you can see how much of this is true for the conservative wings of all religions, so it is not just criticism of Catholics). When the world's attention and resources have been focused on ending the AIDS epidemic in Africa one man, the Pope, could have made a decision to "allow" condoms that would save millions of lives but he did not and his position on this issue ended up preventing others from providing condoms, including the American government under Bush who provided a lot of money to Africa to fight AIDS but did not provide condoms so that the policy would please conservatives and get their support, including the Pope. I suspect that ancient and false ideas about women and sex are the reason the Church is rotted with pedophilia, they are denying basic natural laws and taking unnatural and sick twists as a result. And the Church has long held vast stores of knowledge they keep secret but if they were shared they would probably force the Church itself to learn and grow or admit they already new better and live up to higher ideals and stop oppressing people based on gender and sexuality. And other people will grow and become their better selves when we have access to the secrets the Church has been holding. Jesus told them not to do this when he warned against the Pharisees who stood in the doorway and would not let anyone enter but also did not go in themselves to the storehouse of mysteries. This is the "slowness" of the Church and how it causes great wrong in our world. The corruption of a culture of pedophilia, and apparently financial indiscretions as well, have left a slimy trail of evil that the Church will not be able to avoid responsibility for even if it grows a new dick. The fact that they have avoided taking responsibility for so long, and ending the evils of pedophilia, even under the last Pope, shows how spineless they have become - again, good for a snail, but not for an institution. The Church has always been a House of People, like a house made out of people and of course Catholics have built some of the most beautiful houses of god in their magnificent cathedrals. But they have kept this all too insulated, too much to themselves and those who agree to do things their way, and the kind of House of God that the Church (and many churches) has become is not an Open House that grows to shelter the world as Jesus intended but has become more like living out of a suitcase or living in your car, where all around you is yours and has to be guarded from other people because it is all you have. This is snail living, again fine for snails but not for people, and most of us are guilty of it in some way, trying to protect what is ours. This is always ultimately a bad principle because we aren't snails we are people who always grow and build and make more, but it is especially a bad principle when it is on a bigger scale. We have countless examples, in every human field of endeavor, that show how people in power who ignore the needs of others and always protect "their own" will fail due to isolation and corruption. A snail goes slow and carries it's house so it can always retreat and escape the outside world. But that is not the intention of religion, to grow it's own way and remake the world to fit into it. Religion should meet people on their own terms and be open to adapting itself to meet their needs and circumstances. In order to keep things their way, to stay slow and show no backbone for change, the Church has jealously guarded it's House from the outside world's criticism and needs. This is why the best joke about the Pope resigning came from Dave Letterman. He said the Pope cited health problems in his resignation, specifically his neck was hurt from looking the other way so much. While the world is changing fast the Church's slowness is holding us all back.

 I guess I was glad to hear this Pope was leaving because I was disappointed that a conservative Pope was chosen in the first place, hoping the Church would go liberal instead because I thought that was what made Pope John Paul more popular, loosening up on some things - just an impression I had. But I was always scared of Pope Benedict so I was glad to see him going. For one, he looks like Emperor Palpatine. That can't be a good sign. But mainly it is for things that I heard on the radio when BBC interviewed people responding to the Pope's resignation. One man with an African said he was upset because the outgoing Pope had been so strong on issues important to them, especially abortion and homosexuality. I know that people in many different cultures and parts of the world are ignorant about the importance of equal rights for gay people and access to safe and legal abortions and I understand how cultural influences like the Church and other conservative religions keep people ignorant, but here in America where it has been such a debated issue it has become increasingly clear that the people opposed to these rights are the stupidest people we have. If we have any faith in humanity we should know that their influence is waning and that the future belongs to the mentality of the most rights for the most people possible instead of the mentality of restrictions. I was worried that the Pope was quitting just so he could influence the selection of his successor in order to pick another conservative Pope. In America electing a President for four years can also result in appointing Supreme Court justices for life so I was afraid resigning might play into Benedict's ploy to retain influence even longer with some sort of Darth. But he said he will not seek to influence the selection of the next Pope, and I appreciate this. I think that the scandal had caught up to the Church, and Benedict, and he recognized his role as a transitional Pope to kind of take the fall as all of this scandal came out. Hopefully the Church is looking to put those ways behind them, including the principles that led to those ways, and transform itself. Not to just say "it's over now that these guys are gone" because they were so associated with it, but to take a whole new direction and make sure that no sliminess remains is the reason they don't leave slimy trails, not because they got good at sweeping them away.

Some have speculated that the Church could elect a non-European Pope and thereby signify a new direction. A Pope from Africa might be the first black Pope in 1500 years but I know a lot of African cultures are conservative and have prejudice against gays and women. I feel like Latin American cultures may have less of that, or may be more open to the liberating messages of Christianity that ultimately overcome those prejudices since they have liberation theology in South America and widespread reverence for female deity in the Virgin Mary, even petitioning the Vatican to expand the Trinity to include Her in some parts of Latin America. I know similar beliefs can be found all over the world and they are the grains of truth hidden by a lot of patriarchal bullshit in many forms of Christianity and other religions, too, I surmise. There is an American Bishop from Boston who I have heard people say is considered for the next Pope, and I have no idea who he is or what his politics are but I hope that being from America would make him more liberal than other candidates or at least more open to changing his mind and accepting more liberal views while having the American influence to encourage that, as we are finally getting more things right in more places in this country. Whoever the next Pope is will be an improvement - not because Benedict was the worst ever but because some of these evils have been in the Church all along: repression of women, demonizing sex or saying it can't be just for fun. As someone who held strong to all these old ideas Benedict was slowing human progress. How much of a jump can we expect to make with a new Pope? I guess it depends on what "they" think we are ready for, so let me lay out some markers for them to consider  - please share this blog and your ideas about it.

