I intend to keep on addressing comments, a surprising and appreciated number, to my last blog that came out of built up anguish and frustration within me. I appreciate the communications within so many of the comments.
I found Kosh's second comment to me in particular interesting, challenging and educational and noteworthy for me and others. I just poured out a comment to him as honestly as I could.
Kosh, thanks for coming back and expanding on your response to this blog. And for proving your value to this website in facilitating rational and enlightening discourse. :-)
----------
You write:
"To answer your question, I don't view pragmatism as a communications style, though one of the reasons I adopt my communications style is pragmatic, which is to say it works for me.
"It gets me respected, it gets me taken seriously, it means I don't get dismissed out of hand by too many people, and all of these get me the ability to get what I think is important listened to.
"Not necessarily agreed with, but listened to, and that's the first step, because without that step, arguments turn into pissing contests, and the trouble with pissing contests is that one has nearly zero opportunity to persuade the opposition of anything, at which point the arguing turns into mere posturing, which is unproductive."
end of quote
Yes, kosh. I seriously hear you on this and appreciate what you are saying. And what you do and try to do at open salon. Keeping the exchanges going.
And there are styles of communication here based on goals and based on temperaments of each one of us. And payoffs and losses with chosen styles and subjects for communication.
Also, I ask but I don’t think you could get it being a guy, how far being a quiet voiced female on this website discussing her very strong political view would have gotten me in terms of being listened to. But setting that dimension aside, ...
Sometimes -- often -- there is the seduction of "cronyism" and the gravity [literal meaning of gravity] of “group-think” in such a role as you describe for yourself, too. Especially in a day and age of ours where "personality over principle" is such a factor in sensibility thanks to a media that brands and highlights and manipulates the power of "personality" and does not celebrate the attributes of character and the overall realistic conditions of all Americans and that extends rationalizations of "lesser evilism" and frames way too much in that light.
In such a world where such colossal levels of evil are corrupting our welfares as citizens. We are not talking pockets of corruption any more in upper government, the military, the courts, the media. We are talking the whole enchilada. Kucinich did his own over-compromising at times, but with him gone and men [and women] like Russ Feingold, whom are we left with? I just saw Frank and Dodd on Charlie Rose taking bows for Dodd-Frank bill the toothless excuse for regulation. I don't see that as a step in the right direction. I see that as ONE MORE CON!
We obviously have different degrees of trust in our governance, kosh.
I wish I felt that there was a Democratic path to recovery. But the Democratic Party with Obama jumped the shark in terms of trustworthiness. They are corporate captured. Bipartisanship is a con from Obama's lips. This is how I see it and how I feel compelled to describe it.
You write:
"My pragmatism is not the same as the President's pragmatism. I view a failure to advocate as phony pragmatism, and I see some of that in him, particularly when it comes to the inequality of resource distribution, which may be what outrages me most because of how extreme it has become.
“A lot of what I've written about economics is coming up with ways of illustrating just how extreme, or how counterproductive, which helps illustrate why extreme is a bad thing. But this doesn't answer your question. For me, pragmatism is about answering this question:
"Now that I know what I want, what's the best way to get the most actually done?
"It's about moving the needle in the right direction and minimizing its movement in the wrong direction. It is less about the What than about the How.
"What do we want? Peace!
"When do we want it? Now!
That's great, and I'm old enough to have chanted that (barely), but the real question, which I'm afraid doesn't chant so easily, is
How do we get it?"
end of your quote
You want the path you write.
I want people on the same page of AWARENESS and then together we can find the path. A tremendous awareness of a sensibility of morality and our outrage of the awareness of what disgraceful and colossally amoral things have been done will build a collective power. A force. A MOVEMENT as there have been MOVEMENTS before. I was sorry Obama was too young to be around for the Vietnam War protests. He did not experience the HOPE AND COMMITMENT from those committed to the fight then. I also say here that those of us in that generation DROPPED THE BALL SERIOUSLY COLLECTIVELY.
I keep blogging about the details of the evil that are happening that the mainstream media WON’T DISCLOSE OR WON’T EMPHASIZE so thus distort. Our enabling Al Qaeda???? All the sweetheart deals our craven politicians make with the oligarchs. Our major banks with their win/win deals with DRUG CARTELS????? WTF????
I learned in the 12 step rooms the 3 As. AWARENESS to ACCEPTANCE to ACTION.
I know some of my writings -- THE TONE OF THEM -- are off-putting (it is hard for me to discuss Gitmo without being full out angry and I know that doesn’t get me hits or ratings) and I will continue to grow and learn by blogging. I have lost my potential to communicate with some perhaps and that is too bad and I know I am a humble human being finding herself and her voice always in this adventure of life. I come from a unique background that influences my sensibility of my world and my fellow humans. We all do.
You write:
"I write a whole lot about how wildly inequitable distribution is bad for business. This isn't because I care more about business than I do about who is being exploited and how; actually, I don't (though I do care about the collapse of our economy because of how many millions will be hurt). I write about it because I see that as the most promising sales pitch to a portion of the population that currently supports policies that encourage unequal distribution, and I want them on our side of the question, because there are a lot of them and they have influence and money.
"If a lot of business people develop impatience with how little the President is advocating redistribution that moves downward instead of upward, he is more likely to respond in a useful manner than he is now."
"As angry as we are, as awful as things are, we still have to win the chess game."
"It gets me respected, it gets me taken seriously, it means I don't get dismissed out of hand by too many people, and all of these get me the ability to get what I think is important listened to.
"Not necessarily agreed with, but listened to, and that's the first step, because without that step, arguments turn into pissing contests, and the trouble with pissing contests is that one has nearly zero opportunity to persuade the opposition of anything, at which point the arguing turns into mere posturing, which is unproductive."
end of quote
Yes, kosh. I seriously hear you on this and appreciate what you are saying. And what you do and try to do at open salon. Keeping the exchanges going.
And there are styles of communication here based on goals and based on temperaments of each one of us. And payoffs and losses with chosen styles and subjects for communication.
Also, I ask but I don’t think you could get it being a guy, how far being a quiet voiced female on this website discussing her very strong political view would have gotten me in terms of being listened to. But setting that dimension aside, ...
Sometimes -- often -- there is the seduction of "cronyism" and the gravity [literal meaning of gravity] of “group-think” in such a role as you describe for yourself, too. Especially in a day and age of ours where "personality over principle" is such a factor in sensibility thanks to a media that brands and highlights and manipulates the power of "personality" and does not celebrate the attributes of character and the overall realistic conditions of all Americans and that extends rationalizations of "lesser evilism" and frames way too much in that light.
In such a world where such colossal levels of evil are corrupting our welfares as citizens. We are not talking pockets of corruption any more in upper government, the military, the courts, the media. We are talking the whole enchilada. Kucinich did his own over-compromising at times, but with him gone and men [and women] like Russ Feingold, whom are we left with? I just saw Frank and Dodd on Charlie Rose taking bows for Dodd-Frank bill the toothless excuse for regulation. I don't see that as a step in the right direction. I see that as ONE MORE CON!
We obviously have different degrees of trust in our governance, kosh.
I wish I felt that there was a Democratic path to recovery. But the Democratic Party with Obama jumped the shark in terms of trustworthiness. They are corporate captured. Bipartisanship is a con from Obama's lips. This is how I see it and how I feel compelled to describe it.
You write:
"My pragmatism is not the same as the President's pragmatism. I view a failure to advocate as phony pragmatism, and I see some of that in him, particularly when it comes to the inequality of resource distribution, which may be what outrages me most because of how extreme it has become.
“A lot of what I've written about economics is coming up with ways of illustrating just how extreme, or how counterproductive, which helps illustrate why extreme is a bad thing. But this doesn't answer your question. For me, pragmatism is about answering this question:
"Now that I know what I want, what's the best way to get the most actually done?
"It's about moving the needle in the right direction and minimizing its movement in the wrong direction. It is less about the What than about the How.
"What do we want? Peace!
"When do we want it? Now!
That's great, and I'm old enough to have chanted that (barely), but the real question, which I'm afraid doesn't chant so easily, is
How do we get it?"
end of your quote
You want the path you write.
I want people on the same page of AWARENESS and then together we can find the path. A tremendous awareness of a sensibility of morality and our outrage of the awareness of what disgraceful and colossally amoral things have been done will build a collective power. A force. A MOVEMENT as there have been MOVEMENTS before. I was sorry Obama was too young to be around for the Vietnam War protests. He did not experience the HOPE AND COMMITMENT from those committed to the fight then. I also say here that those of us in that generation DROPPED THE BALL SERIOUSLY COLLECTIVELY.
I keep blogging about the details of the evil that are happening that the mainstream media WON’T DISCLOSE OR WON’T EMPHASIZE so thus distort. Our enabling Al Qaeda???? All the sweetheart deals our craven politicians make with the oligarchs. Our major banks with their win/win deals with DRUG CARTELS????? WTF????
I learned in the 12 step rooms the 3 As. AWARENESS to ACCEPTANCE to ACTION.
I know some of my writings -- THE TONE OF THEM -- are off-putting (it is hard for me to discuss Gitmo without being full out angry and I know that doesn’t get me hits or ratings) and I will continue to grow and learn by blogging. I have lost my potential to communicate with some perhaps and that is too bad and I know I am a humble human being finding herself and her voice always in this adventure of life. I come from a unique background that influences my sensibility of my world and my fellow humans. We all do.
You write:
"I write a whole lot about how wildly inequitable distribution is bad for business. This isn't because I care more about business than I do about who is being exploited and how; actually, I don't (though I do care about the collapse of our economy because of how many millions will be hurt). I write about it because I see that as the most promising sales pitch to a portion of the population that currently supports policies that encourage unequal distribution, and I want them on our side of the question, because there are a lot of them and they have influence and money.
"If a lot of business people develop impatience with how little the President is advocating redistribution that moves downward instead of upward, he is more likely to respond in a useful manner than he is now."
"As angry as we are, as awful as things are, we still have to win the chess game."
end of your quote
I appreciate what you have said and it may simply come down to different audiences for us, too. I am born of the working class and being female have never been in the boys' privileged elite club despite having a college education I was so very lucky to acquire.
I hope you respect me more than assuming I write my blogs so frequently and rigorously to share what I am learning and not just for catharsis. Sometimes there is that, or at least something for me to actually do to try to fight the quicksand I feel all of us citizens are entrapped in. Sometimes I feel like Cher in the movie Moonstruck who slaps Nicholas Cage across the face and yells, SNAP OUT OF IT!!!
I feel the lost to cronyism capitalists are willing to rearrange deck chairs on our Titanic and then self-congratulate or let a whoring media do it for them. I think most if not all of them are incapable of truly empathizing with ordinary working people. I think there is a tragic and colossal collective exceptionalism of those in the gated community of privilege and here I am not just talking about the 1%. Like those in the south who did not own slaves but happily socialized with the plantation owners -- guilt free.
FDR and Eleanor were exceptional in being in power and "getting it", what was happening to ordinary Americans. How rare they were and how powerful they were, though many of their pro-working people justice-enabling contributions are being and have been undone by the Clinton and Bush and Obama elites and opportunistic and patriarchal crowd (along with Reagan and others before them).
We are not talking now about empathy for foreign peoples even. The murders, mass murders, going on with foreign peoples. We are talking about the slower economic murder and terrorism via withdrawing health care and living wage jobs for regular Americans and in your face corporate criminality Obama smiles at and enables.
You talk about "losing it"? Do you think I am "losing it", kosh?
I think a lot of people are "losing it" and by it I mean a sensibility of morality. And if they had it they would be joining me in my OUTRAGE!
You talk about a chess game? I talk about the gamesmanship of politics that is so rigged and creepy and that the media gets so very hyped about which doesn't touch our welfares, save to worsen them.
There is advice to women [I should have said people -- my own gender slip] in alanon -- it tells them to leave their enabling circle of futility game. It says it is not about winning a LOSING game, it is about stopping playing the game with the addict.
The greed addicts, the war addicts, the power and control and fame and money addicts. The amoral.
And their sycophants. Their enablers. The parasites that live off the parasites of our former democracy.
I am tired of them all playing games that put my welfare and the welfares of the family of men and women and children, globally, on the table.
I appreciate this exchange, kosh. thank you.
best, libby
I hope you respect me more than assuming I write my blogs so frequently and rigorously to share what I am learning and not just for catharsis. Sometimes there is that, or at least something for me to actually do to try to fight the quicksand I feel all of us citizens are entrapped in. Sometimes I feel like Cher in the movie Moonstruck who slaps Nicholas Cage across the face and yells, SNAP OUT OF IT!!!
I feel the lost to cronyism capitalists are willing to rearrange deck chairs on our Titanic and then self-congratulate or let a whoring media do it for them. I think most if not all of them are incapable of truly empathizing with ordinary working people. I think there is a tragic and colossal collective exceptionalism of those in the gated community of privilege and here I am not just talking about the 1%. Like those in the south who did not own slaves but happily socialized with the plantation owners -- guilt free.
FDR and Eleanor were exceptional in being in power and "getting it", what was happening to ordinary Americans. How rare they were and how powerful they were, though many of their pro-working people justice-enabling contributions are being and have been undone by the Clinton and Bush and Obama elites and opportunistic and patriarchal crowd (along with Reagan and others before them).
We are not talking now about empathy for foreign peoples even. The murders, mass murders, going on with foreign peoples. We are talking about the slower economic murder and terrorism via withdrawing health care and living wage jobs for regular Americans and in your face corporate criminality Obama smiles at and enables.
You talk about "losing it"? Do you think I am "losing it", kosh?
I think a lot of people are "losing it" and by it I mean a sensibility of morality. And if they had it they would be joining me in my OUTRAGE!
You talk about a chess game? I talk about the gamesmanship of politics that is so rigged and creepy and that the media gets so very hyped about which doesn't touch our welfares, save to worsen them.
There is advice to women [I should have said people -- my own gender slip] in alanon -- it tells them to leave their enabling circle of futility game. It says it is not about winning a LOSING game, it is about stopping playing the game with the addict.
The greed addicts, the war addicts, the power and control and fame and money addicts. The amoral.
And their sycophants. Their enablers. The parasites that live off the parasites of our former democracy.
I am tired of them all playing games that put my welfare and the welfares of the family of men and women and children, globally, on the table.
I appreciate this exchange, kosh. thank you.
best, libby
-------------
Personally I find passion attractive, probably the most attractive trait, in woman or man.
Last time it happened in politics Downunder was when Gough Whitlam broke the 26-year Conservative ( ironically, we call them Liberals ) rule during the Vietnam War, in '72.
He lasted less than 3 years but in that time abolished Conscription, established Medicare, Legal Aid, Tertiary Education Scholarships, ended capital punishment and recognised China.
He was thrown out of office with the complicit help of Nixon and Murdoch. His ( Labor ) Party's slogan : MAINTAIN THE RAGE.
Maintain the rage, Libby.
I like Kosh. I said on the last post, I admire his equanimity. Diplomacy, even. Not so much the company he keeps. American Politics, I stay out of.
Last time it happened in politics Downunder was when Gough Whitlam broke the 26-year Conservative ( ironically, we call them Liberals ) rule during the Vietnam War, in '72.
He lasted less than 3 years but in that time abolished Conscription, established Medicare, Legal Aid, Tertiary Education Scholarships, ended capital punishment and recognised China.
He was thrown out of office with the complicit help of Nixon and Murdoch. His ( Labor ) Party's slogan : MAINTAIN THE RAGE.
Maintain the rage, Libby.
I like Kosh. I said on the last post, I admire his equanimity. Diplomacy, even. Not so much the company he keeps. American Politics, I stay out of.
R & R
.
.
Oops, I didn't realize we'd moved. I answered this comment on the other post. I'll duplicate it here to keep the thread going. I missed a thing or two in my reply, the first of which is: I'm missing the "losing it" reference. I assume I'm missing something, but in what context did I say that? Telling you that you were losing it was absolutely not what I had in mind. The Moonstruck reference was very good.
Anyway, here's what I replied:
Libby,
I really appreciate the exchange.
Let me be a little more clear about the chess game. It's not that I want to play, it's that the chess game is the opportunity there is to beat the people who are doing this to us. We don't currently have the ability to upend the board.
