The discipline of integral politics requires that we stand aloof from the daily occurrences of first tier assumptions. From an integral perspective, we are always in the midst of a first tier political food fight. In America right now there is plenty of non-stop entertainment everywhere we look.
Domestically, the Congress and the President are engaged in their routine denunciations of one another, with the House Republicans being labeled “crazy,” “lunatic,” “terrorists,” etc. The President admonishes them to “compromise” while refusing to do so himself. The Republicans, meantime, are engaged in a vertiginous civil war, with the establishmentarians led by the former “Straight Talk Express” guy Senator John McCain getting rolled by Tea Party favorites Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz. It’s all part of the pass-the-budget, raise-the-debt-ceiling slam dance that Beltway types do so well.
Then there’s the Middle East, with Syria and Iran both now pretending to be good guys so the Advanced Sector can avert its eyes again from the really nasty things a-brewin’ there. Poor Binyamin Netanyahu is—publicly at least—being ignored so that the niceties will be preserved. Al-Shabab keeps reminding everyone that al-Qaeda did not die with Osama bin Laden. Vladimir Putin, fresh from his Syria intervention, continues his project to recreate the Third Russian Empire, bullying the Ukraine to abandon its strategic Drang nach Westen and remain docilely in the Russian sphere.
Deeper in the background are the signs of serious economic slowdown in India and China, something that worries financial analysts as they read the bird entrails of the latest Federal Reserve meeting minutes regarding its “quantitative easing” policy.