The Pope got on Twitter, tweeting in Latin at first, which made the news and got some attention. But he quit a few weeks later, so while all progress is good if it is too slow, too little, it will look pathetic. If the Pope had stayed in office, maybe he could have "changed his mind" about some things, really had a turnaround, and made some drastic changes himself. Unfortunately, other conservative forces in power could have said he was getting too old and questioned his mind - since he is so old - if he started making really radical changes. On the other hand, had he not been selected, had they chosen a liberal Pope who then got the blame for the scandals, whether because he finally addressed them himself or it all just came out, his influence would be tainted by the scandal. It is more fitting that Benedict, who was involved in some of the pedophilia scandal, should be the one associated with it. I think of how I have longed for humanity to outgrow war and how I wished America would lead by example and dismantle the largest military on Earth. War seemed less and less "necessary" or even possible after the collapse of the Soviet Union but the Bushes made up reasons for it. While it is terrible that we did many of the things we did in the Bushes wars it is fitting, if we do finally transcend wars and these are the last ones, that they are associated with Republican, in other words warmongering, Presidents. It is a sharp lesson about what is wrong with that whole mentality. And it is terrible that so many people died to make such a hard lesson, and worse that we still haven't gotten it, but it is the same way with Pope Benedict condom-blocking Africa, it killed many people to show the world how bad it can be when we put the wrong people in power. If Benedict had changed his mind drastically it might have freaked people out. A new Pope will be best able to introduce new ideas and a new direction. I can't help but respect the Pope for recognizing this and knowing that it would be best to get out of the way and let a new Pope take over, maybe he even know how much change is needed and that he could not do it, and that the sooner and faster the changes can take place the better.

My suggestion is to make all the changes at once, do a complete 180, and get this thing on the right track with as many people working together for the common goal as possible, and of course I think this would best be possible by selecting Pope Gaga. Girl can tweet, if that is something they want the Pope to do. We know she can handle the hats. I know what the little monsters are saying "why would she step down to take that position? Why would a Goddess lower herself to be a Pope? And are you saying that she should stop being Lady Gaga???" My answer is that she would do it because we need help. Because meeting people halfway can be the best way to lift everybody up. And that it is not about Ego with Gaga, but about Love and helping people. And of course she would not stop being Lady Gaga, writing songs and performing as much as she wants to - she would just have to do the Pope thing on the side. And in order to get her they would probably have to change many of the Pope duties and expectations to accommodate her schedule, But it would all be worth it. There has not been a woman Pope in 200 years, and Pope Joan had to disguise herself as a man and they killed her when they found out. Selecting a girl Pope, by choice, could do a lot to make up for this evil act of the Church and also would start to turn around all the misogyny and repression of women throughout the Church's history. With Gaga in particular you could also go from demonizing sex to glorifying it, and glorifying femininity, masculinity, and our bodies and sexuality for their beauty in all their variety all at the same time. Gaga has not shown any desire to hoard money, so she could take what has apparently become a financial problem as the Church hoards vast wealth and turn it into a great asset, increasing charity to the whole world. She has done this already by using her celebrity to raise money for disaster victims all over the world. In the same way that she puts her own money into her tour she could use the Church's money to do its real work better, not to ensure that the Church stayed rich in gold but use it to better do the true work of the Church, not to serve itself but to serve other people. Gaga could pay restitution to help people whom priests have abused instead of paying for lawyers to fight this and most importantly could put an end to the culture that leads to sexually preying on children. Gaga would do this just because of her love for children. She expresses love and protection for children more than anyone I can think of since Jesus himself with her messages of love, hope, and empowerment to the youth of the world and even more specifically in her anti-bullying work and Born This Way Foundation. While Pope Gaga would do everything to help children worldwide for their own sake, to help protect them from war and disease and violence and poverty as well as from predators, the changes would take place throughout the whole system of the Church and we can see how it all went wrong in the first place. By allowing women to be priests, and allowing all priests to marry or be appropriately sexually active, you avoid that sick culture of pedophilia. By being open and honest and owning up to mistakes you can seek forgiveness and reach a new relationship with people you have hurt within the Church and also with people outside of it.  By looking towards the future instead of holding on to the past you seek to be the change that others need instead of trying to change others to suit your needs. I know it is "not possible" to elect Lady Gaga as the next Pope (I don't actually believe that I'm just saying it so you will keep reading) but whoever they elect will be more like Lady Gaga than Pope Benedict was so that is a step in the right direction. And I do think suggesting and holding her up as the best possible example sets the bar and shows what we should be going for and increases the chances of getting more of it in the next selection! Good luck to the cardinals who select the next Pope, may they be blessed with wisdom to help liberate the world from suffering, and if, as  late night comedians Craig Ferguson and Stephen Colbert suggest, they send up green smoke or it comes out of bongs in the top of the building, signifying that they have selected Pope Willie Nelson or Pope Snoop Doggy Lion (?), I would be happy about that, too.

But there is something ultimately important about getting the influence of real women in power. Gaga assures us she can be the queen, and I want to assure her that I will indeed love her when she rules the world and that even will make my infinite love for her increase somehow. Being Pope is not necessarily a step on her path to changing the whole world, she is doing a good job of that regardless, but it would be a sweet gesture and could help immensely and might be nice for her as well, a flowering of her Catholic roots. But mostly it would be good for the church to get over their fear of girls, gays, and sex in general, however they do this.

At the risk of writing the longest gagablog in a long line of long gagablogs, I have include some topics from last week in this edition because they all happened in the same week and because of the power in making the subtle connections between them. The analogy of the Pope resigning and the snail with a renewable penis is easy to see but if we can see the connections between a few other events of last week I truly believe we can use that insight and perspective to solve the most dire and dangerous problems in the world. These connections shed light on the most basic principles of happiness: love, respect, safety, making good decisions together and freedom from harsh judgement.