I should take an aside and cover some of the personal stuff, such as gender, class, background, etc., just so you understand where I come from so I can return the favor of your giving me your background. The voice I would characterize as most shrill on OS does not belong to a female. I do not base who I respect on gender. At All. On the flip side: the voice on OS most capable of getting me to question myself rather than simply assuming I'm right does not belong to a male. I did not grow up with college educated parents (my mother went to college when I was a kid, my father didn't at all). I don't belong to an old boy network and never have. I don't base what I say on OS on what the people I like or often agree with say; I base what I say on what I observe and what I believe. I've taken plenty of heat from both sides of the spectrum. Put another way, my political opinions do not have a social component. Some are shared, but that is coincidental, not motivating. I call it as I see it. I'm just putting the personal stuff out there so you understand who you're dealing with, given that you might believe we have some differences that we actually don't. This is a tangent out of courtesy.
It's not that I have a great deal more faith in what Democrats will do than you do, though I have more faith in what some of them would rather be doing. Their choices are shrinking like ours are. The role of money in politics has expanded by so much that political flexibility is rapidly disappearing. Chase money or leave office. Chasing money means you both have to take the time away from your job to chase money and you end up becoming more beholden to money. Thank you, Citizens United.
So, we need mechanisms to gain control of a political system that is clearly failing. Where do we find them? How do we do it?
We need people. We need allies. We need them to understand what needs to be done and why. We need them to be listening when we talk so that we actually have the opportunity to convey those messages.
What I see in you is a tremendous amount of frustration. You see all this awful stuff happening and ask Why The Hell Isn't It Obvious To Everyone What These People Are Doing To Us????
So, if it isn't obvious to everyone, what do we do about it?
We inform. We illustrate. Most of all, we teach. We worry less about, as I said earlier, expressing outrage than about eliciting outrage. It's not even about presenting the data; it's more about framing it.
When someone says: Income is too polarized, and here are the numbers!, people might see it, but that doesn't mean they get it. A million, a billion, a trillion, they're all big numbers, what's the difference? When, as I saw on a petition the other day, someone says: the poorest 42% of America's families don't have as much money combined as the Walton family does, that says "OK, I knew things had gotten bad, but I didn't know they'd gotten That bad." If enough people read something like that, believe it, and understand it, they begin to realize something has to happen, that we aren't being unreasonable, but that reality is being unreasonable and it's time to acknowledge that and fix it, as in: We are protecting the wealth of families who own more money than 2/5 of America's population rather than trying to protect the money of that 2/5 of America's population??? What, does the pledge say "and to the billionaires for whom it stands?" It also helps to explain how and why, because if we do that, it's not our word against someone else's, it's This is how the process actually works, and so when they see opposing opinions, those we teach ask the same questions we would.
But the thing about teaching is that in order to do that effectively, we can't treat questions as stupid. As a pragmatist, I'll answer anything thrown at me if I can, no matter how off the wall. I once talked to someone, someone incidentally who is quite articulate, about why his racism couldn't be based on science. I eventually posted about it in case other people thought the same way. Our first impulse is to dismiss this person as a racist, but what that accomplishes is making him think "These liberals are afraid of tackling the tough questions, preferring to dismiss them as immoral rather than actually facing them." I understand that some of the people I need to reach to build numbers are going to assume a whole lot of things that I don't, and I need to reach them on their terms. Even if I can't get them to agree with me, I can get them to stop demonizing me, and that, in the current political climate, is half the battle. There are a lot of conservatives here on OS who disagree with me but very few think I'm an idiot, and just as few think I'm unreasonable.
So, how do we get change? Do we go after the people in office and say: This is what you need to support and this is what you need to oppose for the good of the country? Do we go after various constituencies and say: What the opposition wants is worse for you and here is why? Do we say: We have to get these people out of office because nothing else will help?
We have a sales job to do, of some sort. One thing I can tell you about sales is that whatever you're selling has to fix something your customer thinks is wrong. Not that you think is wrong, that your customer thinks is wrong. Not even what your customer Should think is wrong, what your customer Does think is wrong.
You might hate sales. You might think that sales Shouldn't be necessary. You might think that how awful everything is is intrinsically obvious, and that everyone who doesn't see it is stupid. Do you know what that means? It means you have to be prepared to sell to stupid people.
Sometimes I'm the stupid person. Start with me. Address my stupid questions. I argue pretty strangely: I will very often tell you exactly what you need to accomplish to win me over. That's not a trap, because I do not assume you can't. Frankly, I'll learn more if you do.
Maybe selling isn't fun. Maybe playing chess isn't fun. However, in order to save our country, our world, whatever you want to save, we need political power, and that means converting people.
koshersalaami
June 02, 2013 12:01 AM
Anyway, here's what I replied:
Libby,
I really appreciate the exchange.
Let me be a little more clear about the chess game. It's not that I want to play, it's that the chess game is the opportunity there is to beat the people who are doing this to us. We don't currently have the ability to upend the board.
I should take an aside and cover some of the personal stuff, such as gender, class, background, etc., just so you understand where I come from so I can return the favor of your giving me your background. The voice I would characterize as most shrill on OS does not belong to a female. I do not base who I respect on gender. At All. On the flip side: the voice on OS most capable of getting me to question myself rather than simply assuming I'm right does not belong to a male. I did not grow up with college educated parents (my mother went to college when I was a kid, my father didn't at all). I don't belong to an old boy network and never have. I don't base what I say on OS on what the people I like or often agree with say; I base what I say on what I observe and what I believe. I've taken plenty of heat from both sides of the spectrum. Put another way, my political opinions do not have a social component. Some are shared, but that is coincidental, not motivating. I call it as I see it. I'm just putting the personal stuff out there so you understand who you're dealing with, given that you might believe we have some differences that we actually don't. This is a tangent out of courtesy.
It's not that I have a great deal more faith in what Democrats will do than you do, though I have more faith in what some of them would rather be doing. Their choices are shrinking like ours are. The role of money in politics has expanded by so much that political flexibility is rapidly disappearing. Chase money or leave office. Chasing money means you both have to take the time away from your job to chase money and you end up becoming more beholden to money. Thank you, Citizens United.
So, we need mechanisms to gain control of a political system that is clearly failing. Where do we find them? How do we do it?
We need people. We need allies. We need them to understand what needs to be done and why. We need them to be listening when we talk so that we actually have the opportunity to convey those messages.
What I see in you is a tremendous amount of frustration. You see all this awful stuff happening and ask Why The Hell Isn't It Obvious To Everyone What These People Are Doing To Us????
So, if it isn't obvious to everyone, what do we do about it?
We inform. We illustrate. Most of all, we teach. We worry less about, as I said earlier, expressing outrage than about eliciting outrage. It's not even about presenting the data; it's more about framing it.
When someone says: Income is too polarized, and here are the numbers!, people might see it, but that doesn't mean they get it. A million, a billion, a trillion, they're all big numbers, what's the difference? When, as I saw on a petition the other day, someone says: the poorest 42% of America's families don't have as much money combined as the Walton family does, that says "OK, I knew things had gotten bad, but I didn't know they'd gotten That bad." If enough people read something like that, believe it, and understand it, they begin to realize something has to happen, that we aren't being unreasonable, but that reality is being unreasonable and it's time to acknowledge that and fix it, as in: We are protecting the wealth of families who own more money than 2/5 of America's population rather than trying to protect the money of that 2/5 of America's population??? What, does the pledge say "and to the billionaires for whom it stands?" It also helps to explain how and why, because if we do that, it's not our word against someone else's, it's This is how the process actually works, and so when they see opposing opinions, those we teach ask the same questions we would.
But the thing about teaching is that in order to do that effectively, we can't treat questions as stupid. As a pragmatist, I'll answer anything thrown at me if I can, no matter how off the wall. I once talked to someone, someone incidentally who is quite articulate, about why his racism couldn't be based on science. I eventually posted about it in case other people thought the same way. Our first impulse is to dismiss this person as a racist, but what that accomplishes is making him think "These liberals are afraid of tackling the tough questions, preferring to dismiss them as immoral rather than actually facing them." I understand that some of the people I need to reach to build numbers are going to assume a whole lot of things that I don't, and I need to reach them on their terms. Even if I can't get them to agree with me, I can get them to stop demonizing me, and that, in the current political climate, is half the battle. There are a lot of conservatives here on OS who disagree with me but very few think I'm an idiot, and just as few think I'm unreasonable.
So, how do we get change? Do we go after the people in office and say: This is what you need to support and this is what you need to oppose for the good of the country? Do we go after various constituencies and say: What the opposition wants is worse for you and here is why? Do we say: We have to get these people out of office because nothing else will help?
We have a sales job to do, of some sort. One thing I can tell you about sales is that whatever you're selling has to fix something your customer thinks is wrong. Not that you think is wrong, that your customer thinks is wrong. Not even what your customer Should think is wrong, what your customer Does think is wrong.
You might hate sales. You might think that sales Shouldn't be necessary. You might think that how awful everything is is intrinsically obvious, and that everyone who doesn't see it is stupid. Do you know what that means? It means you have to be prepared to sell to stupid people.
Sometimes I'm the stupid person. Start with me. Address my stupid questions. I argue pretty strangely: I will very often tell you exactly what you need to accomplish to win me over. That's not a trap, because I do not assume you can't. Frankly, I'll learn more if you do.
Maybe selling isn't fun. Maybe playing chess isn't fun. However, in order to save our country, our world, whatever you want to save, we need political power, and that means converting people.
koshersalaami
June 02, 2013 12:01 AM
Sorry, missed something else: I agree that Obama's being too young to have experienced Vietnam is a negative.
Libby, the split between you and Koshersalaami is something much more fundamental that mere emotional appeals. Koshersalaami and other people on the left at his end of things still concern themselves with "playing chess" with the pieces left to move and there remains in that group a strange kind of perpetual hope that Obama is a guy fighting unconquerable odds but whohas the best motives at heart. Obama has demonstrated openly in many way he is a scam agent, a traitor to many of his promises and not worthy of this kind of undying faith. Inherently he is no different from Apisa who trusts in some kind of permanent structure in government that will save us all and which as been obviously blasted out of existence from Reagan's time onward and that game is over. Koshersalaami keeps believing that we cannot overturn the chessboard while the board is on the floor and the pieces scattered. Something a hell of a lot more powerful than standard politics is required and I do not know what it might be but when it comes all hell will break loose and the longer the dumb bastards in power try to suppress it the worse it will be. Your strong feelings are merely the indication that this cannot go on as it is now and almost every word out of Obama's mouth is insulted by his actions.
What Jan said is essentially what my comment would have been, although
I would have included manly dick in the comment.
One can make a fair assessment of a person by those they consider their friends. kosh is quite open about the fact that aside from wolfman, his best friends are fRANK and manly dick.
-R-
I would have included manly dick in the comment.
One can make a fair assessment of a person by those they consider their friends. kosh is quite open about the fact that aside from wolfman, his best friends are fRANK and manly dick.
-R-
I just want to say how much I admire your passion and conviction. I cannot share your passion because I know too much, and I knew it for too long and what Jan Sand said is the closest to reality. Always good to see you, Libby. R
The mental acuity necessary is to realize that the battle between the financial elite and the rest of the world is not a matter anymore of shifting a few key pieces to make everything OK again. The corporate and financial overlords have their gloves off and are openly bashing the rest of the world to make war against each other and to become wage slaves at incomes down to the lowestpossible survival levels. The economic bullshit about balancing the budget on the lowest incomes and permitting the superpowerful to vandalize the world to fill their pockets is quite clear. They have swept away most of the gains made to decent government out of the FDR era and it is clear that Europe is in the same struggle to lower Western wage levels to that of the lowest levels found in Asia so that the corporations can compete and gain maximum profits. That they are destroying the power of their markets is strangely ignored and their stupidity in destroying both economics and the livability of the planet is monstrous. Obama is right in there chopping democracy into bits and if bashing is the right agenda for the super rich, it is only fitting that bashing be taken up by those oppressed.
`
I just stopped bye to say Hi. I reading.
If Jan Sand and Libby go bowling, huh?
Try to NO DROP BALL on your pinky.
Juggle duckpins, chainsaw, and apples.
Kick drones out of matriarchal apiary.
I just stopped bye to say Hi. I reading.
If Jan Sand and Libby go bowling, huh?
Try to NO DROP BALL on your pinky.
Juggle duckpins, chainsaw, and apples.
Kick drones out of matriarchal apiary.
@ Seer
Look around you! You want to stand there and be bashed and not fight back? Because the bashing is going on right now and if you don't bash back you sure as hell won't be left standing. The powerful are right now destroying schools, jobs, homes, higher education, infrastructure, and whatever is left of the average citizen's rights and finances plus whatever chunks of the ecology they can grind up into gold for their pockets. If you want to drop your pants and get raped consider it a personal decision. The world is being mugged and you want to extend reason to the thugs? Doesn't seem very bright to me.
Look around you! You want to stand there and be bashed and not fight back? Because the bashing is going on right now and if you don't bash back you sure as hell won't be left standing. The powerful are right now destroying schools, jobs, homes, higher education, infrastructure, and whatever is left of the average citizen's rights and finances plus whatever chunks of the ecology they can grind up into gold for their pockets. If you want to drop your pants and get raped consider it a personal decision. The world is being mugged and you want to extend reason to the thugs? Doesn't seem very bright to me.
Someone need to explain the "fighting back", what is should be, in detail.
Perhaps it's mass-immigration of progressives toward Green party candidacies? If so, what would the mechanism(s) be?
Perhaps it's mass immigration to Scandanavia? If so, open up the cots, Jan and show us where to sign to get on the dole until we get a job or where to sign if we're already retired and need the dole now.
Perhaps it's name-calling from Japan and seeing all the world's evil in some Apsia fella.
So far, only Libby is anywhere close to articulating a political mechanism (and she has the guts to be here so it's taken seriously, ger Green party bona-fides).
It's simple to dismiss the more mainstream such as Kosh and me. Trust me, tho, when I say it's far far simpler to dismiss verbal grenade lobbers who have no intention ever to live here again.
(And before anyone suggests I support th thinking Mr. Apsia does, I don't, and I find his politics unappealing.)
Perhaps it's mass-immigration of progressives toward Green party candidacies? If so, what would the mechanism(s) be?
Perhaps it's mass immigration to Scandanavia? If so, open up the cots, Jan and show us where to sign to get on the dole until we get a job or where to sign if we're already retired and need the dole now.
Perhaps it's name-calling from Japan and seeing all the world's evil in some Apsia fella.
So far, only Libby is anywhere close to articulating a political mechanism (and she has the guts to be here so it's taken seriously, ger Green party bona-fides).
It's simple to dismiss the more mainstream such as Kosh and me. Trust me, tho, when I say it's far far simpler to dismiss verbal grenade lobbers who have no intention ever to live here again.
(And before anyone suggests I support th thinking Mr. Apsia does, I don't, and I find his politics unappealing.)
r.
I find, btw, passion attractive too, in men and in women. It's why my new book's got that work in its title: passion and rationality are in equal parts required for any change that lasts.
It is a standard ploy to try to counter realistic analysis by saying it comes from an unworthy source and not face the reality of the situation. That is sophistry of the highest order and nicely classifies the mentality of the thinker. I have laid out the problem rather clearly as I see it and it really matters not if I have just emerged from a hatch in a flying saucer or if I was a born New Yorker concerned for my fellow citizens. My point is simply if you don't exercise power too confront evil power it will smash you. I lived through the depression in the 1930´s and what energized FDR to act was the real threat of revolution for the blatant stupidities of the same people who are smashing the USA today.
I don't know if revolution is necessary but some effective power surely is and and it has yet to emerge and if it doesn't emerge and soon, the slide into terrible misery will be much worse than if it doesn't. And that would be a good observation from anybody with a clear vision, where ever he or she originates.
I don't know if revolution is necessary but some effective power surely is and and it has yet to emerge and if it doesn't emerge and soon, the slide into terrible misery will be much worse than if it doesn't. And that would be a good observation from anybody with a clear vision, where ever he or she originates.
But wasn't your 500 word comments the real post in your morality post. The trouble is more than half the people in the US do not believe your path to morality and do not believe that Obama is the cause and the US is not going to collapse ( make that 75%). You are expressing your political viewpoint and that of the GreenTeaRepublican rhetoric and obstructionist form of governing. They are doing nothing but trying to unseat Obama, they are not legislating for the whole of the people. They are the ones choking the US economy now, making it hard for people to get jobs and business to perform successfully. If anything more Americans dislike your brand of morality and politics and have shown it, your leaders are dropping like flies.
