Saturday, June 8, 2019

Abortion and Immigration Share a Common Ground


If nations are sovereign and sacred, free to govern the activity-taking place within their borders, freedom rings. If women are sovereign and sacred, free to govern all the activity within their bodies, particularly their uterus, freedom rings. Men, as political leaders and representatives, have absolutely no business governing the affairs that are sovereign to a woman’s body, full stop.

Last night, I talked with a friend in Trinidad that informed me that refugees from Venezuela were flooding into her country. More than 60,000 have arrived since Venezuela’s economy has tanked and plunged the nation into chaos.

My friend told me she is afraid for her life and that of her children. Her house has been through two attempted break-ins. The economy is hiring the Venezuelans that are taking jobs from island people. All this happens because of the proximity of Trinidad to Venezuela. Seven miles separate them.

I understand her fears. I understand the fears of the Venezuelan Refugees that are doing what they must to survive.

How are nations to respond to humanitarian crises? If someone shows up at my door that I do not know, expecting to be welcome in my house, get a room, a seat at the table, access to the car, and a debit card; I find that expectation an absurd notion. This behavior happens daily across the southern border of the United States. I live in the Southwest border state of Arizona. Nobody allows for home break-ins that can prevent it.

Two primary hot button issues preoccupy my nation, abortion, and immigration. This post will examine what they share in common.

White men’s exclusive rule in America has ended. Donald Trump is the last vestige of great white hope for the good ole days when women and people of color knew their place. The day of these dinosaurs is done.

The challenge for these historical dinosaurs is that they do not get it. They think only of themselves and not the nation of the people, by the people, and for the people.  They cannot get pregnant. They could not face being an immigrant that seeks asylum and so they resort to what they know. They resort to the posture of powerbroker using racist and sexist strategies for control.

Abortion

The U. S. Supreme Court in 1973 ruled in the case of Roe vs. Wade that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion.

The decision has been under constant attack by right-wing and conservative evangelical Christians since its inception. Hold on to mouse buttons and find out about these hypocrites a little later in this blog post. President Trump siding politically with this part of his constituency and established base of support has stacked the Supreme Court with judicial appointments that result in what many fear could be the overturning of the provision.

Abortion is the privilege of women to determine when they will and will not give birth. Right to life and pro-life advocates behave as if women are in total control of every time they get pregnant. While contemporary women have more access to birth control technologies than their mothers did and their grandmothers did, women still get pregnant unintentionally. Right to lifers make demands on women and cast extreme negative judgments on them for choosing not to give birth.

Western culture’s historically white male leadership has aspired to make the rules and control the parameters of spirituality and sexuality while breaking them all. Remove men from the equation of pregnancy, the issue immediately goes away.

That is not in the cards because men are going to find sexual outlets by any means necessary; money, force, or pharmaceuticals without regard for whether women get pregnant or not.  Christian White Men have been having sex and creating children they did not care for or support with African, Native American, and other indigenous peoples since the Transatlantic Slave Trade’s arrival on the shores of the Western Hemisphere.

Immigration

Immigration, both legal and illegal has fueled the U.S. Economy for more than 500 years, the first four centuries through the forced labor of slaves. Workers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America built what white men claimed as their own. White men controlled the narrative of this enterprise and do not want to give it up.

Immigrants have taken the jobs many Americans would not do. Employers had no regard for their immigration status as long as they were cheap. An American laborer might demand $10 per hour for work when an immigrant would work for $2 per hour.

Do not let the illusion of the global economy fool you. It is about the exploitation of cheap labor in Latin American and Asian Markets while selling high-cost ticket items in upscale markets.

The Correlation

It is time for the rubber to meet the road where unwanted people and unwanted pregnancy are at issue. There are a number of people across America making noise demanding an open border policy for all refugees seeking asylum in America. Here is what you do not hear them saying.

You hear no one saying, “One hundred immigrants seeking asylum and a better life, we invite you to come to live in our house. We will feed you, house you and clothe you. We will give you a car and a debit card. We are thankful to be your host and sponsors. No one is doing that. People just make noise expecting others to do what they will not.