The event of last week that had a huge emotional impact on me, and I'm sure many Americans and some people around the world, was President Obama's State Of the Union Address. This was an amazing speech and I urge you to watch the video of it if you missed it. Most of the speech Obama is making very logical, decisive and forceful points about very important issues. I have to give him major props for saying we have to do something about climate change and really putting it in perspective and addressing this first after the "budget crisis" which everyone has decided must be issue # 1. Finally addressing climate change, the more and the sooner the better, can have profound effects on the entire future of human life on the planet, and Obama gave the issue more of the focus it deserves. Other issues as well were mentioned, but you can watch the speech and should to get the full scope of it, and at the end he takes an emotional turn to address the issue of gun control. In his impassioned refrain "they deserve a vote" he is driving home one of the most important principles of democracy. He had already made a point to end voter suppression with the example of the 102-year old lady who waited for hours to vote in Florida because of the voter suppression efforts of that state's Republican officials. But the principle behind "they deserve a vote" goes even deeper than the right to vote, which is supposed to be the bedrock of democracy. It is the very principle of conversation over conflict. The whole reason we want democracy is so we can all choose and decide instead of being forced by the powerful, that we can use our numbers to keep the more powerful people and institutions responsible to help everyone else. But in every situation, between individuals or groups or nations, even within oneself, there is the potential to move towards conflict or communication, they are opposite ends of the spectrum. We can learn more about each other or keep fearing and defending against each other. The more we learn about each other the more we realize we don't have to fear, so it is merely a tragedy and mistake, and the influence of some bad forces and power structures, that we have not already moved past violence entirely, as countries and as individuals. My friend made this comment: "That is what is wrong with America, even if we had self-driving cars there would still be people who just wanted to drive themselves, would insist on that 'right', even though they would be the only ones still causing accidents." I replied that that might be true but that in that situation those people would increasingly look like idiots and no one would want to be one of them, eventually, and driving your own car would not be a source of pride or masculinity substitute or whatever it is if there was just a safe, easier, universally accepted way. I think the debate about guns should turn out the same way. We should make laws and change our attitudes to end gun violence, but the social conscience needs to be engaged by public debate so we can really get ahead of the changes since the gun lobby will always be trying to hold us back. The difficulty of passing legislation can lay bear the evils and extent of big money lobbying in our political process, but we can also use Internet connectivity and social media to find ways to oppose pro-gun lobbying with lobbying of our own. The organization that we will need to defeat the gun lobby will pay off for other causes after the gun lobby is gone, too. But besides the issues around actually changing policy regarding guns, even if we could somehow never change a single law about guns, we can still end gun violence by changing people's attitudes.

People's attitudes can best be changed by communication. Conflict only makes people defensive and more entrenched in their attitude, but communication helps people see each other's perspectives and gives the chance to learn a better way than the one that has led them to conflict. People who are crazy about guns and refuse to consider any restrictions on them try to deflect the conversation by saying we should focus on the "mentally ill", though there are a couple of flaws with that. One is that while the gun lobby collects and spends a lot of money, I don't think they spend any of it to help mental illness and only talk about how important that is in order to try to not talk about gun control. The other flaw is even worse, that in my opinion even wanting a gun is often the sign of mental illness so we are right back to talking about gun ownership and not only the need for more laws restricting guns but also more scrutiny of the mentality that leads to wanting to own a gun, whether it be the desire to kill animals or to protect oneself or property with lethal force. I'm here to say that both of these things are insane, when we have grocery stores; skeet, cans, and video games to shoot; and other non-lethal options for protection. Its a definition of insanity to want to kill something when there is an option, so if that is a component of one's desire for a gun then their mental health is in question and they probably should not have one. The other reason many of these people claim to want gun rights is to protect themselves from an oppressive (elected) government. There are a couple of problems with this that makes it pretty insane in its own right. The first is that the government has such superior military prowess that the firepower these people are so fierce to protect is no defense against the military anyway - these people act like they are the Taliban but don't even have the same religious craziness, though they do seem just as religious about their own craziness. We call them "gun-nuts" for a reason. Some people complain that the media finds the craziest gun-nuts to make the whole movement look bad but the truth is they have to be a little crazy to want to have anything in common with those people and those people are themselves obviously crazy in a way that having guns has made even worse, maybe far worse. Indeed, like meth or crack can do, with as much certainty, guns make people crazy. Its just not really okay to have that personal power to kill. Oscar Pistorius was a hero to the world and is now a villain for killing his girlfriend and his best defense is that he thought he was shooting an intruder four times to kill him or her, with no warning through a door. Like that should be okay? I understand it might be legal in South Africa as it is in some states in America, but that is crazy, too, because no one's property is worth someone else's life. Pistorius does not have lower legs but he put on his prosthetic legs to shoot someone when, as an Olympic runner, he could have surely gotten away from the "intruder" by fleeing, instead. This is how gun ownership and permissive gun laws lead to craziness, that he thought he should kill someone for invading his house or that he thought his "right" to do that made it okay for him to kill his girlfriend and use that as an excuse, one that would "allow" him to do it because it would therefore be legal - but not right.

It just is not right to kill people. The reason gun-nuts don't want to have any real debate or vote on gun control is this principle, that is is wrong to kill, will eventually come out. You can only dance around it for so long. I agree that we need to talk about other issues as well that contribute to gun violence. If most people own guns for protection we need to look at two things. One is domestic violence and alcoholism, probably the greatest factors in gun murders amongst people who know each other, and addressing these includes addressing all sorts of issues about equality and better conditions and access for women as well as legalizing weed to replace alcohol as the most mainstream recreational drug. Another set of issues is poverty and police enforcement, since the main reason people feel they need to protect themselves from others is from robbery. When we have less poverty we will have less crime and when we have more responsible and effective policing we will have more cooperation and trust in the community and better response. But mostly we will have less crime to respond to when these social injustice issues are addressed. There are ways we need to rethink our whole image and attitudes about gender, masculinity and sexuality to remove the causes of rape and abuse before people have to use violence to protect themselves but we also need to reduce other crimes and improve relations with and quality of law enforcement so that when attacks and invasions do occur we can trust that good, trained people will quickly be there to deal with it. We can reach all of these goals, in addition to creating a new approach to mental health that is less stigmatizing and more helpful and actually helps the whole population not just the severely mentally ill.