What will your posts be like if the tables were turned and a Republican/Tea party controlled the power and WEALTH over all the people. Why do you spend 3/4 of a day staring at Open Salon almost everyday that seems quite odd. Maybe passionate.
What will your posts be like if the tables were turned and a Republican/Tea party controlled the power and WEALTH over all the people. Why do you spend 3/4 of a day staring at Open Salon almost everyday that seems quite odd. Maybe passionate.
o/e
I merely pointed out causes and consequences. If a majority refuses to accept that then it is a tragedy, not something to crow about.
I merely pointed out causes and consequences. If a majority refuses to accept that then it is a tragedy, not something to crow about.
Kim, appreciate your remarks as always.
Passion is important. Spirit. The spiritual. I think the US has become an anti-spiritual anti-feeling society. We are in a spiritual DARK age. During the Bush years we were at the mercy of Bush but there was SPIRIT among the citizens. Obama Trojan Horse-ness has managed to divide up the left so effectively and efficiently. The longer this schism lasts, the harder it will be to unite again.
The hypocrisy and mendacity of our governance and the media have a tremendous responsibility for this. And yes, the corruption slippery slope was happening before Obama. The Democrats were corporate captured and were willing to let Repubs play bad cop as together they enabled horrifying levels of corporate criminality as well as military criminality. As I see it, Nader was right about the craven-ness of the Democratic Party back in 2000. it took us a while to catch up with the SCOPE of that reality. The depth of the Dems' stabbing in the back of those it was supposed to be representing is appalling and shameless.
I think of Charles Ferguson's comment who directed the wonderful expose "Inside Job", about how the toxic and cynical and mendacious (my words) rule of Obama has destroyed American idealism for a least another two generations.
The night of Obama's election in 2008 there was an awesome potential to activate us as a united citizenry, at least a united left. We needed an executive branch head who was willing to begin to drain the swamp. Obama has done nothing but deepen and thicken it. We were a country in desperate need of a moral leader to rescue and repair our democracy from the horrifying years of Bush. And we got a Trojan Horse for corporatists. A front man. Obama has normalized High Crimes and Misdemeanors! War and corporate criminality.
Kim, how great to hear about Gough Whitlam and his slogan, "maintain the rage". Look at what he did!!! You write:
"He lasted less than 3 years but in that time abolished Conscription, established Medicare, Legal Aid, Tertiary Education Scholarships, ended capital punishment and recognised China.
"He was thrown out of office with the complicit help of Nixon and Murdoch. His ( Labor ) Party's slogan : MAINTAIN THE RAGE."
end of your quote
Thanks, Kim. Appreciate your spirit!
best, libby
Passion is important. Spirit. The spiritual. I think the US has become an anti-spiritual anti-feeling society. We are in a spiritual DARK age. During the Bush years we were at the mercy of Bush but there was SPIRIT among the citizens. Obama Trojan Horse-ness has managed to divide up the left so effectively and efficiently. The longer this schism lasts, the harder it will be to unite again.
The hypocrisy and mendacity of our governance and the media have a tremendous responsibility for this. And yes, the corruption slippery slope was happening before Obama. The Democrats were corporate captured and were willing to let Repubs play bad cop as together they enabled horrifying levels of corporate criminality as well as military criminality. As I see it, Nader was right about the craven-ness of the Democratic Party back in 2000. it took us a while to catch up with the SCOPE of that reality. The depth of the Dems' stabbing in the back of those it was supposed to be representing is appalling and shameless.
I think of Charles Ferguson's comment who directed the wonderful expose "Inside Job", about how the toxic and cynical and mendacious (my words) rule of Obama has destroyed American idealism for a least another two generations.
The night of Obama's election in 2008 there was an awesome potential to activate us as a united citizenry, at least a united left. We needed an executive branch head who was willing to begin to drain the swamp. Obama has done nothing but deepen and thicken it. We were a country in desperate need of a moral leader to rescue and repair our democracy from the horrifying years of Bush. And we got a Trojan Horse for corporatists. A front man. Obama has normalized High Crimes and Misdemeanors! War and corporate criminality.
Kim, how great to hear about Gough Whitlam and his slogan, "maintain the rage". Look at what he did!!! You write:
"He lasted less than 3 years but in that time abolished Conscription, established Medicare, Legal Aid, Tertiary Education Scholarships, ended capital punishment and recognised China.
"He was thrown out of office with the complicit help of Nixon and Murdoch. His ( Labor ) Party's slogan : MAINTAIN THE RAGE."
end of your quote
Thanks, Kim. Appreciate your spirit!
best, libby
Jan name precisely what (lasting) confrontative power you're talking abt and then I can take this seriously.
It is no concern of mine, Jon, if you take this seriously. I am neither a politician nor anyone who has any power to organize anything. I am merely pointing out the obvious. You and others who consider themselves supporters of democracy who place their hopes in any of the current three branches of government are deceiving themselves. The situation has gone past the time when a real political party can build a base and overcome the monstrous corruption out of corporate and financial and military power and all the strength of the country is bent on depressing the standards of living, health, education and even competence of the nation to give the country's population a reasonable life. All the wealth of the country is being sucked away to the wealthy classes and the police and military and other government organizations are operating for the upper class.
I am saying only a strong counterforce can overcome that and I have no idea how to create it or what it might look like. I merely am sure it is necessary. I am not trying to convince you of anything except doing nothing will produce nothing except extended misery. I am sorry.
I am saying only a strong counterforce can overcome that and I have no idea how to create it or what it might look like. I merely am sure it is necessary. I am not trying to convince you of anything except doing nothing will produce nothing except extended misery. I am sorry.
kosh, I am still working on my responses to the former thread but appreciated your exploration on our different perspectives.
I am on fumes re sleep at the moment but I will last as long as I can.
the "losing it" reference of yours when I went back just now to check had to do with the proverbial "chess game" you were offering. Losing the chess game it would seem. When I skimmed back over your comments this sentence hit me out of context, "Losing it and screaming our outrage may be cathartic, but not helpful." I took "losing it" as losing control of emotion. Not losing the chess game. My misread. Sorry.
I am glad you go back to the chess game because I think that is key to our different perspectives and level of trust in our governance. As I said in my comment, it is a no-win, rigged game. And as I learned in 12-step philosophy the secret is not in winning, it is stopping playing it. Advice to alanonics dealing with the games addicts play -- DON'T PLAY THE GAME. YOU CAN'T WIN IT! STOPPING PLAYING IS REAL WINNING!!! DETACH FROM THE MADNESS AND THE INSANITY. STOP LETTING YOURSELF BE DUPED AND LIED TO!!!
You know the expression jumped the shark.
Our government has jumped the shark. Is so over the top corrupt I cannot not call it out. I cannot not reject the "look how hard we are trying" bullshit from the millionaire's club of Washington.
I also believe in the lesson from those 12 step rooms re "hitting bottom" and acknowledging how insane and unmanageable one's self or one's country is. You can have a high bottom and get "it" and begin to turn things around. Or you can deny and minimize and keep on falling more tragically and there is a lot of collateral damage to innocents with said fall. I thought we had hit bottom and when Bush finally left we could go upward. Nope. Obama administration is hurtling us down still. Yeah, Republicans are bottom feeding scum suckers. But if we had a president with a moral compass, we would have hope and a chance.
You write:
"We don't currently have the ability to upend the board."
I think of putting things on and off Obama's so-called table when you talk about the "board". Obama has a rigged table or board. RIGGED!!!! I don't see progress with him. I see more and more serious erosion. I see him normalizing high crimes and misdemeanors and getting away with it via a pathologically passive majority of citizens, horrifyingly corrupt 3 branches of government, and an off the charts amoral and corporate-pimped media. Bradley Manning shouldn't be going on trial this week, Obama should be. Impeachment. But tried by whom. The rest of the crony crooks?
I see Obama steadily using profound intimidation, the threat of imprisonment and worse, to enforce his rule. Exploiting the idea of national security to end honest communication about reality in every dimension of our governance and our military and our educational system, labor system, economic system, etc. How not to be called out on destructive even murderous policies and lies? Threaten those who might report them.
I appreciate hearing of your history. I think I need to say that though glad to hear you don't belong to a specific old boys' network, our culture has pretty much been an old boys' network in general and still is. Some progress re women's movement, some loss of ground certainly, but that is not our subject here.
And when I said what I said about being a quiet-voiced female on this site it was again meant in general with this culture at open salon also reflected in our outside non-cyber culture. My female take.
You talk about campaign finance reform. How to deal with the obscene corruption of ALL our political representatives selling out the citizenry to get money to get elected. What is the money for? A lot of it is for television advertising. So Jill Stein of the Green Party shows up and says she will not take corporate money. She will only take citizen money and represent OUR needs. And what happens, kosh? People don't take her seriously because, hell, she is no where to be seen on the teebee. Of course not. WTF? Can anyone connect the damn dots????? They, the vile corporatists at the reins, know, more than ordinary citizens, what a threat she is to the rigged system and what a change no corporate strings on a president would mean. So they boycott her from national media attention and it works. Because voters bobble their heads to the corporate-pimped talking heads on the tube. The magic box. I swear i hate especially MSNBC, the slickest whores on the block, cherry-picking issues and outrages according to party when both parties are up to their eyeballs in betrayal. Anyway, look what happened? Stein got only 1/2 percent of the vote. Stein had brilliant economic and environmental and education ideas.
She also has a serene and intelligent presentation style. She is also a great listener.
Many low information citizens didn't even know she was running. Those that did could have respected the vast assurance and answer to the campaign corruption issue, but didn't care enough. Let it slide. Until when? Until a "sure thing" candidate waltzes in who will guarantee a winning candidacy and such informed citizens chose to wait and NOT in giving support to a candidate who could win if citizens really started to be responsible as citizens. Louise Hay says, "The point of power is always in the present moment."
Course Stein was a woman, too. there was that. Some radicals even didn't vote for her for that reason. Sad.
But, the old chestnut of "lesser evilism" with Obama to sink a serious alternative. Stein or other third party candidates were a scary alternative that would mean change that we could believe in. That actually was viable. Was legal. Was part of our voting process. But they don't seem to care.
And young people are more and more put off by politics. The superpacs with their incredibly negative attack ads for both parties have understandably made kids not want to engage, tragically.
Obama has no moral compass and relies on gamesmanship to lead. Impression management. When his energy is going to covering up and impression management his imagination and energy is not going to solution building. Real solutions.
You write:
"We need people. We need allies. We need them to understand what needs to be done and why. We need them to be listening when we talk so that we actually have the opportunity to convey those messages."
No argument.
You write:
"What I see in you is a tremendous amount of frustration. You see all this awful stuff happening and ask Why The Hell Isn't It Obvious To Everyone What These People Are Doing To Us????"
No argument.
My question back, why isn't it, kosh? Seriously.
Then you write:
"We inform. We illustrate. Most of all, we teach. We worry less about, as I said earlier, expressing outrage than about eliciting outrage. It's not even about presenting the data; it's more about framing it."
I don't worry about expressing outrage. It flows out with its own earnest and urgent momentum.
I frame my information, man, with tough love.
I have been writing and writing and writing informative blogs of info that is being buried by the mainstream media. That is my offering. And with strong feeling about what is happening to our nation, especially those most vulnerable among the citizenry and those most vulnerable at the end of the drone or the USWarmachine working for corporate profits. Cannon fodder soldiers and foreign civilians for profit.
kosh, you aren't ultimately giving me advice that I should be a "nicer girl" in presenting myself, cuz that goes back full circle to the quiet-voiced female!!!! is that your issue with me? style not substance???? really?????
well I am happy you agree with me in substance more than I suspected I gotta tell you. Do you really think Obama is committing high crimes and misdemeanors and should be impeached? When someone crosses the line to impeachable offenses, we shouldn't be expected to keep rewarding and cooperating with him is my thinking.
As for style, I think mine will evolve. This past week I began four blogs and I couldn't finish them. I lost my mojo. It scared me. I guess I lost hope that it was futile. I worried that my anger was not there only despair. I am glad my spirit has come back. Thanks for helping me get it by reaching back to me.
As others get more passionate about the horrors happening under this administration, my anger and frustration will abate in celebration of that and get calmer and happier. I sure as hell am not happy now. I don't intend to pretend I am not. But when I push push push my take on a surreal reality I entertain the hope that someone might hear and think about things further.
I grew up in a house where anger for girls was considered BAD --a forbidden feeling to have let alone to express. More from 12 step rooms, feelings are feelings, they are not right and wrong. Feelings are emotional energy.
You know, some people should be pissed off at me for being angry at them for complacency. I see that. It is natural. I am calling them out. They are calling me out back for calling them out. Makes sense.
I think that it is absolutely great that you are a calm person who encourages others to express their ideas and you also coax them to listen to you as you share your moral values and your take on things calmly. More power to you. Different strokes. We need people to give what they can in trying to get our spirit back. Getting back to our higher selves as people. As citizens.
And you get where I am coming from clearly. I appreciate your, what do they call that, reflecting that back to me.
I will think about what you have shared. I appreciate your sharing it.
To be continued!!!
best, libby
I am on fumes re sleep at the moment but I will last as long as I can.
the "losing it" reference of yours when I went back just now to check had to do with the proverbial "chess game" you were offering. Losing the chess game it would seem. When I skimmed back over your comments this sentence hit me out of context, "Losing it and screaming our outrage may be cathartic, but not helpful." I took "losing it" as losing control of emotion. Not losing the chess game. My misread. Sorry.
I am glad you go back to the chess game because I think that is key to our different perspectives and level of trust in our governance. As I said in my comment, it is a no-win, rigged game. And as I learned in 12-step philosophy the secret is not in winning, it is stopping playing it. Advice to alanonics dealing with the games addicts play -- DON'T PLAY THE GAME. YOU CAN'T WIN IT! STOPPING PLAYING IS REAL WINNING!!! DETACH FROM THE MADNESS AND THE INSANITY. STOP LETTING YOURSELF BE DUPED AND LIED TO!!!
You know the expression jumped the shark.
Our government has jumped the shark. Is so over the top corrupt I cannot not call it out. I cannot not reject the "look how hard we are trying" bullshit from the millionaire's club of Washington.
I also believe in the lesson from those 12 step rooms re "hitting bottom" and acknowledging how insane and unmanageable one's self or one's country is. You can have a high bottom and get "it" and begin to turn things around. Or you can deny and minimize and keep on falling more tragically and there is a lot of collateral damage to innocents with said fall. I thought we had hit bottom and when Bush finally left we could go upward. Nope. Obama administration is hurtling us down still. Yeah, Republicans are bottom feeding scum suckers. But if we had a president with a moral compass, we would have hope and a chance.
You write:
"We don't currently have the ability to upend the board."
I think of putting things on and off Obama's so-called table when you talk about the "board". Obama has a rigged table or board. RIGGED!!!! I don't see progress with him. I see more and more serious erosion. I see him normalizing high crimes and misdemeanors and getting away with it via a pathologically passive majority of citizens, horrifyingly corrupt 3 branches of government, and an off the charts amoral and corporate-pimped media. Bradley Manning shouldn't be going on trial this week, Obama should be. Impeachment. But tried by whom. The rest of the crony crooks?
I see Obama steadily using profound intimidation, the threat of imprisonment and worse, to enforce his rule. Exploiting the idea of national security to end honest communication about reality in every dimension of our governance and our military and our educational system, labor system, economic system, etc. How not to be called out on destructive even murderous policies and lies? Threaten those who might report them.
I appreciate hearing of your history. I think I need to say that though glad to hear you don't belong to a specific old boys' network, our culture has pretty much been an old boys' network in general and still is. Some progress re women's movement, some loss of ground certainly, but that is not our subject here.
And when I said what I said about being a quiet-voiced female on this site it was again meant in general with this culture at open salon also reflected in our outside non-cyber culture. My female take.
You talk about campaign finance reform. How to deal with the obscene corruption of ALL our political representatives selling out the citizenry to get money to get elected. What is the money for? A lot of it is for television advertising. So Jill Stein of the Green Party shows up and says she will not take corporate money. She will only take citizen money and represent OUR needs. And what happens, kosh? People don't take her seriously because, hell, she is no where to be seen on the teebee. Of course not. WTF? Can anyone connect the damn dots????? They, the vile corporatists at the reins, know, more than ordinary citizens, what a threat she is to the rigged system and what a change no corporate strings on a president would mean. So they boycott her from national media attention and it works. Because voters bobble their heads to the corporate-pimped talking heads on the tube. The magic box. I swear i hate especially MSNBC, the slickest whores on the block, cherry-picking issues and outrages according to party when both parties are up to their eyeballs in betrayal. Anyway, look what happened? Stein got only 1/2 percent of the vote. Stein had brilliant economic and environmental and education ideas.
