Last night, I happened on a TVO (TV Ontario) program hosted by Steve Paikin called, “Who are the True Conservatives?” It was surprisingly engrossing and a prime example of why publicly funded TV can be so valuable. What corporate advertiser would pay for such a topic!? Yet how informative and relevant to the Democratic and even universal Human process! The panel was composed of recognized Conservative commentators/ media personae not only from Canada, but from the USA (Canadian-born David Frum, who was advisor to George W. Bush and the Republican establishment) and the UK (Phillip Bond, author of “Red Tory”).

Two things from this TV program struck me quite forcibly: 1) Some Conservatives have now begun distancing themselves from the slavish obedience to the absurd (my description, which I have used for years) Reagan-Thatcher-Milton Friedman-Bush-Cheney doctrine, which boldly states that an unregulated, tax-less Free Market is the solution to all our problems, not only economic but social as well! This boast exceeds the claims of such world teachers as the Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed!!! 2) Some Conservatives are now acknowledging that an unregulated Free Market, which concentrates power in trans-national (mostly corporate) monopolies and oligarchies, actually destroy not “conserve” traditional ways. I applaud this shift in opinion, but I also marvel at how we could have responsibly embraced these policies in the first place!

In a crazy (perhaps Divine) way, the Occupy Wall St movement and this incipient Conservative shift both signal a movement away from ideological extremes towards a crude, but urgent Common Ground. I say “crude”, because if this “common sense “ alliance is to be anything more than a temporary blip, we each need to know how to transcend our individual and collective baggage on an on-going basis…which is essentially a profound, spiritual process, beyond (in my opinion) the specific teachings of individual spiritual /religious traditions. We need to collectively meet not only the present global challenges, but continue meeting them, as specifics change. Thinking in Republican/ Democratic terms does not even approach the Real, Human, Spiritual challenges we face…right here and now.