It is irresponsible to say let everybody in that wants to come to America when you do not have any skin in the game. Are you willing to have your taxes raised twice the current rate you pay now to support the lives of newcomers? If not, you are just making noise. Those that might want to cannot afford it and those that can afford it are not interested in disturbing their exclusive life style.

Self – Righteous right wing and conservative Christians are not lining up volunteering to take hundreds of children to host, sponsor and raise them. If you are not, you are just demonstrating and making noise.

It is just easier to condemn women who elect to terminate their pregnancies and negatively judge them from exclusive perspectives than it is to love them. Now, check out this unholy, however.

According to the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Diocese, 86% of all the 1.37 million or 1.18 million abortions performed in the U.S. in 1996 were among Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Born Again Evangelical Christian Women. Take Christian Women out of the equation and the market for service takes a significant hit. By 2017, the Guttmacher Institute not only confirmed the findings of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Diocese of 1996 but reported abortions down by 36% to 879,000 in 2017.

Conclusion

Immigration must have a clear and precise policy for access to a path to American Citizenship. Exceptions should exist that allow for the relocation of people seeking political asylum and a process for their integration into American life and a path for citizenship. People living in The U.S. without citizenship for more than 20 years, working, and paying taxes should receive amnesty and citizenship immediately. Not to do so is to have exploited their honorable service.

The 1973 Supreme Court Ruling in the case of Roe vs Wade determined it a woman’s right to give birth or not give birth by electing to have an abortion performed to end her pregnancy. To make it political and easily turned over now is to make a sham of the court.

I have high hopes women will continue to manage their biological, political, relational, and economic lives with the respect of men but without the influence of men seeking power and control over them.

As a final protection for the concerns of women, women physicians should facilitate abortion procedures. Women physicians should facilitate ob/gyn services. Women should be the physicians and the coaches for women’s athletic teams. Our nation and culture must by moral imperative come to love and respect women as free and self – determining negotiating in their own interests for those things that will fulfill their lives. Nothing less is acceptable.

Monday, January 14, 2019

Before 6 A.M.

I have a room in our house, I do not call the man cave. It is a place for me I call the throneroom. I do teaching there, meditation and prayer there, and working out there. This morning before 6 A.M. as I worked out with weights, I noticed my whiteboard. Bonnie's vision board is there, your name is there, plus a lot of things I am working on.

I have embedded exclusive video inside the post for you. It is less than one minute. I was thinking of YOU when I made this.

Love and Blessings to you!

Oscar

Monday, August 27, 2018

Getting to Know You - The TAO of Human Relations


Getting to know you, getting to know all about you, getting to like you, getting to hope you like me is a show tune of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Musical Production, the King and I. It will establish the foundation for the Tao of Human Relations.
The Tao of Human Relations asserts human relationships do not differ from the produce of gardens. When planters of gardens move in harmony with seed, soil, water and conditions; plants have opportunity to grow to full blossom and harvest. When planters of human relationships move in harmony with the seed, soil, and water in human connections context, human relationships have opportunity to grow to full blossom and harvest.
The Tao is a Chinese philosophical approach to understanding life that considers the underlying principle underlying the universe, combining within itself the principles of yin and yang and signifying the way, or code of behavior, that is in harmony with the natural order.
Simply put, everything begins with the seed. Seed is not educated in universities. It does not matter which came first seed or harvest producing more seed. Seed comes to us from the harvest of ancestral generations. Ancestral generations producing the most efficient and abundant growth have their seed, as well as their fruit, harvested and the circle of life continues.
People all over Planet Earth all the time seek how to actually benefit from understanding the Tao of Human Relations. Humans want to get to know each other because enjoyable human contact gives meaning to personal and professional social life. Once a how–to approach is established, the probability for successful outcomes increase and people have more control over input and outcome.
Some of our intimate personal and organizational professional relationships happen by the incident but we still need information and a how-to approach. They are not intentional because we did not seek them out. We meet some in the events of our day to day managing our personal, social or professional life. Sometimes these incidental relationships become seeds in themselves. Properly cared for with intentional attention of good soil (time spent together creating opportunities for the experience of meaning and joy}, water (the intentional gift and demonstration of care), and conditions (environment for personal and professional relationships to grow) can prove to be rewarding connections adding significant meaning and feel good happiness to life.
Some of our intimate personal and organizational professional relationships happen through the design of our intention. We prepare ourselves through intentional personal and professional development to have something of quality to offer to one special individual or to an organization we determine to be a good fit. They are intentional because we did seek them out and prepared ourselves to nurture the potential connections to full harvest equal to or greater than the intention of our expectations for ourselves and our loved others.
These are the choices before us as we live out the Tao of Human Relations. For relationships to be purely organic, the right conditions must be in place for the harmony of seed, soil, water, and conditions. This can happen incidentally or intentionally. Either way, preparation is necessary to be ready for best case conditions to have the opportunity to yield the harvest of personal or professional relationships that are meaningful and fulfilling.