She also has a serene and intelligent presentation style. She is also a great listener.
Many low information citizens didn't even know she was running. Those that did could have respected the vast assurance and answer to the campaign corruption issue, but didn't care enough. Let it slide. Until when? Until a "sure thing" candidate waltzes in who will guarantee a winning candidacy and such informed citizens chose to wait and NOT in giving support to a candidate who could win if citizens really started to be responsible as citizens. Louise Hay says, "The point of power is always in the present moment."
Course Stein was a woman, too. there was that. Some radicals even didn't vote for her for that reason. Sad.
But, the old chestnut of "lesser evilism" with Obama to sink a serious alternative. Stein or other third party candidates were a scary alternative that would mean change that we could believe in. That actually was viable. Was legal. Was part of our voting process. But they don't seem to care.
And young people are more and more put off by politics. The superpacs with their incredibly negative attack ads for both parties have understandably made kids not want to engage, tragically.
Obama has no moral compass and relies on gamesmanship to lead. Impression management. When his energy is going to covering up and impression management his imagination and energy is not going to solution building. Real solutions.
You write:
"We need people. We need allies. We need them to understand what needs to be done and why. We need them to be listening when we talk so that we actually have the opportunity to convey those messages."
No argument.
You write:
"What I see in you is a tremendous amount of frustration. You see all this awful stuff happening and ask Why The Hell Isn't It Obvious To Everyone What These People Are Doing To Us????"
No argument.
My question back, why isn't it, kosh? Seriously.
Then you write:
"We inform. We illustrate. Most of all, we teach. We worry less about, as I said earlier, expressing outrage than about eliciting outrage. It's not even about presenting the data; it's more about framing it."
I don't worry about expressing outrage. It flows out with its own earnest and urgent momentum.
I frame my information, man, with tough love.
I have been writing and writing and writing informative blogs of info that is being buried by the mainstream media. That is my offering. And with strong feeling about what is happening to our nation, especially those most vulnerable among the citizenry and those most vulnerable at the end of the drone or the USWarmachine working for corporate profits. Cannon fodder soldiers and foreign civilians for profit.
kosh, you aren't ultimately giving me advice that I should be a "nicer girl" in presenting myself, cuz that goes back full circle to the quiet-voiced female!!!! is that your issue with me? style not substance???? really?????
well I am happy you agree with me in substance more than I suspected I gotta tell you. Do you really think Obama is committing high crimes and misdemeanors and should be impeached? When someone crosses the line to impeachable offenses, we shouldn't be expected to keep rewarding and cooperating with him is my thinking.
As for style, I think mine will evolve. This past week I began four blogs and I couldn't finish them. I lost my mojo. It scared me. I guess I lost hope that it was futile. I worried that my anger was not there only despair. I am glad my spirit has come back. Thanks for helping me get it by reaching back to me.
As others get more passionate about the horrors happening under this administration, my anger and frustration will abate in celebration of that and get calmer and happier. I sure as hell am not happy now. I don't intend to pretend I am not. But when I push push push my take on a surreal reality I entertain the hope that someone might hear and think about things further.
I grew up in a house where anger for girls was considered BAD --a forbidden feeling to have let alone to express. More from 12 step rooms, feelings are feelings, they are not right and wrong. Feelings are emotional energy.
You know, some people should be pissed off at me for being angry at them for complacency. I see that. It is natural. I am calling them out. They are calling me out back for calling them out. Makes sense.
I think that it is absolutely great that you are a calm person who encourages others to express their ideas and you also coax them to listen to you as you share your moral values and your take on things calmly. More power to you. Different strokes. We need people to give what they can in trying to get our spirit back. Getting back to our higher selves as people. As citizens.
And you get where I am coming from clearly. I appreciate your, what do they call that, reflecting that back to me.
I will think about what you have shared. I appreciate your sharing it.
To be continued!!!
best, libby
hi sky. didn't mean to skip you. Gotta grab some sleep. I have a strange work schedule. To be continued soon. Thanks for interest here!!! best, libby
Hi, I'll answer more at length later.
When I talk about the chessboard, people seem to think I mean Work within the system. Actually, I mean Gain Power. I don't care if a thought-out path runs through the system, I just care that there be one. This step leads to that step.
Libby,
I'm not advising you to quiet down. I'm advising you to have the patience to answer stupid questions.
More later. This is the Very Short Version.
When I talk about the chessboard, people seem to think I mean Work within the system. Actually, I mean Gain Power. I don't care if a thought-out path runs through the system, I just care that there be one. This step leads to that step.
Libby,
I'm not advising you to quiet down. I'm advising you to have the patience to answer stupid questions.
More later. This is the Very Short Version.
Libby articulates a consistent path (Green). I don't know ot it'll ever be mine. I do know that no one else on Open who calls for a better politics than Obama's comes close to sayong what the path might even be.
It's remarkable that no one else who rails at the status quo, constantly railing at the president's policies/character/what-have-you, comes w.in an ocean of a program, a method, a consistent route to actual legislative/executive betterment.
Too damned easy. It's the politics of myopia, self-therapy, and it's useless and a bore, ranting w.o a program, w.o a path, w.o a method. After a while it's just narcicism.
It's remarkable that no one else who rails at the status quo, constantly railing at the president's policies/character/what-have-you, comes w.in an ocean of a program, a method, a consistent route to actual legislative/executive betterment.
Too damned easy. It's the politics of myopia, self-therapy, and it's useless and a bore, ranting w.o a program, w.o a path, w.o a method. After a while it's just narcicism.
I misinterpreted your allegory about chess. Chess is a set game with well known pieces. There are several ways to beat the game. You can convince people that they had better get off their asses and start pushing back hard, you can convince the multibillionairs that it's better for them to live in a secure world with happy creative dynamic people rather than a sick world full of misery and starvation and hatred for the rich, you can take over the Arecibo radio telescope and broadcast to the galaxy that the top species of the planet is committing suicide and we need an immediate invasion of aliens to take over and straighten things out. The last one seems most likely to me.
As is my habit, I chose this as the crux of your argument for patient, non-judgmental fielding of questions, no matter how obtuse they may seem:
We have a sales job to do, of some sort. One thing I can tell you about sales is that whatever you're selling has to fix something your customer thinks is wrong. Not that you think is wrong, that your customer thinks is wrong. Not even what your customer Should think is wrong, what your customer Does think is wrong.
We have a sales job to do, of some sort. One thing I can tell you about sales is that whatever you're selling has to fix something your customer thinks is wrong. Not that you think is wrong, that your customer thinks is wrong. Not even what your customer Should think is wrong, what your customer Does think is wrong.
I have enjoyed this and the other exchange on Libby's May 31st post. I agree with Jan Sands that what we are doing now isn't even close to working. And Jan and I agree: neither of us has a clue as to what needs to be done to stop the train before the wreck is too massive to ever repair. We need to educate, we need to provoke by stating facts, and then we need to stop talking and start coming up with actual tactics for "the people" to entertain.
Lezlie
Lezlie
Forgive me. I lost track of whose post I was commenting on. My first comment should have been addressed to Kosh. My second comment was to you, Libby, but I had the wrong date of your morality post; it was May 30.
I appreciate what you've done with this, Libby. I just want to say that.
It is refreshing to see people who disagree on some deeply held ideals having dialog instead of trying to demean anyone that holds an opposing viewpoint You deserve credit for opening up the lines of communication in this way.
Your last post was really eye opening for me. The difference is our hot buttons concerning language and perceived meanings by the writer and reader alone were worth the entire thread.
/r.
It is refreshing to see people who disagree on some deeply held ideals having dialog instead of trying to demean anyone that holds an opposing viewpoint You deserve credit for opening up the lines of communication in this way.
Your last post was really eye opening for me. The difference is our hot buttons concerning language and perceived meanings by the writer and reader alone were worth the entire thread.
/r.
"...a quiet voiced female..." If I were to hear you speak, I can imagine your quiet voice; but here on OS your voice is forever loud and clear. Rant on dear lady... we need to hear the rants that hold "the pragmatic voice of reason" up to the light of what is right and wrong. Otherwise we're stumbling around in the shadows of a grey world.
Whatever the blow back from me or anyone else, rest assured that we all need to hear your voice, loud and clear.
Whatever the blow back from me or anyone else, rest assured that we all need to hear your voice, loud and clear.
Mark,
You got me wrong three times in one paragraph. That's difficult.
1. As I stated blatantly, my opinions are not based on those of my friends. I'm not interested in participating in your feuds; they have very little to do with me, so please don't attempt to drag me into them.
2. I am closer to others here than to either of them, though Bill is a friend and one of the more analytical thinkers I know. Frank is an acquaintance; I don't know him well at all. I have actually had far more in depth discussions with you than with Frank. I have no idea why you think I'm tied to Frank, other than it's Markspeak for demonizing me somehow. Whenever you're angry at anyone, I notice that your form of an insult is to tie them to Frank. Most of the rest of us don't think he qualifies as House OS Demon, but you apparently do.
3. My opinion of President Obama is not in line with those of Bill and Frank, so that association doesn't work on yet another level. My opinion of him is actually closest to that of Old New Lefty.
I'll return to the rest of the thread shortly.
You got me wrong three times in one paragraph. That's difficult.
1. As I stated blatantly, my opinions are not based on those of my friends. I'm not interested in participating in your feuds; they have very little to do with me, so please don't attempt to drag me into them.
2. I am closer to others here than to either of them, though Bill is a friend and one of the more analytical thinkers I know. Frank is an acquaintance; I don't know him well at all. I have actually had far more in depth discussions with you than with Frank. I have no idea why you think I'm tied to Frank, other than it's Markspeak for demonizing me somehow. Whenever you're angry at anyone, I notice that your form of an insult is to tie them to Frank. Most of the rest of us don't think he qualifies as House OS Demon, but you apparently do.
3. My opinion of President Obama is not in line with those of Bill and Frank, so that association doesn't work on yet another level. My opinion of him is actually closest to that of Old New Lefty.
I'll return to the rest of the thread shortly.
Seer,
Thanks for that take on masculine and feminine. Great observation.
Lezlie,
As usual, you have more talent for picking out the core of the issue than anyone I know.
Thanks for that take on masculine and feminine. Great observation.
Lezlie,
As usual, you have more talent for picking out the core of the issue than anyone I know.
Libby,
Sorry, keep needing to do stuff offline. Still thinking of how to answer you most clearly. Not finished.
Sorry, keep needing to do stuff offline. Still thinking of how to answer you most clearly. Not finished.
Libby,
Sorry, keep needing to do stuff offline. Still thinking of how to answer you most clearly. Not finished.
Sorry, keep needing to do stuff offline. Still thinking of how to answer you most clearly. Not finished.
Kosher is an indispensable asset to any tread on OS
Jan, thanks for commenting, as always. Yes, the chessgame metaphor helps focus the issue. It has to do with levels of faith in the proverbial "game" of government. Of the US government.
I watched a bit of the Sunday political shows and the talking heads seem lost in the trees, losing sight of the big forest crises. Doing commentary on the M.O. stylings of Obama, his choices in the gamesmanship and his photo ops of the week yadda yadda yadda, not the profound anti-constitutional choices and behaviors of this administration as the last's.
Absolutely true that so much erosion has happened to our government especially since Reagan's over-trusted hands got onto it.
Our citizens are proverbial boiled frogs as is our Congress, but Congress unlike most of us is drowning in lobby ill gotten gains and defying their oaths of office, cronied up with each other and the 1%er and honoring their vows to that tiny group of overlords that choose the psychopathic corporate ways and people dying, getting crap merchandise, working in sweatshops, or losing jobs and benefits is a small price to pay. FOR THEM!!!
Our government is a swamp of corruption. Like waiting for Godot, waiting for the rich to be seriously prosecuted for anything. All the marijuana arrests, three strikes, and those thousands locked into prisons while big, big banks made and I'm guessing still make billion dollar win/win money laundering deals with Mexican drug cartels. Reality out-Orwells Orwell.
Our media, well. When things used to go on 60 minutes you trusted arrests would be made. No more. The senate under Levin did a 400 page 2 year critique of corporate crime most of it starring Obama enabler Goldman Sachs. Holder sat on the report and decided it did not warrant action. Congress actually did something honest and Holder did nothing and where was the outrage????
If we had a media that did its job, but it can't since it is overseen by the sociopaths, it would deliver more information to us citizens. There are still ways ... how long will that small window stay open for us Americans ... to find out the truth about Obama's fascistic policies via the alternate media. But you know the fascists are doing what they can to close that window.
And yes, framing is important. Sometimes MSNBC gets the story right but they tidily frame it with Obama as victim. Yes, Obama has obstructionistic Congress-people, but his anti-citizen choices are also clear to be seen. His rhetoric belies what he actually does or doesn't do.
Doing citizen journalism type stories about the Obama administration's choices and covert activities feels like Lucy in the proverbial chocolate factory whereby each day candy (scandalous decisions) are flying off the assembly line there are so many to examine and process. That is how I felt especially this past week.
Meanwhile denial and minimization of obama continues to thrive, prevail, win ... his official three scandals encouraged team Dem to circle the wagons more tightly.
People lost to thinking right vs. left when it is really up vs. down. 1% going after the rest of us. 1% has congress, the courts, the prez, nyt, wp, msnbc, fox news, and so many others all on its side.
That new FBI replacement helped write legalese for Bush torture not that long ago. Yeah, at Ashcroft's bedside he took a stand for the written law but then he ran off and helped them change the decent laws, helped twist one more time the letter of the law which went against moral law. But, hell, he's a lesser evil than John Yoo, maybe, so Obama embraces him. Con the public with myth-making. Let the cherrypicking media pick out one event and spin the mythology.
The Al-Qaeda group fighting in Syria was caught with chemical weapons recently. Yesterday? Turkey put it in their newspapers. Not a word in ours, because the Iraq War playbook is in play and a war with Syria is the goal, a war of profiteering once again. 2 out of 3 Americans don't want war with Syria. Does that matter to Obama and Congress and USWarmachine? Groundhog Day as with Iraq, Libya, now Syria. War, war, war, kill, kill, kill.
A guy on a political show today said he sees the day we will not only have drones killing for us but robot soldiers. Wow. Be proud America? Global annihilation for all?
Will that come before the planet itself is destroyed by the sociopathic corporatists and pals?
The mainstream media, now itself despite being a lapdog for the Obama administration, is under such heavy scrutiny as indicated by the AP scandal. They did such a good job coaxing Americans to disdain Wikileaks that spell out US government betrayal and sociopathic groupthink in domestic and military policies. How much has been disclosed via the leaks but the American people join in on the witch hunts against the leakers and whistleblowers. Now the back-stabbing media that watched Assange twist in the wind are getting a taste of what Assange was getting with their help. Have they connected the dots or will they become just more sycophantic to the WH? Learn their lesson in fascism well.
Look at the shooting in Orlando while the police/FBI were investigating the Boston bombing. The law enforcement officers put 7 bullets, one to the back of the head, into an unarmed man. First it was REPORTED that it was an armed man with a knife who lunged against the officer. Then there was no knife, he just lunged. Then there was a report there was a sword somewhere in the house. But not in the victim's hand, apparently. 7 shots???? One in the back of the head? After 8 hours of ongoing interrogation? The Washington Post was able to disclose there was no knife in the stabbing interviewee's hand, after all, but the NYT ran to the WH to consult on the troubling story about what on earth the FBI/police were doing killing someone during an interview. You go, NYT!!!!
The father of the victim is in Russia saying his son was executed to be silenced by the government authorities. The Russians are probably tching tching fascism now in America.
Extrajudicial killing. Just trust FBI or HS or whomever when they kill citizens, trust they had a darn, good reason. The hell with our justice "system". Our bill of rights. Circled the bowl a while ago.
Jan, my thoughts this Sunday afternoon. Take care.
Later, libby
I watched a bit of the Sunday political shows and the talking heads seem lost in the trees, losing sight of the big forest crises. Doing commentary on the M.O. stylings of Obama, his choices in the gamesmanship and his photo ops of the week yadda yadda yadda, not the profound anti-constitutional choices and behaviors of this administration as the last's.