There are all sorts of ways we can do things to reduce gun violence but we don't have to do every other one before we do anything about guns themselves. The gun-nuts will turn to anything to avoid discussing the actual principles behind gun ownership and Lady Gaga led them into a trap that could have completely defeated them but at least succeeded in revealing their tactics. A week or so after the mass killing of kids at the Sandy Hook elementary school Gaga wore her assault rifle bra at a performance in Canada. There were news stories the next day asking if it was poor taste or too soon for her to do this and many monsters responded that it was part of her art and a statement she had been making for years. I thought it was particularly meaningful at that time and I knew that Gaga was not using this image and creating this story unintentionally. I thought the conservative media and mindset especially fell for the trap when they expressed outrage and disgust for Gaga wearing this bra but they have not expressed the same outrage and disgust against actual guns, as if she was the Bad Guy, not themselves for protecting reckless gun craziness. They always say it is "too soon" to talk about gun control after every tragedy while they have increased to such regularity that there is never any "grace period" or recovery period from the trauma of these crimes anyway. They say it is "too soon" as if they are showing compassion for the victims but they are really only thinking of themselves because the victims and their families overwhelmingly want more protection from guns and gun-nut policies. The fact that they bother to complain about Gaga's assault rifle bra being "too soon" as well really reveals that they have no concern for victims or the community in general or actual issues but only are about their own feelings about stuff. They rightly don't want to have to address their feelings about gun control because if they did they would have to face the fact that they bear some of the blame for the tragedies that have been committed with guns for being so staunchly opposed to gun control all along. It makes them feel guilty and they don't want to talk about it, even when it is symbolized on Gaga's glorious body they want to say that she is wrong, but guns aren't wrong, which just shows how wrong they are. Her artistic message would have defeated them further had the conservative media fully taken the bait, though. If they had continued to make a story and issue out of Gaga's gun bra, as there is every reason to assume they would with their penchant for misogyny and distraction from real issues, then more and more people would eventually be exposed to Gaga's actual views on gun control and since she is so avidly against violence and guns she would have an even broader impact with her message. Most importantly the real agendas and attempts to avoid guilt of the conservatives and gun-nuts would come out even more in such a debate over Gaga's bra.

Gaga gets people to talk about all sorts of things, she has the artistic magical power to steer the world's imagination. She almost trapped the NRA into a direct confrontation in which she would have utterly defeated them and I think they backed down to wait for a fight they could win. But they are on the way out as people organize and express their views and also as we work to solve issues that make gun ownership feel less necessary to anyone until it becomes as archaic as it has always seemed to me and other non-violent, future-thinking people. Love overcomes all and the reason we ever think we need or resort to violence is because we are afraid to understand someone else. Gaga expresses love for everyone and acceptance of the hurt child within everyone so we can cast off the gross forms of adults we have become that grew out of fear of lost love and for too many into fear of other people. I loved Obama's refrain that "they deserve a vote" because it affirmed the decency of people and of democracy, that if we come together with respect we can surely find ways to live with less violence and ultimately in peace with no violence at all. This calls up the very question of why we feel like we need any weapons. The answer is to defend ourselves against an "other" but when we think about why that is better than trying to understand the "other" or change the conditions that have led to conflict there really is no excuse. We are in a terrible state when we would rather kill people than hear their point of view and try to meet their needs but this is an attitude that pervades all levels of society. I was so proud of Obama for all of the points he made about equal rights for women and gay people, for voter rights and to protect the planet, it all had the strong message that we will do the best when we respect each other the most and work with the most respect for the environment, too. Obama's foreign policy has always seemed to seek making friends instead of enemies, even making friends with former enemies, around the world and working towards mutual peace and security. The "hot spots" of concern have been the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. I appreciate Obama's wisdom to not rush into war with either of the countries and we should be proud for re-electing him just for avoiding immediate war if we had chosen otherwise. Personally I think the best approach to avoid the threat of nuclear attack and avoid all such threats in the future is a little more radically different, though. I think Obama knows on principle that if we talk more about guns we will get a better society with less killings, he knows we will do the right thing. He knows if we talk about violence in general we will have less violence, he trusts that we will come up with solutions that don't require violence. I think that is the basis for the wisdom to never rush to war, but as good as that is in comparison to warmongering I think we need to go further and enthusiastically seek peace.

I have said in previous gagablogs that the best way to disarm someone is not to yell "drop your gun!"at him forcefully and hope he accepts that you are the better shot. A better way would be to lay down your own gun and say "you don't need a gun, I'm not a threat to you." I know this would not be strictly the case in our society where many people are somewhat or a lot maddened by gun craziness but the principle is sound and if we could work toward that principle I think we would see the truth of this more often. The best way to say "you don't need a gun" is to say "I don't need a gun"  - I'm assuming we can work this out without violence. Dr. Who said he never carries a weapon because that implies he expects to need to use one. More than just manifesting bad things in a magical sense, being armed or aggressive changes the way people respond to you and can create a bad situation from nothing. In the case of not needing a gun to protect oneself from a threat, we would like to feel secure that we don't need our own guns because the police are fast enough and well-trained enough to deal with any potential threat better and there are ways we can realize that. If police were the ones expected to use guns to protect others and no one else felt they had to take on this burden that would be an improvement but an even further improvement would be if our law enforcement was done with purely non-lethal force and the same training was used to make that the best response possible to criminals and crazy people alike. We surely have the technology to make new non-lethal methods to detain people if we got off the gun-craziness and focused some resources on developing them. I'll never forget the cop who pulled up when I was stuck with other drivers as a small tree had fallen across the on-ramp. He got out, looked at it, and his first idea was "I might be able to shoot through it." We all tried to push it aside and could not but a minute later a pick-up truck with construction workers in the back pulled up and they all pushed it out of the way. We don't really need guns for anything anymore and the only reason we still have them is a bad habit and being stuck in that mentality. The same is true for nuclear weapons  - they aren't good for anything, and the principle that they are good for threatening other countries to not have them is not sound, as more countries get nuclear weapons and for the most part seem to gain more respect and power when they do. But this is a false power and the stronger principle, that is true and will ultimately win, is that the best way to tell someone they don't need nuclear weapons is to show them "look, we don't need nuclear weapons."

