Eight Thoughts On Marianne Williamson by Caitlin Johnstone!
(2019-07-24 at 14:50:06 )

Eight Thoughts On Marianne Williamson by Caitlin Johnstone

The other day the reliably disgusting Samantha Bee tweeted an invitation to Democratic presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson to come "drop out" of the race on her show, which Ms Williamson playfully declined from the green room of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Establishment narrative managers like Ms Bee have been smearing Ms Williamson with steadily increasing urgency lately, which is always a great way to pique the interest of people like me.

I am not seeing much written about Ms Williamson besides snarky smear articles and "Hurr hurr I hyper-meta-ironically think the magic crystal lady is awesome" joke pieces, so with the next round of debates coming up soon I thought it might be fun to take a straightforward look at her, her platform, what she gets right, and what she gets wrong.

There are not many candidates who I find interesting enough to do such a thing, but she is one of them.

Without further ado, here are eight thoughts on Marianne Williamson:

1. As mocked as she is, she would still make a better president than almost any Democrat running.

Granted, given the platoon of plutocratic palace eunuchs that is the 2020 Democratic primary race, this is not much of a compliment.

But it is still worth noting that her overall platform is more progressive than most of her primary opponents, and that she appears to be far less invested in coddling the oligarchs than Biden, Warren, Harris, O Rourke, Buttigieg, Booker, or almost any of the other twenty-something candidates.

Only Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard have more to offer in terms of challenging existing power structures, and of course Mike Gravel (who Ms Williamson helped fundraise for) if you feel like counting his interesting campaign.

I tend to ignore any self-proclaimed "progressive" if they do not express a determination to overhaul the status quo of the United States-centralized empires forever war, but Ms Williamson has been promoting significant changes on that front, including the creation of a Department of Peace, an idea she just plugged on Colbert.

In a debate that was remarkably scant on any foreign policy questions, Ms Williamson was the only candidate to point out during the immigration section that many immigrants are fleeing their countries because of disastrous United States foreign policy.

Ms Williamson also has unusually awake views on things like race, slavery reparations, and putting children first in a real and tangible way which could do a lot to heal the United States of Americas deep psychological woundedness, something she seems to prioritize in all her political thinking.

This is not a Marianne Williamson campaign ad so I am not going to go over all her positions on all issues, but anyone who is curious can
"check them out here".

She is easy to make fun of, she misquotes Albert Einstein sometimes, and her positions are far from perfect, but she also seems to be operating in good faith from a compassionate perspective and pushing back on some tightly held orthodoxies, which is more than you can say for most of the other candidates.

2. She has the ability to capture Americas attention.

Because of her willingness to talk about love and say things you are just not meant to say on a presidential debate stage, Ms Williamson was the most-searched candidate on Google after the last Democratic debates, with interest surging nearly every time she opened her mouth.

You can tell me that a lot of that was the undesirable kind of attention, but if Donald Trumps election taught us anything it is that undesirable attention is not necessarily a thing for presidential candidates.

Ms Williamsons challenge is using that attention in a way that wins people over and captures their imaginations.

If she can find a way to put out concise, forceful, positive messages that really light people up while she has Americas attention, it is technically possible for her to turn interest due to novelty into actual support, especially if she can get better at taking advantage of her massive social media following.

Unlike Gravel, Williamson is actually sincerely in this race to win it, and I would not be surprised if she picks up a few tricks to help push toward that goal.

Ms Williamson has a unique knack for getting herself into the bloodstream of the zeitgeist.

There is a very famous quote almost everyone has heard at some point that goes, "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

That quote appears everywhere from memes to inspirational posters to graduation speeches, and it is often misattributed to Nelson Mandela. It is actually Williamson, from a book she published in 1989.

3. Her underlying premise is absolutely correct.

One of the things that sets Ms Williamson apart from the other candidates is her insistence that the only thing which can really turn things around for the United States of America and for the world is a profound psychological change on a mass scale in the way human beings operate.

Her stated goal is not just to change policies in a more progressive direction, but to help get people learning to relate to themselves in a more awake and truthful way.

Ms Williamson is right to promote this goal.

We are never making it out of this mess if we keep operating and thinking in the way that we do.

Only a profound shift in our relationship with thought will enable humanity to shake off the psychological chains of plutocratic propaganda and use the power of our numbers to force real change.

Positive change is not coming by any other route, so it is nice to see someone talking about the fundamental issue.

Whether Ms Williamson is the person to facilitate such a shift is another matter.

Generally if someones insights into the human condition have been sufficiently deep, they can talk about them like a normal human being without sounding all woo woo hippietastic.

But maybe Ms Williamson talks that way for her own reasons. In any case, it is not like anyone else in United States politics is speaking about inner work with any amount of profundity.