Absolutely true that so much erosion has happened to our government especially since Reagan's over-trusted hands got onto it.
Our citizens are proverbial boiled frogs as is our Congress, but Congress unlike most of us is drowning in lobby ill gotten gains and defying their oaths of office, cronied up with each other and the 1%er and honoring their vows to that tiny group of overlords that choose the psychopathic corporate ways and people dying, getting crap merchandise, working in sweatshops, or losing jobs and benefits is a small price to pay. FOR THEM!!!
Our government is a swamp of corruption. Like waiting for Godot, waiting for the rich to be seriously prosecuted for anything. All the marijuana arrests, three strikes, and those thousands locked into prisons while big, big banks made and I'm guessing still make billion dollar win/win money laundering deals with Mexican drug cartels. Reality out-Orwells Orwell.
Our media, well. When things used to go on 60 minutes you trusted arrests would be made. No more. The senate under Levin did a 400 page 2 year critique of corporate crime most of it starring Obama enabler Goldman Sachs. Holder sat on the report and decided it did not warrant action. Congress actually did something honest and Holder did nothing and where was the outrage????
If we had a media that did its job, but it can't since it is overseen by the sociopaths, it would deliver more information to us citizens. There are still ways ... how long will that small window stay open for us Americans ... to find out the truth about Obama's fascistic policies via the alternate media. But you know the fascists are doing what they can to close that window.
And yes, framing is important. Sometimes MSNBC gets the story right but they tidily frame it with Obama as victim. Yes, Obama has obstructionistic Congress-people, but his anti-citizen choices are also clear to be seen. His rhetoric belies what he actually does or doesn't do.
Doing citizen journalism type stories about the Obama administration's choices and covert activities feels like Lucy in the proverbial chocolate factory whereby each day candy (scandalous decisions) are flying off the assembly line there are so many to examine and process. That is how I felt especially this past week.
Meanwhile denial and minimization of obama continues to thrive, prevail, win ... his official three scandals encouraged team Dem to circle the wagons more tightly.
People lost to thinking right vs. left when it is really up vs. down. 1% going after the rest of us. 1% has congress, the courts, the prez, nyt, wp, msnbc, fox news, and so many others all on its side.
That new FBI replacement helped write legalese for Bush torture not that long ago. Yeah, at Ashcroft's bedside he took a stand for the written law but then he ran off and helped them change the decent laws, helped twist one more time the letter of the law which went against moral law. But, hell, he's a lesser evil than John Yoo, maybe, so Obama embraces him. Con the public with myth-making. Let the cherrypicking media pick out one event and spin the mythology.
The Al-Qaeda group fighting in Syria was caught with chemical weapons recently. Yesterday? Turkey put it in their newspapers. Not a word in ours, because the Iraq War playbook is in play and a war with Syria is the goal, a war of profiteering once again. 2 out of 3 Americans don't want war with Syria. Does that matter to Obama and Congress and USWarmachine? Groundhog Day as with Iraq, Libya, now Syria. War, war, war, kill, kill, kill.
A guy on a political show today said he sees the day we will not only have drones killing for us but robot soldiers. Wow. Be proud America? Global annihilation for all?
Will that come before the planet itself is destroyed by the sociopathic corporatists and pals?
The mainstream media, now itself despite being a lapdog for the Obama administration, is under such heavy scrutiny as indicated by the AP scandal. They did such a good job coaxing Americans to disdain Wikileaks that spell out US government betrayal and sociopathic groupthink in domestic and military policies. How much has been disclosed via the leaks but the American people join in on the witch hunts against the leakers and whistleblowers. Now the back-stabbing media that watched Assange twist in the wind are getting a taste of what Assange was getting with their help. Have they connected the dots or will they become just more sycophantic to the WH? Learn their lesson in fascism well.
Look at the shooting in Orlando while the police/FBI were investigating the Boston bombing. The law enforcement officers put 7 bullets, one to the back of the head, into an unarmed man. First it was REPORTED that it was an armed man with a knife who lunged against the officer. Then there was no knife, he just lunged. Then there was a report there was a sword somewhere in the house. But not in the victim's hand, apparently. 7 shots???? One in the back of the head? After 8 hours of ongoing interrogation? The Washington Post was able to disclose there was no knife in the stabbing interviewee's hand, after all, but the NYT ran to the WH to consult on the troubling story about what on earth the FBI/police were doing killing someone during an interview. You go, NYT!!!!
The father of the victim is in Russia saying his son was executed to be silenced by the government authorities. The Russians are probably tching tching fascism now in America.
Extrajudicial killing. Just trust FBI or HS or whomever when they kill citizens, trust they had a darn, good reason. The hell with our justice "system". Our bill of rights. Circled the bowl a while ago.
Jan, my thoughts this Sunday afternoon. Take care.
Later, libby
thanks for juicy comments. will be back to address later tonight! best, libby
i never heard of this kosh fellow but i wish him well.
as for this,
this speaking of PRAGMATISM, ah THIS i know well.
~
william james.
crazy dude. til he reinvented Psychology
and Philosophy.
~
he got better then..
~
mr james, bro of henry that old bore, said
Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in; it stains the ancient mass; but it is also tinged by what absorbs it.
Lecture V, Pragmatism and Common Sense
Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.
Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth
First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.
Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth
as for this,
this speaking of PRAGMATISM, ah THIS i know well.
~
william james.
crazy dude. til he reinvented Psychology
and Philosophy.
~
he got better then..
~
mr james, bro of henry that old bore, said
Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in; it stains the ancient mass; but it is also tinged by what absorbs it.
Lecture V, Pragmatism and Common Sense
Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.
Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth
First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.
Lecture VI, Pragmatism's Conception of Truth
Couple comments - you as a quiet-voiced female on this site is not how I see/hear it.
I went for a short while to AlAnon when married to an alcoholic. Their advice re no longer playing the game and "enabling" was to stop paying the bills myself to keep things going. And let my kids freeze in the dark? Don't think so. (When eventually it was possible to extricate from the game, I did so.)
Damn, had some other cogent remark to make, but it's eluding me for the moment.
I went for a short while to AlAnon when married to an alcoholic. Their advice re no longer playing the game and "enabling" was to stop paying the bills myself to keep things going. And let my kids freeze in the dark? Don't think so. (When eventually it was possible to extricate from the game, I did so.)
Damn, had some other cogent remark to make, but it's eluding me for the moment.
I don't think Kosh's advice to be 'a nicer girrrrl' is sexist. HE is illustrating how to be nice and have a style that lets the substance be heard.
Libby,
This comment is sort of more issue specific, but ultimately not.
Is attempting to elect Greens the most efficient way to effect real change? Is that the best path we have? And, in the meantime, what exactly do we do about the GOP?
There's more to the Dems than Obama. Down here, the Governor's mansion and Statehouse both went Republican in the last election. (The Statehouse already was but its control tightened.) Here's some of what we're looking at:
Slashed funding for collegiate education.
Slashed funding for primary education, to some of the lowest levels in the United States. The old Governor vetoed this crap over and over.
An elimination of a small sales tax to support education.
An attempt for state funding for religious schools.
An attempt to take the decision whether to sentence juveniles as adults out of the hands of judges and put it into the hands of prosecutors.
An attempt to introduce fracking here.
An attempt for major reductions in food stamps.
I know that the difference between Democrats and Republicans looks insignificant, but not on the ground it doesn't. Now, if I have the opportunity to replace Democrats with Greens, great. But if I don't, the consequences of not stopping the GOP aren't negligible. There are two simultaneous battles going on here - the battle to make things better and the battle to keep things from getting worse. When they take power, people don't eat. Some of the Dems may be cynical, but he GOP is flat-out nuts.
Obama will be President until January of 2017, barring impeachment, resignation, or health issue. So, what do we do about civil liberties and other issues in the meantime? His party is not solidly behind him on this stuff. What will be easier to accomplish, getting Greens elected or moving current officials off their current path?
Yup, it's all corrupt. Agreed. Two out of five Americans don't have any money and that number is growing.
Now what?
This is my main stupid question:
What course of action is our best alternative?
There are people all over OS who will tell you that if their choice comes down to food stamps staying at current levels or dropping, they're going with current levels. That's the Lesser Evil argument.
You will gain zero more supporters without addressing this question. I'm not saying you don't have an answer. I'm hoping you do.
Maybe your answer goes something like this:
"It's like with addiction. You have to hit bottom before you commit to fixing the problem. Maybe we need to hit bottom to galvanize everyone to commit to change, and voting Democratic is like trying to cut down from six drinks a day to four, just delaying the inevitable."
Now, I'm not sure I agree with that answer, but I at least understand its logic. It's worth discussing if that's your position.
But the thing is, Libby, that you can't ignore the question or treat it like it's stupid, invalid, or even immoral. It is none of the above. Not if you want people in your corner.
If I have to tell someone: "I know this vote of mine didn't prevent you from losing food stamps when I could have at least accomplished that," I need to know how to tell that person why I did it. Maybe I'd have a good reason, but if that's how you want me to vote, I need that reason.
The Lesser Evil question can't just be ignored; it has to be addressed.
It's not enough to tell me what path not to take. That is a formula for paralysis. I need to know what path to take that has at least a prayer of success. Maybe it entails multiple attempts in different directions and we commit resources to whichever one looks like it's starting to work.
The status quo sucks. The status quo is dangerous. The status quo is a path to disaster. Agreed on all counts. But, as I keep telling you, I'm all about the path. You want out, I want out, loads of us want out. Please don't spend all your time telling me why we want out. I know that already.
I want to know How.
This comment is sort of more issue specific, but ultimately not.
Is attempting to elect Greens the most efficient way to effect real change? Is that the best path we have? And, in the meantime, what exactly do we do about the GOP?
There's more to the Dems than Obama. Down here, the Governor's mansion and Statehouse both went Republican in the last election. (The Statehouse already was but its control tightened.) Here's some of what we're looking at:
Slashed funding for collegiate education.
Slashed funding for primary education, to some of the lowest levels in the United States. The old Governor vetoed this crap over and over.
An elimination of a small sales tax to support education.
An attempt for state funding for religious schools.
An attempt to take the decision whether to sentence juveniles as adults out of the hands of judges and put it into the hands of prosecutors.
An attempt to introduce fracking here.
An attempt for major reductions in food stamps.
I know that the difference between Democrats and Republicans looks insignificant, but not on the ground it doesn't. Now, if I have the opportunity to replace Democrats with Greens, great. But if I don't, the consequences of not stopping the GOP aren't negligible. There are two simultaneous battles going on here - the battle to make things better and the battle to keep things from getting worse. When they take power, people don't eat. Some of the Dems may be cynical, but he GOP is flat-out nuts.
Obama will be President until January of 2017, barring impeachment, resignation, or health issue. So, what do we do about civil liberties and other issues in the meantime? His party is not solidly behind him on this stuff. What will be easier to accomplish, getting Greens elected or moving current officials off their current path?
Yup, it's all corrupt. Agreed. Two out of five Americans don't have any money and that number is growing.
Now what?
This is my main stupid question:
What course of action is our best alternative?
There are people all over OS who will tell you that if their choice comes down to food stamps staying at current levels or dropping, they're going with current levels. That's the Lesser Evil argument.
You will gain zero more supporters without addressing this question. I'm not saying you don't have an answer. I'm hoping you do.
Maybe your answer goes something like this:
"It's like with addiction. You have to hit bottom before you commit to fixing the problem. Maybe we need to hit bottom to galvanize everyone to commit to change, and voting Democratic is like trying to cut down from six drinks a day to four, just delaying the inevitable."
Now, I'm not sure I agree with that answer, but I at least understand its logic. It's worth discussing if that's your position.
But the thing is, Libby, that you can't ignore the question or treat it like it's stupid, invalid, or even immoral. It is none of the above. Not if you want people in your corner.
If I have to tell someone: "I know this vote of mine didn't prevent you from losing food stamps when I could have at least accomplished that," I need to know how to tell that person why I did it. Maybe I'd have a good reason, but if that's how you want me to vote, I need that reason.
The Lesser Evil question can't just be ignored; it has to be addressed.
It's not enough to tell me what path not to take. That is a formula for paralysis. I need to know what path to take that has at least a prayer of success. Maybe it entails multiple attempts in different directions and we commit resources to whichever one looks like it's starting to work.
The status quo sucks. The status quo is dangerous. The status quo is a path to disaster. Agreed on all counts. But, as I keep telling you, I'm all about the path. You want out, I want out, loads of us want out. Please don't spend all your time telling me why we want out. I know that already.
I want to know How.
( Not a red herring : )
If voting was compulsory in the US, ie. a $50 fine imposed on anyone over 18 who didn't vote ( as is the case here ) would it make a difference ?
If nothing else, it might get people to take their responsibilities more seriously.
Younger Australians, ( and increasingly the older, ) vote Green, giving them for the last five years a deciding vote in both Houses.
If voting was compulsory in the US, ie. a $50 fine imposed on anyone over 18 who didn't vote ( as is the case here ) would it make a difference ?
If nothing else, it might get people to take their responsibilities more seriously.
Younger Australians, ( and increasingly the older, ) vote Green, giving them for the last five years a deciding vote in both Houses.
OK Koshersalaami, you've laid out the problem. You have no solution and neither does Libby. Just vague ideas about what might happen as the dunces in the USA keep putting total assholes into office. And since there is nothing but total assholes offered by either party, since you remember that, at one time in the never-never land before the vicious idiots like Reagan and Bush and Clinton and now Obama - for whatever you might hope, Obama came into office. For Obama is no different or less corrupted than the other politicians and if you cannot see that very clearly you can join the other dunces who believe in this fake liberal.
So, with no solutions are you, like Frank Apisa, bitching because you don't like the reality she keeps shoving in your face and you want her to shut up and play golf? If she doesn't dish out this mass of immorality to prod somebody somewhere to get the show on the road who will? Are you telling her to shut up? Because that's what this abysmal government run by Obama wants which is obvious by it's treatment of all the whistleblowers it is shoving into prison when they expose the pure shit the government is handing out. Is that what you want?
So, with no solutions are you, like Frank Apisa, bitching because you don't like the reality she keeps shoving in your face and you want her to shut up and play golf? If she doesn't dish out this mass of immorality to prod somebody somewhere to get the show on the road who will? Are you telling her to shut up? Because that's what this abysmal government run by Obama wants which is obvious by it's treatment of all the whistleblowers it is shoving into prison when they expose the pure shit the government is handing out. Is that what you want?
More whistleblowers than ALL previous administrations combined, I might add. obama's version of transparency.
Jan,
I don't want her to shut up. As I've said before, I'm not Frank. I'm not all about constantly cutting Pres. Obama slack. L
I don't want her to shut up. As I've said before, I'm not Frank. I'm not all about constantly cutting Pres. Obama slack. L
Jan,
I don't want her to shut up. As I've said before, I'm not Frank. I'm not all about constantly cutting Pres. Obama slack. L
I don't want her to shut up. As I've said before, I'm not Frank. I'm not all about constantly cutting Pres. Obama slack. L
Sorry, posted before finished.
Still, Jan, asserting that the question isn't worth addressing won't gain allies. Without that, you're politically stuck in place. I assume the value of persuading others is obvious. Politics is all about that.
Still, Jan, asserting that the question isn't worth addressing won't gain allies. Without that, you're politically stuck in place. I assume the value of persuading others is obvious. Politics is all about that.
"We are talking about the slower economic murder and terrorism via withdrawing health care and living wage jobs for regular Americans and in your face corporate criminality Obama smiles at and enables."
Amen.
Amen.
Kim,
I never thought of linking compulsory voting to the Greens. Intriguing.
I never thought of linking compulsory voting to the Greens. Intriguing.
Kosh my 97 year old mom still votes Green, as do most of her friends.
When you have grandchildren, great-grandchildren even, it makes sense to vote Green.
For my 23 & 27 year old daughters, there is no other choice in the offing.
Mind you, we don't have Congress.
When you have grandchildren, great-grandchildren even, it makes sense to vote Green.
For my 23 & 27 year old daughters, there is no other choice in the offing.
Mind you, we don't have Congress.