This is based on the very fundamental principle of communication versus conflict and communication triumphing over conflict. All we are saying when we are saying give peace a chance, all we want when we advocate disarmament, is less weapons, less violence. It is not the right approach to pressure North Korea or Iran to not seek a nuclear weapon. Sanctions will only make their people feel more dependence on their governments and threats, rhetorical or military, will only lead them to feel persecuted and justified to respond with violent means or capabilities. We need to coax them to not seek nuclear weapons. We need to coax other countries into giving them up, including ourselves. As the country with by far the most nuclear weapons, as the only country to ever use them, we should lead by example and say "look, we made a mistake, a lot of mistakes, and we don't really need nuclear weapons. No one does." And we could lead by example by disarming, enthusiastically. I was at a training for work recently where the trainer presented ideas from the Love and Logic Institute that I thought were really good. He asked at one point if it was possible to be loving and strong at the same time and I thought that the strongest thing is love so it is not possible to be ultimately one without also being ultimately the other. While bombs and weapons might be the strongest things in one sense they are not loving and the stronger thing than having weapons is finding a way to get rid of them, to get rid of the weapons and the conditions that lead to any feeling that we need weapons.

We basically just need to get over our fears of one another and one reason I love Gaga so much is because she encourages us to really be ourselves, our best selves and our dream selves and to transform ourselves to become better all the time. We don't need to hold on to rigid ideas, about ourselves or about other people. We can find that there is nothing to be afraid about "other" people, that all of our fears have really only been kept in place so that we don't have to learn about each other but once we do we are of course much happier. We have demonized other people, and religions and politics have done some of the worst of this, but once we see beyond labels and prejudices we feel our commonality with our fellow humans. The world is becoming so interconnected that this is bound to improve things with the only thing holding us back being the old mentality of feeling like there is a need for war or defense against others instead of just realizing that if other people have problems we should do what we can to help them. We have to overcome old ideas of ourselves and find new identities that share the concerns of the people we are just becoming more familiar with. I think of how much the American media and politics demonized the Russian people throughout the Cold War but how now we have increasingly better understanding and relations between our citizenry, and how foolish and typical it was for conservative Mitt Romney to try to revive anti-Russian sentiment or ratchet up angst against China. We don't need some "1984" reality where we move from one perceived enemy to another. We can remember how these prejudices are manufactured and learn from that to dismantle the rest of them and prevent more from being made. Conversation instead of conflict is the key. Conversation is based on the idea of respect for the other person - I might not understand you but I am trying to. The reason it is best to be as Loving and as Strong as possible is that it takes that focus to overcome our concern for ourselves in order to understand someone else. We need to get over our posturing to defend our own interests most and really see the other point of view. My training regarded dealing with traumatized children but the same approaches would be best to deal with the negative actions of countries. "Acting out", seeking nuclear weapons, is essentially either a play for control through negative power or a reaction to a feeling of being threatened by the negative power of another. By exerting negative power ourselves, having a nuclear weapons ourselves or imposing of sanctions to punish a country seeking nuclear weapons, we only make the situation worse, making them even more isolated and desperate, further traumatizing them. We say we want to do anything to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon but we consider the drastic, strong action to be a military strike while the actual strongest response, and most effective, is setting the example of disarmament and unconditional love and humanitarian support for all suffering people so citizens of oppressive regimes that want to make them more militaristic will realize that is not their best interest. I heard rumors in the 1990's that we had given Israel 75 nuclear weapons and we have probably given them more since then, but we are outraged that Iran would have one, recognizing Israel and Iran as the major opposing powers in the region. Of course one nuclear weapon is too much, but why is 75 or more, or the thousands America still has, okay? The implication is that some people can be trusted with nuclear weapons and that others cannot, that there is some fundamental difference between people in this way and this attitude does not lead to conversation. It is just conflict until we can truly put aside preference for our own self-interest and seek common good. Maybe no one can really be trusted with nuclear weapons, or guns, maybe almost everyone could be, but if all weapons are actually unnecessary then it does not really matter. Since threats are not the way to get compliance, but leading by example and enticing with better ideas is, we should disarm and work to reduce the military as soon as possible, putting that focus and resources towards building cooperation around the world. Our new Secretary of State John Kerry recently said that our most pressing foreign policy concern is actually our own internal budget debate gridlock because we need to set a good example to other countries of being fiscally responsible. The same principle is true for nuclear weapons, as it is true for personal gun ownership. We need to reduce people feelings of fear and threats, we need to get people out of the idea that they need weapons, at every level and all over the world.