4. She is crap on a number of issues.

Williamson has said "I see both sides" on the Trump administrations completely unjustifiable prosecution of Julian Assange.

She hss tweeted that she does not support BDS, as well as a few comments feeding into the discredited Russiagate conspiracy theory.

Her "path" toward universal healthcare is the crappy "Obamacare plus a public option" approach, far less cost-effective and efficient system than the Medicare for All system being pushed by Sanders and more in line with what shitlibs like Beto O Rourke are advocating.

5. The "anti-science" smear is bullshit.

Ms Williamson has repeatedly denied that she is opposed to science, vaccinations and medical care, so the only way to continue to believe that she opposes those things is to decide that she is a secret science-hater who is trying to get into the White House to wage a covert war on science.

This would obviously be stupid.

Ms Williamson has said weird things in her weird guru-lady life to talk about the power of the mind, but if she is saying in plain English that she supports modern medicine then there’ is no reason to disbelieve her.

This is a common wedge issue against the political left in the United States of America that the establishment narrative managers are all too happy to use; they used it constantly on Jill Stein in the lead-up to the 2016 election, and she is a bloody doctor.

It works as a wedge issue because it turns the dreadlocks-patchouli lefties and the rationalism-atheism lefties against each other, thereby rendering them both impotent.

There is no good reason to believe that Marianne Williamson is secretly plotting to become president so that she can steal your measles vaccines, though.

Do not be a doofy conspiracy theorist.

6. She is a collaborator first, competitor second.

When Ms Williamson used her platform to send her supporters to help her opponent, the very naughty octogenarian Mike Gravel, get reach his target fundraising numbers, I was infuriated.

Infuriated because I had cancelled her in my mind because of her position on Mr. Assange, and then she goes and does something awesome like that.

In her policy reviews on her page she plugs another opponent Andrew Yang, even going so far to link to his on a Universal Basic Income.

She also plugs two other books on economics for good measure.

A strong feature of Ms Williamsons campaign is not just to take solid ideas and promise to implement them, but to bring the people who have been pushing those ideas along with her.

She may have some blind spots when it comes to sovereignty and boundaries, but she sure knows how to collaborate in an effortlessly egoless way.

7. She has self-reflection.

She is endlessly mockable, but Ms Williamson knows how to laugh at herself, which is an astoundingly rare characteristic for someone with her reach, ambitions, and audience.

Rather than react to the barbs with pursed-lips and aggression, she has a light way of dancing with the attention that ameliorates its effect.

She is a deep thinker that is humble enough to change her mind when presented with evidence, but she does not back down easily either.

In politics, where nobody ever says sorry and changing stances is seen as a weakness, modelling her brand of agility and self-reflection is a blast of much needed fresh air.

Of course, manipulators will use any apologies as a weapon against you, so you need to only apologise for things you have actually done and wish to change.

Most of us use only defense or use only submission.

She seems comfortable with both.

8. At least she is interesting.

Is she perfect?

No.

Do I think she has got a chance of being president?

Stranger things have happened.

But I am glad she is up there, right up in the guts of the establishment politics making them all work a bit harder.

I love that they feel like they need to attack her right now, but she could go further.

If I ever got her attention, there is a bunch of tweaks I think Ms Williamson could make.

For example, her Twitter game is sub-optimal for what it could be with the follower size she has, because she does not make the kind of large, bold statements that could blow out a giant hole in the Overton window.

With the following she has she could easily get people talking, but she has to give them something to talk about.

Going much harder on policy would get people talking, and there is certainly plenty of room to stretch out on that front.

She claims she wants to take the United States of America in a radically healthy new direction, so why not take a page from Gravels book and talk about halving the military budget and bringing home the troops?

The Pentagon is the planets largest producer of carbon emissions, not to mention all the other poison they put in the air.

She says she wants to "cut the waste in the military", but why be a pussy about it?

There are a bunch of issues like this where she walks this weird middle line that just gets lost in the boring beige sludge of the 2020 conversation.

Just be a relentless advocate for health.

No need to appease sickness in any way.

Ms Williamson talks about "fear versus love" a lot, presumably a hangover from her A Course In Miracles days, when I think "life versus death" is a much more useful dichotomy for what we are actually looking at today.

When the status quos only solution to every problem is to apply the salve of death, in my view she wants to strongly put the case for applying healing and applying life in terms that people can understand.

Whether it be the homeless crisis, healthcare, foreign policy etc, the only solutions we are being offered right now are predicated on lots of people dying so they are not a problem anymore.

It is okay to fear that, and loving that is not going to fix it.

Put the case for life, Marianne.

That is what I would say.

But whatever, in any case, Iam glad she is a thing.

The presidential race is much healthier because of her.

Thanks for reading!!
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