Aren't you lucky
I never, in any way, intimated the solution isn't worth addressing. I merely declared that no one currently has a viable solution. And by incessantly pointing out current problems and indicating those in power responsible for those problems somebody may be stimulated to formulate a productive approach. Libby is constantly stimulating people to think and that is a very constructive initiative. Perhaps the Greens will evolve into something useful but, at the moment, they are not just powerless, they hardly exist. The good work Libby is doing is to discard the impossible and deep understanding of those currently in power permits one to discard the idiocy of expecting Obama to suddenly emerge as Superman and to understand that he is not discarded because he is black or impossibly opposed by the maniac Republicans but that he is not the solution, he is the problem. That is a most important first step.
Jan,
My disagreement with Libby's approach isn't about her posts. In this example, it's about dismissing the question of why the differences in consequences of having each party in power matter. We are being told in essence that the aforementioned reduction in food stamps isn't worth considering. Why not?
It's perfectly fine to think that the Lesser Evils case is wrong, but it is not perfectly fine to assert that as a given. I don't find it that obvious and I'm far from stupid.
If you want to expand your base (or if she wants to expand hers), you can't merely assert your case. You have to make it.
My disagreement with Libby's approach isn't about her posts. In this example, it's about dismissing the question of why the differences in consequences of having each party in power matter. We are being told in essence that the aforementioned reduction in food stamps isn't worth considering. Why not?
It's perfectly fine to think that the Lesser Evils case is wrong, but it is not perfectly fine to assert that as a given. I don't find it that obvious and I'm far from stupid.
If you want to expand your base (or if she wants to expand hers), you can't merely assert your case. You have to make it.
I don't care if she makes the case here. This post isn't about this issue. My point isn't ultimately about this example but this approach. Answer the stupid questions because leaving them unaddressed harms your case.
I appreciate this exchange. It is an important and signficiant dialogue. There is much to be said for passionate rants from the heart and soul, and also something to be said for carefully considering how best to reach out to others and engage those who disagree. [r}
To examine Libby's posts with its clear documentation and remain shouting that the lesser evil is worthy is to be totally unobservant of reality. What she has demonstrated over and over again is that Obama is absolutely not the lesser evil but merely a smoother and tastier version of the evil characterized as the worst. The only sensible conclusion about he two candidates in the last election is that there was no choice between the two. The nation has lost hugely in choosing either one and alternate agendas are demanded to stop the steep decline of everything worthy in the country. What that alternate solution may be I cannot say but to sit back and accept the election results is a major defeat under any circumstances. The search must be intense to find that alternate and that is my point.
Mark, I agree that the chessboard is on the floor and that it is way late in the "game" or rather, there is a new game, of fascism via propagandized manipulation and government mendacity.
But I appreciate this opportunity encouraged by kosh to determine where he and some other open saloners really stand on the Obama administration and how best to communicate effectively and with good will on this forum. I hit the wall last week in terms of exhaustion and frustration and weariness in my blogging crusade.
I am mindful that the mainstream media is such an overwhelming influence on the consciousness of -- the information given to -- Americans including me and my fellow open saloners that if we don't gird ourselves against the dangerous tendency thanks to corporate-filtering of reframing of events and disclosures and even worse the omission of info on profound US covert acts and enabling of criminality!
best, libby
But I appreciate this opportunity encouraged by kosh to determine where he and some other open saloners really stand on the Obama administration and how best to communicate effectively and with good will on this forum. I hit the wall last week in terms of exhaustion and frustration and weariness in my blogging crusade.
I am mindful that the mainstream media is such an overwhelming influence on the consciousness of -- the information given to -- Americans including me and my fellow open saloners that if we don't gird ourselves against the dangerous tendency thanks to corporate-filtering of reframing of events and disclosures and even worse the omission of info on profound US covert acts and enabling of criminality!
best, libby
Thoth! So great to see you again. Thanks for dropping by!
best, libby
best, libby
i worked really hard on getting Elizabeth Warren elected While working for a rape crisis center.
Seer,
I do appreciate what you and kosh and some others are saying and I think the last two blogs and threads may have shrunk the chip I write with on my shoulder, no argument.
I don't want to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, though, in modulating my tone to be more comfortable to readers. The urgency and necessity I feel to rally us all as citizens over what is happening in this country matters. I turn over blogs quickly and earnestly and not delicately and fine tuned at times. There is so much happening and most of it not so good from my sources.
If I have a cudgel it is made up of the real facts of what crimes are going down ... and I am trying to compete with a mainstream media that is spinning cover ups. I think that causes my escalated tone and desperate and heavy handed pleading i see it more as than cudgeling of people who are getting different information.
Feminine vs. masculine voicing. I will have to think about the attribute of me being masculine. Especially in sharing emotion about the amorality. That is not masculine.
Granted "anger" is far more comfortable in our society coming from men. "Sadness" from women more okay than from men, and that has been conditioned into all of us despite progress.
So, sometimes I wonder if my "anger" here and resistance to it by some has something to do with some degree of covert chauvinism. Just a consideration not an indictment.
Thanks for the feedback.
best, libby
I do appreciate what you and kosh and some others are saying and I think the last two blogs and threads may have shrunk the chip I write with on my shoulder, no argument.
I don't want to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, though, in modulating my tone to be more comfortable to readers. The urgency and necessity I feel to rally us all as citizens over what is happening in this country matters. I turn over blogs quickly and earnestly and not delicately and fine tuned at times. There is so much happening and most of it not so good from my sources.
If I have a cudgel it is made up of the real facts of what crimes are going down ... and I am trying to compete with a mainstream media that is spinning cover ups. I think that causes my escalated tone and desperate and heavy handed pleading i see it more as than cudgeling of people who are getting different information.
Feminine vs. masculine voicing. I will have to think about the attribute of me being masculine. Especially in sharing emotion about the amorality. That is not masculine.
Granted "anger" is far more comfortable in our society coming from men. "Sadness" from women more okay than from men, and that has been conditioned into all of us despite progress.
So, sometimes I wonder if my "anger" here and resistance to it by some has something to do with some degree of covert chauvinism. Just a consideration not an indictment.
Thanks for the feedback.
best, libby
Jan, you write and express it all so well:
"The corporate and financial overlords have their gloves off and are openly bashing the rest of the world to make war against each other and to become wage slaves at incomes down to the lowest possible survival levels.
"The economic bullshit about balancing the budget on the lowest incomes and permitting the superpowerful to vandalize the world to fill their pockets is quite clear. They have swept away most of the gains made to decent government out of the FDR era and it is clear that Europe is in the same struggle to lower Western wage levels to that of the lowest levels found in Asia so that the corporations can compete and gain maximum profits. "
and ...
"Obama is right in there chopping democracy into bits ..."
Thank you for sharing your eloquence and astuteness once again.
best, libby
"The corporate and financial overlords have their gloves off and are openly bashing the rest of the world to make war against each other and to become wage slaves at incomes down to the lowest possible survival levels.
"The economic bullshit about balancing the budget on the lowest incomes and permitting the superpowerful to vandalize the world to fill their pockets is quite clear. They have swept away most of the gains made to decent government out of the FDR era and it is clear that Europe is in the same struggle to lower Western wage levels to that of the lowest levels found in Asia so that the corporations can compete and gain maximum profits. "
and ...
"Obama is right in there chopping democracy into bits ..."
Thank you for sharing your eloquence and astuteness once again.
best, libby
Art!
"I just stopped bye to say Hi. I reading.
If Jan Sand and Libby go bowling, huh?
Try to NO DROP BALL on your pinky.
Juggle duckpins, chainsaw, and apples.
Kick drones out of matriarchal apiary."
Last two lines a formidable agenda.
best, libby
matriarchal not patriarchal apiary?
"I just stopped bye to say Hi. I reading.
If Jan Sand and Libby go bowling, huh?
Try to NO DROP BALL on your pinky.
Juggle duckpins, chainsaw, and apples.
Kick drones out of matriarchal apiary."
Last two lines a formidable agenda.
best, libby
matriarchal not patriarchal apiary?
to be continued! thanks for patience! best, libby
Libby,
What hive have you ever known to be run by a King Bee?
What hive have you ever known to be run by a King Bee?
`
I running some Farmer errands after this.
Where does a Drone Bee Pee? BP gas stop.
No persecute a Honey Queen Bumble Bees.
Bumble Bees Pollinate Blueberry Bell Bloom.
CEO drones get kicked-out of Apiary. Indolent.
HOARDERS (CEO's) get born again as Skunks.
Pollen is male sperm. Nasa hair traps Pollen.
No plucks Nose Hair. Let Hair Grow Long.
Curl Nasal Hairs until You Got a Mustache.
Drones (human) feed off yellow corn-dung.
Chickens scratch through ding pile for corn.
Fools who Hoard and No Share get Surprise.
Plato has Interesting Afterlife Though-Ideas.
There is No Cure For Life. Pass Gas and Pee.
King poop. Queen poop. People poop. Stink.
No defile the Inner Life. Gain Riches. O! my,
and Lose Inner-Essence. No sell Soul. Soup?
I believe in the Guidance. No sell out. Love.
Share
No Hoard.
No Sell Out.
On and On.
`
Excuse me.
I take leak.
Get Tattoo.
`
Get Henna Tattoo.
Die Nose Hair Red.
Curl as a Red Worm.
Get Nose Caterpillar.
Poop is Normal Too.
`
Scientist insist this:
`
Call dung fecal matter.
They say poop infantile.
CEO's got poop pants.
I running some Farmer errands after this.
Where does a Drone Bee Pee? BP gas stop.
No persecute a Honey Queen Bumble Bees.
Bumble Bees Pollinate Blueberry Bell Bloom.
CEO drones get kicked-out of Apiary. Indolent.
HOARDERS (CEO's) get born again as Skunks.
Pollen is male sperm. Nasa hair traps Pollen.
No plucks Nose Hair. Let Hair Grow Long.
Curl Nasal Hairs until You Got a Mustache.
Drones (human) feed off yellow corn-dung.
Chickens scratch through ding pile for corn.
Fools who Hoard and No Share get Surprise.
Plato has Interesting Afterlife Though-Ideas.
There is No Cure For Life. Pass Gas and Pee.
King poop. Queen poop. People poop. Stink.
No defile the Inner Life. Gain Riches. O! my,
and Lose Inner-Essence. No sell Soul. Soup?
I believe in the Guidance. No sell out. Love.
Share
No Hoard.
No Sell Out.
On and On.
`
Excuse me.
I take leak.
Get Tattoo.
`
Get Henna Tattoo.
Die Nose Hair Red.
Curl as a Red Worm.
Get Nose Caterpillar.
Poop is Normal Too.
`
Scientist insist this:
`
Call dung fecal matter.
They say poop infantile.
CEO's got poop pants.
In general I find the bandwagons people jump on condemning working class bloggers or commentators for being extremely angry and strident about the dire political/economic mess we find ourselves in. If there is a politically correct means of expressing such views, it's clear no one has found it yet - or they would have already built the kind of movement we all talk about. So long as people don't engage in verbal abuse (I feel those blogs and comments should be deleted), the sky's the limit as far as I'm concerned.
When I was younger, I and many working class friends were frequently told we were too strident or our opinions weren't "modulated" enough. I always saw this as a typical middle class one-upmanship game. In my mind it makes no sense for middle class activists to engage the working class in this way - assuming they really are trying to organize a movement, that is. Pretty hard to put on a movement without working class participation.
When I was younger, I and many working class friends were frequently told we were too strident or our opinions weren't "modulated" enough. I always saw this as a typical middle class one-upmanship game. In my mind it makes no sense for middle class activists to engage the working class in this way - assuming they really are trying to organize a movement, that is. Pretty hard to put on a movement without working class participation.
This isn't about class. This isn't even about modulation.
Maybe the original Rant post was, but this one is not. My contributions, and I'm who's being answered here, are mainly about the necessity of addressing questions, even if they seem obvious, and about paying attention to the How as opposed to just the What.
I am not suggesting that Libby tone it down.
Maybe the original Rant post was, but this one is not. My contributions, and I'm who's being answered here, are mainly about the necessity of addressing questions, even if they seem obvious, and about paying attention to the How as opposed to just the What.
I am not suggesting that Libby tone it down.
I get what you're saying about a woman's "voice." I'm cursed with being small and my voice is so young and sweet that sometimes phone solicitors still ask to talk to my mom. I have to be very direct to get people to take me seriously, it made selling real estate (in 5" heels and serious eyeglasses) a challenge. Sometimes men have told me I shouldn't worry my "pretty little head" over important things, it's maddening. Not all men are that silly but the foolish ones self-identify so I don't have to waste serious conversation on them. I can chatter about my earrings, nail polish color or otherwise amuse myself conversing with men like that.
The cronyism will remain until enough who imagine they're safe lose everything. For years I've talked to people who had comfortable lives, they weren't outraged because they benefitted from our system, or they imagined the bad things couldn't happen to them. It's easy to be pragmatic when you still have food, it's a lot harder when you're hungry. When you've lost your job, your home and can't afford food or gas suddenly you begin to emote.
Some people become quite angry when they lose everything. Some get angry when they see someone close to them lose everything. Some get angry when they see a stranger lose everything. I'm one of the latter but I've had so many hardships that I've learned it's just part of life. I have been homeless with a child, I have been hungry, I have worked two jobs and existed on just a couple of hours of sleep for years. If you're strong, you survive, if not, you die. Not everyone understands what it takes to survive on an experiential level, those are just concepts they imagine they understand. Many will have to personally experience great suffering before they're outraged.
My son-in-law had a harsh childhood, it took tremendous effort to lift himself up. He's very cautious and always has been, he guards himself and his family against any possible crisis. He has a great job but understands danger on a different level than his peers, he views them as foolish and short-sighted. He will be one that doesn't wind up wiped out while many of his friends will lose everything, just like me with my friends. A large part of our population is still fairly clueless (emotionally and mentally). They grew up well fed and secure, if they still have a paycheck, then they imagine they're safe as they've always been safe. Perhaps they're a bit more thick-skinned than others, who knows, but even cows roll their eyes and bawl when the cow next to them gets slaughtered and they smell the blood.
Things are not going to get better organically, either people will push legislators hard, or it will continue to get worse. All the nonsense spewed out by experts, media and other bobble-heads is just nonsense. Programs will continue to fail, businesses will continue to fail and people here will start to die from preventable things. Probably the elderly first, as well as those with disabilities and no family to help them. People suffer, and people die. I am a pragmatist, like the President I accept that Americans will die needlessly. Unlike him, I have zero power to change it, instead I steel myself against the inevitable. I hope while you continue to speak out, you begin to steel yourself for what could soon come. It will be hard for those who are very empathetic to watch so much suffering as things worsen.
I don't view you as not being pragmatic, I just see you as having a different style and style is meaningless window dressing to me. More than once I have been called a pragmatic idealist, whatever that means. Anyway, I pay attention to substance. Speaking pragmatically or passionately will not change anything, action from the masses will change things. They are still chewing their cuds and gazing at the pasture waiting for legislators or CEO's to toss out bales of hay. Perhaps they are hoping they'll get alfalfa and sweet-feed like in the past but they'll stay behind their fences to eat the hay if it means they don't have to do much to get it. More and more the populace reminds me of our cattle on the farm, the sheep were not so stupid and easy to herd.
I'm watching many friends I warned (who wouldn't listen) lose everything. They voted for the President and then waited for him to fix everything while they made no changes or put forth no further effort. One can no longer afford her medications and has a chronic illness, it's heartbreaking to see the suffering and fear. There's nothing I can do for them but pray. Being a survivor made me pragmatic, if I die I die, if a friend dies, they die. All I can do is my best so I'm not wondering if I could have done more, I could not make people take action, they were hoping for change instead of taking action to make change occur. I am hanging onto a house I don't want or need because it's a tangible security as opposed to "money" or "investments" or other potentially worthless intangibles. I have wisdom in my "pretty little head" and take all warnings seriously.
Jan is right, all hell is going to break loose and the more the MoneyPower tries to suppress it, the worse it will be. As far as the game goes, the only way to win is not to play. I voted for Jill Stein, if there had been more Green Party candidates here I would have voted for them too. I couldn't get anyone else to even look at them. People here still wanted to play the game, they either wanted Romney or Obama. We got what the majority wanted, now we have to survive the powerful and whatever their next power moves are.
I don't concern myself with what others think of me, especially if their standards are lower than mine. I'm not ashamed to say I'm extremely particular and I have very high standards for myself so that's the standard I have to meet. The only person I have to answer to, if she asks why I didn't do anything, is my granddaughter. I am content with what I will answer.