We need to take Gaga's advice and transform ourselves and our ideas of each other so we can live without fear, and we need to live up to her example that "I don't need these 14 karat guns to win I'm a woman I insist it's my life". This is a message to the greedy and gun-nuts alike - you don't need money to be happy, money is best used to increase love - not to hold one's treasure for "your own kind" but to share it to help everyone, and you don't need weapons to ensure survival or success, because it is a basic right of existence. She is insisting on being treated with respect, as a woman, and therefore calls into question the many systems that deny equal respect to women but also calls on the principle that she has the right to determine her own life as an individual woman and she expects that right to be honored for her in the same way that she will respect that for others, men and women. This is the most basic principle at work, because it might not be like this yet - which is the reason she has to insist upon it and make this come true  - but it is the way it should be and it is the way it will be. The whole principle of expecting others to respect our life and liberty is to respect theirs as well, it is an agreement between people. But we short-circuit this agreement when we demonize others, when we say that they are not as valid, that their interests are not as important and force a conflict between us instead of seeking to communicate and work together. If we can recreate ourselves and look beyond fear to see each other equally, as Gaga recommends, we can move past all of these conceptions between people that can allow conflict or people to kill each other, whether it is Americans and other countries nuking each other or people arming themselves against criminals or insane people - we still need to find ways to help, not kill, each other. People think they need the "strength" of weapons to "win" a potential conflict but the real strength, and the real victory, is in avoiding conflict and the greatest strength is in changing the conditions that could lead to conflict, to stop it all before it happens. And the best way to do this is remember that it is not about "us", to get over ourselves, to move beyond our ideas of who we are and who we "can't" relate to, and to see everyone as "us" and even to see other's concerns before our own, or strive to since the ego demands that we think first of ourselves. This is what we need to have the greatest strength for, to overcome the force of our own wills, and work for common good, to put aside our egos which are the greatest threats to peace and security, not some outside threats. Because solving problem by working beyond our egos, seeking to help others first, is what will ultimately remove all causes for conflict and violence in the first place.

Gaga reminds us that the real way to win is assertion of equal rights, not the use of force. This fosters communication, not conflict. And we need to be able to move beyond the wrongs we have done to each other and ourselves, or imagine we will do, in order to reach forgiveness and move forward. I've been reading a book on Advaita philosophy by Dennis Waite called "The Book of One" and in order to illustrate a point about different qualities, gunas, that affect all actions and all existence he retells a story told by Ramakrishna (p. 81) about a man attacked by 3 thieves in a forest. The first thief says they should kill them after they rob him and the second convinces them to just tie him up. The third thief returns and unties the man and helps him on his way back to his village. At the edge of the forest the man invited the thief to return with him to his home but the thief is embarrassed for being a thief and goes back to his life in the forest. The story was used to tell how we are all limited or conditioned by our own measure of these different qualities in our lives but to me it also has a message about getting over our ideas of ourselves and seeking and accepting forgiveness. The thief could have changed his ways if he had shed his image of himself and ceased identifying as a thief, and the forgiveness of the robbed man makes this possible. That is what we need in our attitude towards dealing with "dangerous" people: we should not seek to kill them first but should seek to help them. We can do this by relieving the wrong we have endured by forgiving the offender and accepting that there is a deeper connection between us as equals, that even if someone has threatened us by breaking into our house or making a tiny percentage of the weapons we have we should try to help them see that this is not the right way and we can do this by setting a more positive example, showing that we truly want to respect everyone equally. The ego's insistence on preference for ourselves can be overcome with the greatest strength, Love, and once we start acting more out of love for each other it will keep getting easier, we will understand each other and meet each other's needs and concerns better, and there will be less threats and dangerous people all around. We need to all realize that we "don't need these 14 karat guns" and move past those ways of thinking, that we need money to be happy or weapons to protect ourselves. We should live up to our potential, we are smart enough to solve conflicts without violence so we should insist on this and develop the ways to ensure we do it.

Both of the major issues of last week, the change to a Pope who will be more responsive both to the actual needs of the billion people in the Church and to the other six sevenths of the world's population, and the change from an attitude where we need weapons to one where we do not, involve the same basic principle: putting yourself and preference for "your own kind" aside and realizing that we are all in it together and are really all the same, with equal rights and aspirations to happiness. We are finally realizing these principles in order to address gun violence and many other issues in our society. Even to discuss some issues and make any progress at all we need to be able to get over ourselves and our own perspectives enough to compromise and advance. We can all make changes in ourselves to become better and a new era is beginning where those changes will be more widespread and easier to realize with growing support from others. I think the fastest way would be made by selecting Gaga as the new Pope but since this probably won't happen I think even imagining it and the good it represents, advocating for it in the world of discussion, on the Internet, will have a positive effect. This is just an example of how communication wins and defeats conflict, and the best communication comes when we get over ourselves to try to fully appreciate and understand the needs of others. Lady Gaga as a performer and artist and Mother to her family of little monsters has always encouraged people to reinvent themselves as the best they can be. The idea of Pope Gaga is useful to reveal the dangers of clinging rigidly to tradition and the benefits of making radical change, of catching up with the ever changing world and its needs. The goal of non-violence and getting rid of weapons is also a part of realizing the peaceful future we all deserve and should be seeking. Gaga shows us the way clearly, and if our leaders can use the same insight that hopefully will lead us away from selfish violence as individuals maybe they will also learn the lessons of their own advice and really work for peace worldwide. We have to lead by example, showing that the greatest strength is in our love for one another and the power of the truth of our ideals of equality. We set the best example by being the strongest one who walks way from weapons and violence, the one who vows not to hurt but to see those who are hurting as an opportunity to help and committing to trying to help everyone and never writing anyone off as someone who deserves negativity. This means even if we don't understand someone or fear them we don't demonize them or decide there is a reason to justify killing them. In fact, not understanding someone can lead to conflict but should be our sign to communicate instead, to overcome our fears and the limitations of our identities and learn about the other and how we are really the same in order to find ways to work together for common goals.

If we keep in mind that basic respect for each other is of utmost importance we can work through any differences or conflicts without violence. It's only rigid ideas of ourselves and the way things should be that keep us in opposition and ignorance of each other that can lead to conflict. We can follow Gaga's example, and our own insight, to know that we are right to expect respect for ourselves just as individuals, as men and women and girls and boys, and that it is based on having the same respect for every other person on the planet, not on an ability to kill them We should seek strangeness and "otherness" as a chance to grow together, to investigate and learn and find new ways to meet the needs of all of humanity.

