Marianne Williamson: The Politics of Love
If I ever had the blessing and honor of being elected President of the United States, Lincoln and Roosevelt would be my role models.
Regarding what I would seek to do, whereas he had harnessed fear for political purposes, we need to harness dignity and decency for political purposes. Someone said to me today what a trickster God there is. This Presidency has caused a political and spiritual awakening in this country. There’s nothing like seeing someone behave indecently to make you think that decency matters. Someone behaves in an undignified way, and you realize, wow, dignity matters. We see someone acting in a dishonorable way, and it makes you realize, wow, an honor matters, and I think we needed that wakeup call because on some level I suppose we brought it on.
We need to go back to our first principles that all men are created equal; that all men have been given by God an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that this is to be a Government of the People, by the People, for the People. We need to realize that if that’s true, then you protect your environment which affects the health of the people. You don’t just protect the corporate profits of the top fossil fuel companies and the chemical companies. If that’s true, you seek ways to peace as much as to prepare for war in case you need it. If that’s true, you don’t pass tax bills that give 83%, or 83 cents in every dollar, to the very, very richest among us.
There are domestic policies and international policies that are servants to casino capitalism, this is both domestically and internationally, that make a bottom line with short-term profits of casino capitalist forces. I do not think this country should be run like a business. I think this country should be run like a family, and I believe that once again the forces of Government should be at the service of the American people and to the earth which we inhabit, not at the service of just these multinational forces and their financial gain on a short-term basis.
VICTOR FUHRMAN: Do you think the wisdom of A Course in Miracles can change the course of this country?
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: A Course in Miracles is one statement of universal spiritual things. It’s not for everyone, and we don’t want to see any form of spiritual wisdom as special. What’s special are the principles at the heart of A Course in Miracles that are the same as the principles at the heart of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and on down the line.
What matters is that we’re on this earth to love each other. Yes, that will save the world for humanity to remember why we are here and that we are brothers on this planet. So, whether someone is awakened to those realizations through A Course in Miracles, or any other, the last thing we need is for, you know, much evil has been perpetrated on this planet and continues to be perpetrated on this planet by someone thinking our way of finding is God the way. That’s not cool, and it’s not in line with the religious pluralism that is central to American liberty.
So, no, I don’t think A Course in Miracles is asking us to promote a course in miracles. The Course is very much like AA in that way. It’s much more attraction rather than promotion.
VICTOR FUHRMAN: That’s wonderful. Please tell us about your soon-to-be-published book A Politics of Love – Handbook for a New American Revolution. Please tell us about it.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: In 1997 I published a book called Healing the Soul of America talking about the intersection of spirituality and politics, and then that book this last year was just revised and updated because even though the principles I talk about are still the same, unfortunately, the statistics were even worse.
In that book, in 1997, I was talking about the Corporatocracy, wealth and inequality and mass incarceration, many of the things that we’re so stressed by today were already there, but we weren’t addressing them. You know, as someone who is trained and disciplined to look at things on the level of cause, it’s like you don’t go to a Doctor who says you have Cancer, but it’s only stage 1, so we’re not going to worry about it. I knew in the ’90s that these things were happening, and they needed to be addressed and that’s what I was writing about them. Many people were, but it was certainly not the mainstream conversation at that time.
The Politics of Love gets us to where we are now, and it talks about how the revolution that we most need now is a revolution of consciousness. It’s a realization that unlike what we thought in the 20th century when we thought it was just a mechanistic universe, to change your life all you do is tweak what’s happening on the outside. Those of us who have to do with a more enlightened or spiritual approach to living know that all change comes from within. We have to change from the inside out. You can’t just tinker with things on the external plane as that’s the old allopathic model of healing where people thought I don’t need to take care of my body, exercise or nutrition. If I get sick, though, we’re told then we’re doomed, inevitably, and you seek external, allopathic means to suppress or eradicate its symptoms.
We now have an integrated approach. We know that sickness is the absence of health. Health is not the absence of sickness. So, you must cultivate health in your body. Well, we have to cultivate health in our society as well. We have to cultivate democracy and cultivate justice and cultivate brotherhood. You can’t just cultivate genuine democracy and then hope that when violence emerges because of the despair so many people are feeling, that you can seek to eradicate the symptoms through enough balms or enough prisms.
So, America has to heal the same way an individual does, and that includes looking at your character defects. When America looks at our character defects, there are serious issues of race here, racial inequity in our criminal system, racial inequity in our economic system and our political system. There are many ways in which we have not yet completed the process of complete racial reconciliation.
I don’t want to minimize the efforts of our ancestors, but that 40 acres and a Mule were promised and never given to a formally enslaved population, although to some, interestingly enough, it was given and, in most cases, taken back.
Another area of character defects in this country has to do with a not-yet reconciled relationship with Native Americans. We could start with giving the Black Hills of South Dakota back, which was promised in a Treaty and then never given. We have to face the places where we as a Nation have not lived up to whom we say we are. That’s the only way an individual can heal. We have to atone for our errors, and we have to make amends where amends are possible. If you know what changes were hard, you know, you are the one who knows what would change a Nation. A Nation is a collection of individuals, and that’s why I believe that someone who has a sense of what changes people on the inside is an important part of the qualifications for a Presidency in the 21st century.
VICTOR FUHRMAN: Marianne, it is my fervent hope and prayer that you go forward with your exploration, find it in your heart to serve us, and become our Healer and Uniter-in-Chief. Please tell our readers one more time how they can find out more about your work and your plans.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON: Your words honor me. Thank you so much. People can find out more at www.marianneforamerica.com and also at www.marianne.com