You are an impressive woman and it takes a lot to impress me, I also have great affection for you. You have very high standards and you're doing your best. It shows. When the inevitable happens, you need to know that you were doing all you could. Peace and love to you.
The cronyism will remain until enough who imagine they're safe lose everything. For years I've talked to people who had comfortable lives, they weren't outraged because they benefitted from our system, or they imagined the bad things couldn't happen to them. It's easy to be pragmatic when you still have food, it's a lot harder when you're hungry. When you've lost your job, your home and can't afford food or gas suddenly you begin to emote.
Some people become quite angry when they lose everything. Some get angry when they see someone close to them lose everything. Some get angry when they see a stranger lose everything. I'm one of the latter but I've had so many hardships that I've learned it's just part of life. I have been homeless with a child, I have been hungry, I have worked two jobs and existed on just a couple of hours of sleep for years. If you're strong, you survive, if not, you die. Not everyone understands what it takes to survive on an experiential level, those are just concepts they imagine they understand. Many will have to personally experience great suffering before they're outraged.
My son-in-law had a harsh childhood, it took tremendous effort to lift himself up. He's very cautious and always has been, he guards himself and his family against any possible crisis. He has a great job but understands danger on a different level than his peers, he views them as foolish and short-sighted. He will be one that doesn't wind up wiped out while many of his friends will lose everything, just like me with my friends. A large part of our population is still fairly clueless (emotionally and mentally). They grew up well fed and secure, if they still have a paycheck, then they imagine they're safe as they've always been safe. Perhaps they're a bit more thick-skinned than others, who knows, but even cows roll their eyes and bawl when the cow next to them gets slaughtered and they smell the blood.
Things are not going to get better organically, either people will push legislators hard, or it will continue to get worse. All the nonsense spewed out by experts, media and other bobble-heads is just nonsense. Programs will continue to fail, businesses will continue to fail and people here will start to die from preventable things. Probably the elderly first, as well as those with disabilities and no family to help them. People suffer, and people die. I am a pragmatist, like the President I accept that Americans will die needlessly. Unlike him, I have zero power to change it, instead I steel myself against the inevitable. I hope while you continue to speak out, you begin to steel yourself for what could soon come. It will be hard for those who are very empathetic to watch so much suffering as things worsen.
I don't view you as not being pragmatic, I just see you as having a different style and style is meaningless window dressing to me. More than once I have been called a pragmatic idealist, whatever that means. Anyway, I pay attention to substance. Speaking pragmatically or passionately will not change anything, action from the masses will change things. They are still chewing their cuds and gazing at the pasture waiting for legislators or CEO's to toss out bales of hay. Perhaps they are hoping they'll get alfalfa and sweet-feed like in the past but they'll stay behind their fences to eat the hay if it means they don't have to do much to get it. More and more the populace reminds me of our cattle on the farm, the sheep were not so stupid and easy to herd.
I'm watching many friends I warned (who wouldn't listen) lose everything. They voted for the President and then waited for him to fix everything while they made no changes or put forth no further effort. One can no longer afford her medications and has a chronic illness, it's heartbreaking to see the suffering and fear. There's nothing I can do for them but pray. Being a survivor made me pragmatic, if I die I die, if a friend dies, they die. All I can do is my best so I'm not wondering if I could have done more, I could not make people take action, they were hoping for change instead of taking action to make change occur. I am hanging onto a house I don't want or need because it's a tangible security as opposed to "money" or "investments" or other potentially worthless intangibles. I have wisdom in my "pretty little head" and take all warnings seriously.
Jan is right, all hell is going to break loose and the more the MoneyPower tries to suppress it, the worse it will be. As far as the game goes, the only way to win is not to play. I voted for Jill Stein, if there had been more Green Party candidates here I would have voted for them too. I couldn't get anyone else to even look at them. People here still wanted to play the game, they either wanted Romney or Obama. We got what the majority wanted, now we have to survive the powerful and whatever their next power moves are.
I don't concern myself with what others think of me, especially if their standards are lower than mine. I'm not ashamed to say I'm extremely particular and I have very high standards for myself so that's the standard I have to meet. The only person I have to answer to, if she asks why I didn't do anything, is my granddaughter. I am content with what I will answer.
You are an impressive woman and it takes a lot to impress me, I also have great affection for you. You have very high standards and you're doing your best. It shows. When the inevitable happens, you need to know that you were doing all you could. Peace and love to you.
I have seen about seven people on this site who really are able to experience truth with minimal bias and subconscious motive to understand the depth of moral crisis in the world today. It is real and it is unprecedented in size and scope. Never has evil had such a grip on nearly all of humanity. Never in human history. Ever. Everyone else seems driven by rationalizations, self-interested motives, ideology and illusions they dream up in their minds.
It's not that those who don't see are stupid. Although many certainly act the part. All of these mechanisms that keep people from recognizing reality are driven by the ego's subconscious and conscious fear. What will happen to me if I am successful today and this system fails - I can't imagine so much change because it's too overwhelming to my subconscious hides the truth from me - If corporate capitalism fails, how will I survive or what will happen to my riches acquired under this system - I don't confidence in myself to take responsibility even though I see how corrupt this system is so instead I place my trust and decision-making in the hands of politicians and corporate capitalists and on and on and on.
Most of our delusions are driven by the subconscious. We aren't born self-aware and mindful and with internal discovery as an intent. We make ourselves that way. Often because of our own failures. Enlightenment is a violent and invasive process.
Everyone wants to know what to do to dissent against this system or bring meaningful change. Has anyone considered that the best course of action is to do nothing beyond trying to simply lead a life based on a morality you are comfortable with?
This system of control is wildly complex. There are literally trillions and trillions of moving parts. Never before in the history of humanity have we ever seen something so complex yet built on so many inherent contradictions and instabilities. There is absolutely no way a small number of people around the world can stabilize or control it. This type of complex system is not consistent with the laws of nature. Not only that but nature hates control. And, in fact, nature will collapse any complex system that is based on control. Nature loves simplicity and creates decentralized, uncontrollable ecosystems. Control of a system this complex attempts to defeat the universe's laws of entropy or ever-expanding disorder and chaos. And one must consider this indeed is a natural system. There is no doubt about that. It was created and it evolved no differently than any other natural ecosystem or organism on this planet. This system is so inherently unstable that greater and greater control must be exerted to stabilize it. But, the universe will not sit idly by as that happens. The universe is dis-assembling or destroying this system of control as we speak. The endless chaos and volatility we see around the world today is, in fact, this system in the early stages of failure. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it. Does anyone really think Barack Obama or politicians or corporate capitalists can manage a system with trillions of moving parts? They are just making it worse rather than embracing chaos as a normal and expected law of nature. The only thing we can do is lean into the change and embrace it. Because no one can control it.
It is not democracy or freedom that is in crisis. True democracy and freedom is not a control system. It is consistent with the natural laws or natural rights of the universe. It is institutions of the ego that are in crisis and in various stages of failure. That is, politics, corporate capitalism, the military-industrial complex, money, etc. These are systems of control with massive inherent instabilities and contradictions.
This global system is going to fail and we don't need to do anything. Just like communism failed. It too was a complex, natural system with massive inherent instabilities and contradictions.
Grab your popcorn and a lawn chair. Sit back and watch the fireworks. We are experiencing what may be the greatest change/crisis since the advent of human society. These are end times. Maybe not in the way some would expect but no less powerful.
It's not that those who don't see are stupid. Although many certainly act the part. All of these mechanisms that keep people from recognizing reality are driven by the ego's subconscious and conscious fear. What will happen to me if I am successful today and this system fails - I can't imagine so much change because it's too overwhelming to my subconscious hides the truth from me - If corporate capitalism fails, how will I survive or what will happen to my riches acquired under this system - I don't confidence in myself to take responsibility even though I see how corrupt this system is so instead I place my trust and decision-making in the hands of politicians and corporate capitalists and on and on and on.
Most of our delusions are driven by the subconscious. We aren't born self-aware and mindful and with internal discovery as an intent. We make ourselves that way. Often because of our own failures. Enlightenment is a violent and invasive process.
Everyone wants to know what to do to dissent against this system or bring meaningful change. Has anyone considered that the best course of action is to do nothing beyond trying to simply lead a life based on a morality you are comfortable with?
This system of control is wildly complex. There are literally trillions and trillions of moving parts. Never before in the history of humanity have we ever seen something so complex yet built on so many inherent contradictions and instabilities. There is absolutely no way a small number of people around the world can stabilize or control it. This type of complex system is not consistent with the laws of nature. Not only that but nature hates control. And, in fact, nature will collapse any complex system that is based on control. Nature loves simplicity and creates decentralized, uncontrollable ecosystems. Control of a system this complex attempts to defeat the universe's laws of entropy or ever-expanding disorder and chaos. And one must consider this indeed is a natural system. There is no doubt about that. It was created and it evolved no differently than any other natural ecosystem or organism on this planet. This system is so inherently unstable that greater and greater control must be exerted to stabilize it. But, the universe will not sit idly by as that happens. The universe is dis-assembling or destroying this system of control as we speak. The endless chaos and volatility we see around the world today is, in fact, this system in the early stages of failure. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it. Does anyone really think Barack Obama or politicians or corporate capitalists can manage a system with trillions of moving parts? They are just making it worse rather than embracing chaos as a normal and expected law of nature. The only thing we can do is lean into the change and embrace it. Because no one can control it.
It is not democracy or freedom that is in crisis. True democracy and freedom is not a control system. It is consistent with the natural laws or natural rights of the universe. It is institutions of the ego that are in crisis and in various stages of failure. That is, politics, corporate capitalism, the military-industrial complex, money, etc. These are systems of control with massive inherent instabilities and contradictions.
This global system is going to fail and we don't need to do anything. Just like communism failed. It too was a complex, natural system with massive inherent instabilities and contradictions.
Grab your popcorn and a lawn chair. Sit back and watch the fireworks. We are experiencing what may be the greatest change/crisis since the advent of human society. These are end times. Maybe not in the way some would expect but no less powerful.
TL,
So it's too complex to do anything about? That's sort of fatalistic.
Sure it has a lot of moving parts. However, we might do considerably better if we paid attention to the big obvious ones, and the trouble is that we aren't.
Right now, it's like being on Easter Island before almost everyone left. You know, that island with all the huge stone heads staring out to sea? They used to have enough people to move those things, but the population kept using the island's resources without conserving them or replacing them fast enough, and it eventually couldn't support that number of people any more, so they left.
That's happening now both literally and metaphorically. Literally, in terms of environmental factors; metaphorically, in terms of financial factors. The wealthiest are destroying the markets, and when there are no markets left, there will be no point to production. At that point, the system will have to reboot itself. Even without the environmental issues, the reboot will be awful.
Can we avert the reboot? Good question. I may agree with you in that I don't see how. I know what it would take but I don't know politically how to get there. I don't know how to reach whom.
Can we slow down the reboot? Fighting for Democrats at a local level will accomplish this more than fighting for Greens will for the simple reason that Democrats can stop Republicans while Greens can't, and Republicans are Reboot Accelerators. However, as of late, Democrats have been far worse than they used to be at reversing course toward the Reboot, most conspicuously our President, who won't stop being supportive to Private Sector Reboot Accelerators no matter how much they contribute toward bringing us to the Reboot. Or even contributing to his political opponents.
Not that the Private Sector Reboot Accelerators will profit from the Reboot. It will probably kill them. The fact that they're rich doesn't mean they aren't terminally stupid.
So it's too complex to do anything about? That's sort of fatalistic.
Sure it has a lot of moving parts. However, we might do considerably better if we paid attention to the big obvious ones, and the trouble is that we aren't.
Right now, it's like being on Easter Island before almost everyone left. You know, that island with all the huge stone heads staring out to sea? They used to have enough people to move those things, but the population kept using the island's resources without conserving them or replacing them fast enough, and it eventually couldn't support that number of people any more, so they left.
That's happening now both literally and metaphorically. Literally, in terms of environmental factors; metaphorically, in terms of financial factors. The wealthiest are destroying the markets, and when there are no markets left, there will be no point to production. At that point, the system will have to reboot itself. Even without the environmental issues, the reboot will be awful.
Can we avert the reboot? Good question. I may agree with you in that I don't see how. I know what it would take but I don't know politically how to get there. I don't know how to reach whom.
Can we slow down the reboot? Fighting for Democrats at a local level will accomplish this more than fighting for Greens will for the simple reason that Democrats can stop Republicans while Greens can't, and Republicans are Reboot Accelerators. However, as of late, Democrats have been far worse than they used to be at reversing course toward the Reboot, most conspicuously our President, who won't stop being supportive to Private Sector Reboot Accelerators no matter how much they contribute toward bringing us to the Reboot. Or even contributing to his political opponents.
Not that the Private Sector Reboot Accelerators will profit from the Reboot. It will probably kill them. The fact that they're rich doesn't mean they aren't terminally stupid.
Were the Soviets fatalistic? There is nothing anyone can do. The status quo could lean into change but that would mean they would lose the hard-fought control they currently have. And that means many of the institutions they control would fail. Just like the Soviet elites who were at a loss because saving that system of instabilities and contradictions would have meant collapse of the entire Soviet bureaucracy and production system.
The system is so unstable and there are so many unintended consequences with so many moving parts, that for every intended action, there are massive unintended consequences. You can't control something this complex. You can't even imagine you can control it. Well, unless you are a megalomaniac.
By the way, humanity did not cause the decline of Easter Island. That's an urban myth. Anthropologists recognize very clearly and scientifically it was the rats.
The system is so unstable and there are so many unintended consequences with so many moving parts, that for every intended action, there are massive unintended consequences. You can't control something this complex. You can't even imagine you can control it. Well, unless you are a megalomaniac.
By the way, humanity did not cause the decline of Easter Island. That's an urban myth. Anthropologists recognize very clearly and scientifically it was the rats.
kosh still labors under the delusion that democrats are his friends, even after sh*tting all over the country for the last 4+ years.
Prolly spending too much time comforting manly dick.
Prolly spending too much time comforting manly dick.
`
It is Popcorn and Root-Beer Monday
Ah! Great eve to sit in beach lawn-chair.
Patch old chair with black electrical tape.
Watch moon with rose rimmed sun shades.
Moonbeams make folk King or Queen idiots.
We're just riding upon a sea wave that crashes.
It is Popcorn and Root-Beer Monday
Ah! Great eve to sit in beach lawn-chair.
Patch old chair with black electrical tape.
Watch moon with rose rimmed sun shades.
Moonbeams make folk King or Queen idiots.
We're just riding upon a sea wave that crashes.
MIJ:
1. Not all Democrats are Obama. Some are better than others.
2. What I said about Democrats is that they're more capable of slowing down Republicans than the Greens are, which is true, not that they're remotely as useful as the Greens if the Greens could actually reach power.
3. Guilt by association is nothing but a cheap shot. The fact that I agree with someone sometimes doesn't mean I get my opinions from him. When it comes to Obama, I've seen you agree with Arthur Louis, but that doesn't mean you get your opinions from him, does it? As I've said earlier, I don't get my opinions from my friends. I'm somewhat friendly with Herr Rudolphus der Rude, though we actually agree on very little. In terms of Obama, his opinion is actually pretty close to yours.
1. Not all Democrats are Obama. Some are better than others.
2. What I said about Democrats is that they're more capable of slowing down Republicans than the Greens are, which is true, not that they're remotely as useful as the Greens if the Greens could actually reach power.
3. Guilt by association is nothing but a cheap shot. The fact that I agree with someone sometimes doesn't mean I get my opinions from him. When it comes to Obama, I've seen you agree with Arthur Louis, but that doesn't mean you get your opinions from him, does it? As I've said earlier, I don't get my opinions from my friends. I'm somewhat friendly with Herr Rudolphus der Rude, though we actually agree on very little. In terms of Obama, his opinion is actually pretty close to yours.
what is the difference between morality, and a conscience? those that talk about "ranting about morality", is this really just a euphemism for consciencelessness? ... and how is that different than consciousless?
Hmm...
Some labor their whole lives through with conscience being their center...while others [as those laboring have noted, throughout history] skate along without so much as an acknowledgement that there is a struggle at all...
Some labor their whole lives through with conscience being their center...while others [as those laboring have noted, throughout history] skate along without so much as an acknowledgement that there is a struggle at all...