Gagablog 44 for Obama 44: Election Day, The Future Begins, World Peace

My Gagablog has been suspended as I awaited a resolution to the conflict in Syria which tragically still continues. I can't explain exactly how I expected the magic to work, except that I did because for me Gaga reveals a Divine Liberation that is destined to free the whole world. I was hoping that drawing attention to that magical connection would cause something miraculous to happen to end the violence in Syria - to end conflict everywhere eventually - but first in the places where it is most atrocious.
Gaga has been busy all these last months, relentlessly touring the whole world, and she has been doing a lot. She continues to work her magic in her performance and in her interactions with her little monsters and social movements she creates and inspires, including the launching of the Born This Way Foundation. Her show and message has caused controversy in a few countries where she has been accused of spreading homosexuality, highlighting those cultures' homophobia and bringing out voices of little monsters within them to speak up. Most recently she has put out pictures of herself smoking joints and tweeted about a new song she is writing about cannabis - to me this fulfils something I have been prophecying about, that after using her powers to help liberate gay people from oppression she will help liberate potsmokers, too. Americans who enjoy the herb are subject to a lot of persecution and risk imprisonment under the old laws we have, but we are changing these.
The reason I am writing the Gagablog again is because I know something more needs to be done, there is still a crisis in Syria almost 2 years later and the Syrian government has killed tens of thousands of people. There has also been a sort of crisis in America in the last few months as, against all decency and common sense, Mitt Romney has appeared to have a chance to win or more likely steal the 2012 election. I don't even want to imagine how horrible that would be, though we got a taste of it from the scare of thinking he would win and we would lose many protections, services and rights. The right-wing social agenda is so scary and evil that we have not even discussed their foreign policy, but it is no coincidence that when America elects Republicans we go to war and the rhetoric from Romney and McCain and other right-wingers shows that we would go to war in Syria if we elected him. More accurately, we would go to war with Iran and Russia IN Syria - at least that is where it would start, but electring Romney is a vote for World War 3.
A vote for Obama is a vote for World Peace, and world peace will win. Yes, I have the Vegas oddmakers and some prominent statistician/journalist, Mr. Silver, backing me up with a 90% odds that Obama will win, but of course the media is portraying it as "too close to call" and "razor tight" (to Colbert's delight) and it scares me that they can even report this because if we believe it is that close we won't question the results if the Republicans steal it. But the reason I am saying today that Obama will win - and hopefully we will know for sure tonight - is that he has to win, humanity must continue. And I believe the stakes are that high. Of course the stakes in Syria are high as well, as more and more innocent people are killed everyday. I don't know if Gaga has made any statement about Syria, I just Googled "gaga syria" and the closest thing I saw was my own gagablog and a video on youtube asking Gaga to sing for the Syrian revolution - so the connection is there in the world, I am not the only one hoping for her liberating magic to help them.
And she is helping them, indirectly but significantly. Because unfortunately one reason America has not been able to play a major role in ending the violence in Syria is because of the Presidential election and the fear that actions Obama could take could be used against him in the campaign. It is too bad that we can't just act for the greatest good and knowing that America would be on the sidelines until the election was one reason I was hoping for a miracle. I did not expect a statement from Gaga to coincide with that miracle, though that would make my ideas about magic more obvious, but I was actually expecting the miracle that saves Syria to coincide with something I wrote here, unread by all but a very few with little or no political influence - but the magical effect of having written down the expectation for a miracle - and it being the right thing to happen -has been my "plan" all along. All it has to do with Gaga, besides her being a greater symbol for liberation, is that she inspires me to try this kind of magic.
But I have been regretting not doing "my part", writing my magically-intentioned blog, while we basically waited for the election to be over. Now it almost is over and when Obama is re-elected so much energy that has been caught up in the campaign will be freed to do other things, and people who have been focused on trying to keep America moving forward will be able to help Syria and other countries more as well, both because they have the time and the flexibility to act without unjust scrutiny. As long as Romney does not win, looking back this election will give us fascinating insight into the nature of greed and lies and old power structures and salesmanship that Romney exemplifies. The only benefit of the right-wing that has distilled so much that is wrong in our culture is that it makes it easier to see how people can be duped and what kind of character flaws they want to promote and exploit, such as avarice mislabeled as "self-reliance." Of course the most flagrant example of how they oppose democracy itself is not merely their uncaring obstruction of Obama for the last four years but their obstructions to voting through passing laws that suppress voting to intimidating people to reducing early voting so that lines take hours to wait to vote, up to 7 hours in Florida. They simply can't claim to even believe in democracy if they elect these officials and lawmakers and promote this mentality that only their kind should be allowed to vote.
It is the same philosophy that Assad and the evil Syrian regime have, that only certain people should be able to make decisions for everyone else. It is the reason the Syrian people are fighting for democracy and the reason we should support them - but not jump to the violent solutions presented by right-wingers. There are more creative ways to influence history and Obama will be able to utilize them in his second term, for peace in Syria and all over the world. We are interconnected in so many ways and we all need each other. My ideas of magic are based on mystical connections but these apply to other connections as well and there is so much we don't understand that we can be fantastically surprised by what is possible if we try.
As I started writing this, hoping to push some magical button to end the crisis in Syria, re-elect Obama and legalize weed here in Colorado, and knowing there is a magical connection to all of these things and also to Gaga, I was pleased by links from a little monster in India about Gaga's statements and interviews urging us to vote for Obama, since I missed them when they came out, but was even more pleased by the progression of the news. As I started composing this in my head tonight (yes, they do sometimes have forethought!) the news was about a suicide bomber in Syria who killed 50 Syrian troops, the deadliest attack so far on Assad's forces. A victory of sorts for the rebels but not exactly what I call "good news", since I am a pacifist and mourn all loss of life. But the next story was of the council of rebels expanding to include more groups and having organizational meetings. This is democracy and the reason democracy is something we have to fight for, even revolt for, because the people who want to hold power exclusively, the people corrupted by power, will always have some form of force on their side. But the people, the truth, the Future, is where the true power is. As I wrote that sentence "Just Dance" just ended on the radio..... and as I went to start typing this gagablog there was breaking news: 7 generals defected from Syria into Turkey. That is the kind of news I'm excited to hear, as a pacifist, because that is the best way to end conflict, for the people in the worng to give it up. And it is the kind of news I am overjoyed to hear as a Gagaist witch, because it shows this magic is working. Maybe it is slow movement sometimes, or too subtle to notice, but it is always magical movement toward freedom when we honor and follow Gaga and the truth, love and freedom she shows.