Emancipating Me


Today begins a new venture and an adventure into healing, I did not see coming. I was inspired on Friday night after reading another’s work. @katedenae on Instagram shared with her readers that most of our social media posts share the high sides of our lives, the exciting moments the feel good moments. She asserted that we likely do not share our darker painful moments because we really do not want anyone to know.

I was inspired because I know the costs and consequences of holding on to our painful stories and their effect on mental health. I know by professional practice as I have worked with hundreds of people to seize their freedom and claim their personal power by sharing their stories of pain.

There is growth in the sharing and we discover that we are not alone, that our experience is not the exception but more the rule. I know this reality. This is real to me because it is personal. I too survived my own painful story to share it and allow my own healing to begin more than 30 years ago. I will come back to that in a moment. I am also a believe that God never wastes our hurts but redeems them to ur benefit and the benefit of others.

I reached out to my close friend @anndoquotes.inspire on Instagram to consider the possibility of our collaboration to inspire others with painful pasts to tell their stories to accomplish these things. 
  1. That telling their stories might help encourage themselves and others to discover they are not alone. 
  2. That telling their stories can be the beginning of their healing from their past hurts continuing to live in them as emotional pain and Post – Traumatic Stress Disorder. 
  3. That telling our stories can help to generate a massive experience of healing among people suffering the lingering effects of painful pasts.

In graduate school, I wrote a paper entitled Emancipation to Becoming. In my mid – 30’s, I had begun intense reflection of my experience. I realized I had not become all I had the potential to become because I carried so much pain and anger. When I was not angry, I was depressed.

To make it worse, I was a master of disguise. My parental programming and social experience as a multi-cultural being in the segregated 1950’s had not lent itself to self – expression. My upbringing had not included having feelings and if I did, they certainly were not to be expressed.

I begin with the end of this tragedy to inspire hope. On a visit to my home when I was 35, the time had come to speak to my past to create a new present and a new future. My beloved parents that had beat me like I was an animal as a child began to speak to me as if I was that little boy and teenager they used to beat.

I made an announcement that night while we sat at the kitchen table that if both of them did not immediately apologize for the inhuman treatment of my childhood and adolescence I was never coming to the place I called home ever again. My mother immediately apologized. My father was slower but did also. The relationship with my family changed that night because I had changed. I had evolved dedicated to no longer being captive to the past.

Since that moment I have been involved in the continued development of my healing ad that of as many others as I might reach. To that end, @annndoquotes.inspire and I launch Emancipating Me on social media to reach as many people as possible with the possibility of not only their healing but as many others as they may reach.

This week of August 27, 2018 through August 31st, we dedicate the next five days to post short installments of our stories to invite and encourage others to do the same. This is for you if you yet suffer the lingering effects of past painful experiences as children, teens or adults. Let this become your moment to emancipate yourself and free yourself from the prison hell of your past. Don’t you want to be free to feel good about yourself and love the life you have the possibilities to create? We hope and pray you do. This is our time. This is your time. This is Emancipating Me time.

Follow our work on Instagram. Our hashtag is #emancipatingme. The mission of Emancipating Me is to provide opportunity to help hurting people heal. 

Share your stories with us on Instagram @anndoquotes.inspire and @oscarcrawfordmedia or email to info@oscarcrawfordmedia.com to dialogue with either of us. What we sow together, we grow together.



Sunday, August 19, 2018

The Power of a Contagious Smile


Smiling is the most significant thing you can do to make the world a better place when we have no idea what to do or what to say.  Support for this point of view appears in an article written June 25, 2012 when Guest Blogger Sarah Stevenson reported in Psychology Today entitled, “There is Joy in Your Smile – How Smiling Affects Your Brain.”

