Marianne Williamson – The Heart of Conscious Politics

Marianne Williamson: I think that there are many situations that occur in the United States that the average American does not realize. We are decent people like everybody else. We are compassionate people like everybody else. The problem that we have is between the passion of the American people and the behavior of the US government. For instance, I don’t believe the average American realizes that among all advanced nations of the world, the United States has the second highest child poverty rate. We are second only to Romania. I don’t think the average American realizes that we have among all nations of the world the highest mass incarceration rate. We have 2.4 million people incarcerated, compared to 300,000 in the 1970’s. An African American man today has a one in three lifetime probability of incarceration.

I think these are our dirty little secrets, the fact that we have a permanent war economy, the fact that the government has given to itself extraordinary legal rights that it never had in the past, including the right to indefinitely detain US citizens. I just think that there are so many things where Americans have been in a reverie, as a friend of mine put it the other day. Sir Winston Churchill once said “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing once they have exhausted every other option.”

I think that probably people from all over the world roll their eyes at Americans, how can we be so distracted and disengaged at times, but at the same time you would also agree that many of those same people would acknowledge that when we do wake up we slam it like nobody’s business. We tend to be asleep longer than everybody else, but boy when we wake up, we are an awakening giant and I think that is what is happening today. I think Americans are realizing that some of these dirty little secrets are not secrets anymore and enough things are coming up. Whether it’s the NSA spying or the Trans Pacific Partnership or the National Defense Authorization Act or the fact that we can’t fight GMO’s because Monsanto won’t let us, we can’t adequately address climate change because the oil companies won’t let us, we can’t have Universal healthcare because the health insurance companies and pharmaceuticals won’t let us. People are starting to wake up. We are just beginning to hit critical mass. Be patient with us. I think the heart of the American people is about to reassert itself.