Nobody Needs to Convince Anybody About January 6

Issue 94

Jun 12, 2022

“I am concerned because a good segment of this country will not see this hearing and they really need to see this hearing.” (RealClearPolitics)

“… a significant portion of the country — and many of the very people who need to hear the facts about what happened on Jan. 6 — will have never heard the primary source evidence presented, making it difficult for Americans to get on the same page about what truly happened that day.” (NPR)

“…a good swath of the country that really needs to see these hearings…that FOX and other conservative sites and news outlets are not going to cover it, is problematic…” (RealClearPolitics)

“The January 6 committee’s biggest task is getting people to care.” (Vox Media)

I wholeheartedly disagree with this sentiment: that there’s barely any point to the work, writ large, of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol — to say nothing of the public hearings it presented last week — because “the people who need to see it, won’t.” This is a trap for conscious politics practitioners like us, so let’s practice avoiding it.

In normal times, yes, of course, it would be swell if the vast majority of Americans could “get on the same page about what truly happened that day.” Sign me up for that. But let’s remind ourselves that these are not normal times. As we speak, a two-thousand-year-old, dying consciousness is giving way to one replete with brand new ways of thinking, brand new ways of viewing the world, and brand new understandings of how things work for humans on this planet. The two are not meant to coexist and they won’t. But for as long as this transition is in play and for as long as we are navigating through it, we encourage the new by refusing to fight with the old. We encourage the new by refusing to make the old anything other than what it is. So if the House Minority Leader and his minions want to say, repeatedly, that the committee is “not conducting a legitimate investigation,” let them…and stop bloviating about it. When “conservative” news outlets decline to air and actively disparage the actual news, let them…and stop bloviating about it. Is it a disgrace that broad swaths of Americans are disinterested in how a violent insurrection and an attempted coup came to be before, during, and after January 6, 2021? If you ask me, yes! But it’s a disgrace that exists in the context of the transition from old to new consciousness which renders it, I don’t know, par for the course?

The Select Committee is made up of elected representatives whose job it is to investigate facts, also known as truths, and present them to we the people. The U.S. Department of Justice investigates crimes and prosecutes them if and when they’re found, also known as accountability. Denying facts/truth/reality is antithetical to the conscious practice of being present, which is largely about accepting things as they are and going from there. Avoiding accountability is antithetical to the conscious practice of taking responsibility. Denying reality and abdicating responsibility have been well-tolerated in the old consciousness but they are non-starters in the new. Any attempt, then, to convince those who practice the old consciousness that they should practice the new is the trap of which I speak — and a wholly unwise investment of our precious time and energy.

In this example, the energy of denial absolutely doesn’t get us where we’re going so we pay it no mind. The energy of abdicating responsibility absolutely doesn’t get us where we’re going so we pay it no mind.

So what do we do? Pretty much the opposite of what everybody’s doing. We talk and talk and talk in terms of intention, intention, intention. We couch everything in the context of what we want, what our hopes and visions are, the kind of society in which we want to live. The law of attraction is always on, after all. And OK, I’ll go first. I want to live in a self-governing society that, at long last, actually and truly works for everyone in it as defined by…everyone in it. An equitable society that is, itself, infused with compassion such that we visit and welcome one another in all of our cities and towns and feel safe and secure when we do. A society that sees taking care of the planet as its duty. A society that has a reverence for its unique system of government as a nation of laws in which all of us are equal. Rough sketch. First draft.

What we do is share our rough sketches and first drafts with each other until there is a generally accepted, collective desire, a direction in which we are collectively headed. It’s not that complicated. Talking heads on Sunday morning politics shows (and all the others) then refer to this context again and again. Something of a hymnal emerges from which most of us are singing most of the time. With the drumbeat of our intention(s), with incessant talk about what most of us are actually wanting supplanting drumbeats of what old-consciousness people are doing and saying, we invest our precious time and energy sifting and sorting through what shows up. We keep all the energy that supports our getting where we’re going and we let go of all the energy that doesn’t. In this example, the energy of denial absolutely doesn’t get us where we’re going so we pay it no mind. The energy of abdicating responsibility absolutely doesn’t get us where we’re going so we pay it no mind. We may effort to encourage any and all interested parties to gain an appreciation for being present, for accepting reality as it is, for taking responsibility, etc. But “interested parties” are the keywords. Those who are not interested are not interested. They’re not going to be and they don’t have to be.

Eventually, when well-intended people speaking about things like these hearings say things like, “I doubt it drew in the people that really needed the information,” well, maybe they won’t say things like that anymore.

The Conscious Politics Sunday Newsletter

Nobody Needs to Convince Anybody About January 6

Issue 94

In this example, the energy of denial absolutely doesn’t get us where we’re going so we pay it no mind. The energy of abdicating responsibility absolutely doesn’t get us where we’re going so we pay it no mind.