One of the things others have noted about me throughout my career is that when I enter a room to meet and greet people for the first time or to take the stage to lead a workshop or speak to an audience, the consistent observation is that my smile speaks volumes before I open my mouth. 

Reports indicate my smile puts people at ease, makes them comfortable, and prepare them to welcome what I am present to share.

Does science support that our smiles are simple gifts to feel good and be at ease for others and ourselves? Stevenson reports that practitioners of scientific research and spiritual traditions acknowledge the smile has the power to change people and people in their orbit.

The smile is contagious. It is a viral event. When someone smiles, most people immediately smile in response.

Smiles do not only lift our moods but also the persons receiving our smiles. Our smiles make us more appealing. The simple act of smiling has the power to lengthen our lives. Smile Everybody Smile!

Smiling activates brain chemicals called neuropeptides. They include the feel good neurotransmitters dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin. When we smile, they relax our bodies and lower our blood pressures. Serotonin’s release acts as a mood bosting antidepressant.

The power of the smile benefits the one that smiles and the one or ones noticing or receiving the smile. Smiles are therefore mutually beneficial. We become more attractive when we smile and people treat us with higher levels of courtesy and respect. We position ourselves to experience better health and longer life. Smiling is the most significant thing we can do to make the world a better place when we have no idea what to do or what to say.  

Monday, August 13, 2018

Awakened Love


People awakened to love do not need prompts to show love to people, animals, or nature. Love is like breath to the awakened. They must. It is their moral imperative. The awakened give love and show love with every opportunity. It is what the awakened do. Two types of the awakened to love exist.

Type One

These are born awakened. They become the human angels amongst us. Their love is natural.

This esteemed few are they that are born with sensitive hearts and an insatiable desire to love as many people, animals, and nature’s life forms as possible. They care for stray people, stray animals, and the gifts of nature, flowers, trees, and waters.

These spend their last money to buy food and clothes to clothe and feed other people. They model love for all. Regard for others and their needs consume their thoughts. They focus on how to make the lives of others better.

Type Two

These survive their formative years in the fires of hell. They awaken from the brutal experiences of emotional and physical suffering while children and teens. Acts of violence was their normal experience growing up at home and school. The lingering effects of their traumatic and inhumane experiences produced scars on their bodies and minds.

Having survived significant pain, they worked on accomplishing their own healing sufficient to assert themselves to help others surviving similar experiences to heal and prepare for love. They awakened to embody everything good they did not receive in their childhood and teen development. They commit their lives to loving as many people, animals, and life forms of nature as possible.

Relationships of Types One and Two

Ones attract other ones for relationship though they may feel called to love wounded others to wholeness. When ones join, both center on loving each other for the sake of shared joy. They mutually further empower each other at all times. Beyond their relationship, they focus on ways to provide love and care to others living without things that are necessary for life.

Twos attract other twos for relationship. Because both have survived their physical and emotional wounds, when two join, their first order of business is nurturing each other. They intentionally give to each other in ways that fulfill each other and know emotional security.

Few are ones. Many more are twos. What happens if you do not have a sense of awakening to love? Is it possible to awaken to love?

If no clear awareness exists of being a one or a two, pass no judgment on yourself. Love begins with the desire to love and receive love. Loving life, loving self, loving others, and loving all life and creation serve as prerequisite to receiving love.

We receive all the love we want when we give away all the love we need. Whether you are a one or two, love is your privilege and your choice. When we intentionally love because love is the right thing to do, we attract love.

Four Fabulous Guests

Listen to my latest fabulous four guests on Let's Talk About Love.

August 10, 2018 Click to Listen to 
Carol (FOX C) Culley from London, Host of the Soul Kitchen on 246bajanvibesradio


August 3, 2018 Click to Listen to Melanie Redd from the Minsitry of Hope

July 27, 2018 Click to Listen to Prudence Kalloo Rasing Your Vibrations

July 20, 2018 Click to Listen to Freedom Pearson from Freedom of You

Enrich your living experience when you listen to Carol (FOX C) Culley, top left, Melanie Redd, top right, Prudence Kalloo, bottom left, and Freedom Pearson, bottom right.