I'm encouraged, magically, and know that we will re-elect Obama today with a large margin to give confidence and momentum to the agenda of peace, alternative fuels, honoring diversity and civil rights, and supporting democracy - both around the world and in here America where it is under attack. We are doing what is right, everything that is right, and it is all coming together. And we are doing in in many ways and can always add more. We all have so much magical potential, but we also need to vote. If we can stay true to our dreams and make them real in our actions, we will earn the Future that Gaga has shown us and Obama will help us reach. The difference between the Future and the past? Everyone will be included and cared for. I don't know why that idea is so scary to so many Americans, but we will start living together and enjoy it and be an exemplary part of a community of nations instead of a bully in the world and to our own people. Gaga has been working on it from that angle all along, because all evil is essentially bullying, from Assad's airstrikes on his own people to the Republican governor closing polls to keep people from voting. But the will of the people is true, it is built on our hopes and therefor is the Future calling to us, and we have the real power on our side despite the wordly powers for evil stacked against us - and we have the Champions of Obama and Gaga on our side. As the Indian little monster told me, we have the gay vote on our side so we can't lose - it's time for the Future! Obama-Biden 2012, Germanotta-Clinton 2016!!!

"Happy Birthday, Gaga! You are the Goddess, it's all You!" gagablog 43

Gaga, I love you so much, you are everything and all in one, the perfect Goddess to me and my best dreams and most fantastic imaginings come true!. When I say you are the Goddess I think of you as perfect love in action, song, and fashion. You are the pinnacle of Art, the Inspiration Point that shows us all the way. You overflow with caring and give so much to us, and lead us with bravery to live our own lives as bravely in our own ways. Thank you so much for sharing all your gifts with us, and for caring for the Ruby Slippers you recieved last year, as you are our Dorothy who brings us together out of the fields and forests and leads us on the Road to Love through the land our dreams make real.
What do I mean when I say "Gaga, you are the Goddess!"? Will Gaga ever see me say it? Maybe not, and yet I say it again and again. Who am I talking to? I'm talking to you, I'm talking to me, to all of us, when I say "Gaga, you are the Goddess." I think we are all part of the same love, we all share the same life and are all always both from and with The Goddess. The fact that Gaga is the perfect example, to me, of the Goddess as the world most needs her now, makes it easy for me to talk about the Goddess in Gaga terms. It can be difficult to explain, too, but only because we are so far away from understanding of the Goddess so I welcome any challenge or opportunity in discussing her.
Do you ever wonder if someone you meet on the internet is Gaga in disguise? Maybe it is just a fantasy that many people have, that they could be talking to Gaga, and I'm sure she does talk to her fans online, probably as herself but maybe with other personas to be annonymous, but I also imagine that some people impersonate her. The reason I bring it up is because I start to suspect it when I talk to people and they are really nice, even seem to be mystically nice. And I imagine that people impersonating her would be incredibly nice as well. Because all accounts I have heard of people who have met her attest to how nice and loving she is to her fans. She certainly sets the new standard for an artist who cares for and responds to her audience. I'm focusing on how she does this with her own interactions to show how, if we suspect someone of being Gaga, or if we know they are a little monster, we are as nice as we can possibly be. She has this effect of making the whole world nicer from her direct influence and from the millions of monsters who are influenced by her. On the other side of the spectrum, the main thing that makes monsters nice is the liberating and empowering message of Gaga's music allows us to be brave in being who we really are, Born This Way. But in the direct way, of interacting with Gaga or other monsters, imagining talking with her, or showing the world who we are - freakish, maybe, possibly a little scary at first, but nice and loving above and within all - in this way we are all like Gaga, little monsters who take after our Mommy.
I have not met Gaga or seen her show even yet, and I hope to soon. And I know from her music how liberating it is and how much it really helps us all be better in love. But I can also tell from people who have seen or met her that she has this same force of incredible Goodness in person, even more so. And I have my own experience of talking with some little monsters online who are so kind and wise and friendly, it makes me start to wonder sometimes..... My point is that when you start to treat people with this kind of love, that they "could be Gaga", when you start to look for the Gaga in everyone, it can put you, and everyone you come in contact with, at ease. This ease is what we need for love to grow in the world so that it fully replaces the rule of fear. As I wrote this "celebrate a new compassion" was the lyric going by, and as "Bad Kids" is playing now I think about how Gaga relates to all of us but especially the outsiders.
In this way Gaga's fabulous example helps us all feel good and be better to each other and if we really want to be like her of course that means being the best individuals we can be, but also seeing the goodness in everyone and coming together. I've been celebrating Gaga all day and I wanted to talk about how Gaga is like religious figures of the past, who show a glorious example and teach us to follow it and be like them in our own way, but right now "follow that unicorn on the Road to Love" is on and Gaga just says it much better. We are about to have a firepit and cook some hotdogs celebrating Gaga's birthday. I drew a picture of Gaga this morning and posted it to facebook and really appreciated the many monsters who liked it, it really encourages me to draw and paint more. I feel the love and feel like I am back in the world of art after spending too long on the fringes, and I just want to go on this journey with you all to the heart of it, on the Road to Love to the Emerald City.
Thank you Gaga, and Happy Birthday! You are the Present to us all, you inspire us and give us ourselves to share with each other. Thank you monsters, together we will turn this whole world into the Grandest Monster Ball ever. Paws Up and GAGA FOREVER!