If we are supposed to vote for Democrats to stop the Republicans, who is going to stop the Democrats? Frankly, the world created by Democrats is one I am even less comfortable with than the world created by Republicans. Although trying to distinguish between the two wings of the Amerikan fascist party is laughable. It was Bill Clinton and Al Gore who sent tens of millions of jobs out of our country and replaced them with paper-pushing gambling jobs that collapsed our economy. It was Bill Clinton and Al Gore who created the Internet Bubble scheme that gave the appearance of raising taxes and balancing the budget because Wall Street profits exploded through unprecedented fraud and risk shifting of financial schemes onto the back of Americans who then reaped the benefits of a 90% collapse in Nasdag stocks. It was Bill Clinton and Al Gore who "reformed" welfare that then simply shifted impoverished Americans onto Medicaid and Social Security disability. It was Bill Clinton and Al Gore, that, after the collapse of communism, didn't reform the military-industrial complex and push those dollars instead into human investment and democracy so instead created the monster that we now have waging war across the world.
At this point, it may be easier to stop the Democrats from within the party than to replace them. I would go with whatever alternative looks more plausible. My point is that plausibility belongs in the conversation. Not "nothing is possible" but "What is least impossible and why?" Then move in that direction.
I go back to the issue of food stamps (and education) in my state. "Democrats are awful" is not synonymous with "the difference between Democrats and Republicans is qualitatively insignificant and therefore not worth bothering with." (Of course, the focus here appears to be on administrations, not the rank and file.) Where I live, the differences are significant and they matter. Telling me to ignore them is not the same as telling me why we'll be better off If I ignore them. Telling me for the umpteenth time what Obama has done (or even Clinton) doesn't address my question, actually two questions, which are:
1. Why should we ignore observable differences between the parties when those differences have serious consequences?
And
2. What do you suggest that has a higher probability of keeping things from getting worse or of improving things?
Essentially what I'm hearing is:
It's ok for fewer people to get food stamps because I'm disgusted with Democrats.
For poor people who have to eat, that doesn't work. You might have a case but, if so, make it.
If you want to defeat the Lesser Evil case, and you clearly do, you have to talk about the Lesser part, not just the Evil part. You can't just assert that Lesser isn't there - Lesser decides whether some people don't eat, and that's not, excuse the expression under the circumstances, chopped liver.
Ignoring it won't make it go away. Ignoring it will, however, make people dismiss you. If you can't get around that, then your political blogging will be unsuccessful.
You might think the question is stupid but, as I keep telling you: It's important to address the stupid questions.
This reply is not for one person. It addresses a few here.
A last point: I am not telling you that the Lesser Evil case is Right. It may not be.
I am telling you that the Lesser Evil case is unanswered. That is my issue.
I go back to the issue of food stamps (and education) in my state. "Democrats are awful" is not synonymous with "the difference between Democrats and Republicans is qualitatively insignificant and therefore not worth bothering with." (Of course, the focus here appears to be on administrations, not the rank and file.) Where I live, the differences are significant and they matter. Telling me to ignore them is not the same as telling me why we'll be better off If I ignore them. Telling me for the umpteenth time what Obama has done (or even Clinton) doesn't address my question, actually two questions, which are:
1. Why should we ignore observable differences between the parties when those differences have serious consequences?
And
2. What do you suggest that has a higher probability of keeping things from getting worse or of improving things?
Essentially what I'm hearing is:
It's ok for fewer people to get food stamps because I'm disgusted with Democrats.
For poor people who have to eat, that doesn't work. You might have a case but, if so, make it.
If you want to defeat the Lesser Evil case, and you clearly do, you have to talk about the Lesser part, not just the Evil part. You can't just assert that Lesser isn't there - Lesser decides whether some people don't eat, and that's not, excuse the expression under the circumstances, chopped liver.
Ignoring it won't make it go away. Ignoring it will, however, make people dismiss you. If you can't get around that, then your political blogging will be unsuccessful.
You might think the question is stupid but, as I keep telling you: It's important to address the stupid questions.
This reply is not for one person. It addresses a few here.
A last point: I am not telling you that the Lesser Evil case is Right. It may not be.
I am telling you that the Lesser Evil case is unanswered. That is my issue.
HAHAHA. It's funny to listen to people assign thoughts they dream up in their own mind to what others say.
So.... let me just say this with regards to food stamps, welfare, etc. You do realize that the reason so many Americans are reliant on the state is because of the state's usurpations of our economic freedoms? Bill Clinton and Al Gore are usurpers who helped codify the welfare state. So, that Dummycrats support welfare means what? They created and support a system where economic theft has occurred for the benefit of a very few who socialize loss and privatize gains.
Do I think Americans should be denied food stamps? That's preposterous. I think all Americans have a constitutional and natural law right to healthcare, food, shelter, education, economic opportunity, etc. But it is the liberal agenda that has stolen those inalienable rights. And in their wake, they have created a system where literally half of our population is on the government dole in some way or another. They have taken away American's ability to be personally-responsible and accountable for their own future.
Republicans are heinous creatures. Dummycrats? Covertly, and covert behavior is much more sinister, the Dummycrats are even worse. Wake up.
So.... let me just say this with regards to food stamps, welfare, etc. You do realize that the reason so many Americans are reliant on the state is because of the state's usurpations of our economic freedoms? Bill Clinton and Al Gore are usurpers who helped codify the welfare state. So, that Dummycrats support welfare means what? They created and support a system where economic theft has occurred for the benefit of a very few who socialize loss and privatize gains.
Do I think Americans should be denied food stamps? That's preposterous. I think all Americans have a constitutional and natural law right to healthcare, food, shelter, education, economic opportunity, etc. But it is the liberal agenda that has stolen those inalienable rights. And in their wake, they have created a system where literally half of our population is on the government dole in some way or another. They have taken away American's ability to be personally-responsible and accountable for their own future.
Republicans are heinous creatures. Dummycrats? Covertly, and covert behavior is much more sinister, the Dummycrats are even worse. Wake up.
TL,
I suggest you stop laughing and start reading. What I was referring to is on the state level, not the national level, though in some instances, national level works. A few minutes ago, I read a post in which the blogger talks about how the Obamacare elimination of the Preexisting Conditions criterion for coverage has saved his ass as his wife was diagnosed with cancer.
Talking about Dummycrats doesn't address the question of the Lesser part of Lesser Evil. You can pretend it doesn't exist all you want but as long as you do, you'll be considered fringe, not because of what you believe, but because of what you won't address.
The whole point of Libby's Rant Post was to open a dialogue. It's open. I am not telling anyone what to believe, but I am telling people how to keep the dialogue open, which is necessary if you want more people in your corner. Your alternative is to be self-righteous but completely ineffectual, which means you won't have the ability to help anyone.
Sacrificing the ability to help anyone in order to remain self-righteous is not moral.
The only thing screaming about Dummycrats will awaken anyone to is the realization that they don't want to listen to you.
You want to get further? You need to stop avoiding stupid questions from stupid people like me, because there are a lot of us.
I suggest you stop laughing and start reading. What I was referring to is on the state level, not the national level, though in some instances, national level works. A few minutes ago, I read a post in which the blogger talks about how the Obamacare elimination of the Preexisting Conditions criterion for coverage has saved his ass as his wife was diagnosed with cancer.
Talking about Dummycrats doesn't address the question of the Lesser part of Lesser Evil. You can pretend it doesn't exist all you want but as long as you do, you'll be considered fringe, not because of what you believe, but because of what you won't address.
The whole point of Libby's Rant Post was to open a dialogue. It's open. I am not telling anyone what to believe, but I am telling people how to keep the dialogue open, which is necessary if you want more people in your corner. Your alternative is to be self-righteous but completely ineffectual, which means you won't have the ability to help anyone.
Sacrificing the ability to help anyone in order to remain self-righteous is not moral.
The only thing screaming about Dummycrats will awaken anyone to is the realization that they don't want to listen to you.
You want to get further? You need to stop avoiding stupid questions from stupid people like me, because there are a lot of us.
I'll just make one more comment. Then I am finished. You can say whatever you wish to close this out. First off, I have little idea of what you trying to say in your last remark so please forgive me. But, I did understand your jab at my lack of morality. So, let me make a few observations.
If you want to talk about morality and doing what is right, let me share what I observe. You want to bargain with this system. In some ways that you likely aren't consciously aware of, you are invested in this system. You are attached to it. I could go on and on about ego, the unconscious shadow, attachment and the like but let me just say that it is essentially a form of control or, frankly, addiction driven by deeply ingrained and rigid belief system. It is driven exclusively by ego and is the source of all suffering in our physical existence. So, rather than address your attachment to the system, you continue to try to bargain with it. Or, should I say, your ego continues to try to bargain with it because of deeply held beliefs. Yet, this system perpetuates your own suffering and that of all people who have strongly held rigid beliefs that encourage them to try to bargain with it. All you do by bargaining with attachment is perpetuate your own suffering and the suffering of those around you. Is that moral? Not hardly. But, it's really not a question of morality. It's a question of mindfulness, self-awareness and internal discovery. Of awakening to your faulty belief system and trying to bargain with it rather than releasing it and all of its associated suffering.
So, let's talk about morality and helping others. There is no way I can help you or anyone else who is attached to this system. Or, more broadly to any rigidly held belief system. You create your own suffering and misery. And until anyone is willing to shatter their own faulty yet rigidly held belief systems, they will continue to bargain with those beliefs and the system those beliefs are based upon. It really is no different than an alcoholic bargaining with drinking. The ego is addicted to control and its perceptions of reality that create control-based belief systems.
The only moral thing I can do, in observing this dynamic, is to let you, through your own awakening, take responsibility for your addiction or attachment. There is no way anyone can help anyone else in that journey. You are going to do whatever you are going to do until some external event or force or crisis is able to finally allow your ego or your belief system to be shattered. Addicts would call this hitting bottom. It's really a point at which the ego's attachment to a belief system and the continual bargaining with it that creates so much pain and suffering
Only then will you be willing to accept a different reality and recognize you can no longer bargain with this system or your beliefs surrounding this system. This applies to everyone who is in some level of denial of their attachment or addiction that is creating their own suffering under this political and economic system. ie, Those in some varying degree of rationalization, self-interest, ideology and illusions driven by ego-motivated attachment. You can only free yourself by releasing your attachment to your beliefs and to this system. By letting go. By detaching. By releasing the ego and opening yourself to a new reality that is intent upon discovery rather than rigidly held beliefs and bargaining with those beliefs.
The only moral thing I can do, or anyone for that matter, can do, is to let the belief systems of the rationalizers and bargainers to find their own way in their own journey. If bargaining, attachment and related suffering become so great, your attachment and beliefs will crash under the duress of your own suffering that you create for yourself.
Awakening and enlightenment is a violent process. I suspect you won't have to wait too long to recognize how you and others who hold similar rigid ego-motivated beliefs will create enough suffering for yourself and the world around you that you will soon seek a greater truth than that which you currently perceive.
That will be a glorious day for you, me and others. Then I will be able to help you. And you me. And both of us, others. Because your mind will be free and you will openly accept the help and worthiness we all deserve.
Namaste.
If you want to talk about morality and doing what is right, let me share what I observe. You want to bargain with this system. In some ways that you likely aren't consciously aware of, you are invested in this system. You are attached to it. I could go on and on about ego, the unconscious shadow, attachment and the like but let me just say that it is essentially a form of control or, frankly, addiction driven by deeply ingrained and rigid belief system. It is driven exclusively by ego and is the source of all suffering in our physical existence. So, rather than address your attachment to the system, you continue to try to bargain with it. Or, should I say, your ego continues to try to bargain with it because of deeply held beliefs. Yet, this system perpetuates your own suffering and that of all people who have strongly held rigid beliefs that encourage them to try to bargain with it. All you do by bargaining with attachment is perpetuate your own suffering and the suffering of those around you. Is that moral? Not hardly. But, it's really not a question of morality. It's a question of mindfulness, self-awareness and internal discovery. Of awakening to your faulty belief system and trying to bargain with it rather than releasing it and all of its associated suffering.
So, let's talk about morality and helping others. There is no way I can help you or anyone else who is attached to this system. Or, more broadly to any rigidly held belief system. You create your own suffering and misery. And until anyone is willing to shatter their own faulty yet rigidly held belief systems, they will continue to bargain with those beliefs and the system those beliefs are based upon. It really is no different than an alcoholic bargaining with drinking. The ego is addicted to control and its perceptions of reality that create control-based belief systems.
The only moral thing I can do, in observing this dynamic, is to let you, through your own awakening, take responsibility for your addiction or attachment. There is no way anyone can help anyone else in that journey. You are going to do whatever you are going to do until some external event or force or crisis is able to finally allow your ego or your belief system to be shattered. Addicts would call this hitting bottom. It's really a point at which the ego's attachment to a belief system and the continual bargaining with it that creates so much pain and suffering
Only then will you be willing to accept a different reality and recognize you can no longer bargain with this system or your beliefs surrounding this system. This applies to everyone who is in some level of denial of their attachment or addiction that is creating their own suffering under this political and economic system. ie, Those in some varying degree of rationalization, self-interest, ideology and illusions driven by ego-motivated attachment. You can only free yourself by releasing your attachment to your beliefs and to this system. By letting go. By detaching. By releasing the ego and opening yourself to a new reality that is intent upon discovery rather than rigidly held beliefs and bargaining with those beliefs.
The only moral thing I can do, or anyone for that matter, can do, is to let the belief systems of the rationalizers and bargainers to find their own way in their own journey. If bargaining, attachment and related suffering become so great, your attachment and beliefs will crash under the duress of your own suffering that you create for yourself.
Awakening and enlightenment is a violent process. I suspect you won't have to wait too long to recognize how you and others who hold similar rigid ego-motivated beliefs will create enough suffering for yourself and the world around you that you will soon seek a greater truth than that which you currently perceive.
That will be a glorious day for you, me and others. Then I will be able to help you. And you me. And both of us, others. Because your mind will be free and you will openly accept the help and worthiness we all deserve.
Namaste.
TL,
Then give me the beginnings of a realistic formula for going around this system or even eliminating it altogether. If voting Democratic buys me something, even minor, while the alternative buys me nothing, that doesn't mean I'm vested in the system; it just means I'm working with the tools I have. I have no objection to concurrently working toward a more comprehensive solution. So present one. I know what you think is illogical but I don't know what you think is logical. Suggest something. I'm asking, over and over, why anyone thinks the probability of success of replacing the Democrats is higher than that of influencing them, perhaps by offering more Greenlike candidates. I don't know. What I do know is that I can't find a case, just a series of assertions that don't make a case. Somebody please make a case that consists of something other than a laundry list.
Then give me the beginnings of a realistic formula for going around this system or even eliminating it altogether. If voting Democratic buys me something, even minor, while the alternative buys me nothing, that doesn't mean I'm vested in the system; it just means I'm working with the tools I have. I have no objection to concurrently working toward a more comprehensive solution. So present one. I know what you think is illogical but I don't know what you think is logical. Suggest something. I'm asking, over and over, why anyone thinks the probability of success of replacing the Democrats is higher than that of influencing them, perhaps by offering more Greenlike candidates. I don't know. What I do know is that I can't find a case, just a series of assertions that don't make a case. Somebody please make a case that consists of something other than a laundry list.
Seer, you ask,
"Jan, once the bashing is done, who will be left standing?
"And will there be anything left to stand for?"
This is a really good question. Judging from the lack of critical mass of those of us protesting the criminality of the Obama administration there is no strong rallying of the left. Lesser evilism perspective clearly still prevails.
But I believe in as in the 12 step meeting that we have to start with AWARENESS, facing down the scope of the reality of corruption, how morally unmanageable our country is. The white collar and foreign criminality not just of Obama and his executive branch but of the other two branches as well as a mainstream media that protects and defends crony capitalists, even on murderous decisions whether overseas or now domestically by homeland security type questionable extrajudicial killings or defends them for the slower economic induced murderousness.
One of the reasons I saw the Green Party as an oasis for integrity was that it followed the law with campaigning and was integrated into the election process and it had policies that were attentive to the common good and the public trust, the stuff that is in the oaths the corporate-captured politicians take upon launching their supposedly sacred trust careers and then they get seduced and slip down the slope of lobby money and bribed-ness.
So many citizens are too cynical or too trusting or too dispirited or too distracted to be proactive against the rampant corruption and presumptuous mis-use of our tax dollars and our public institutions and our laws.
The Democratic Party repairing itself from within? Who is going to do that among the cronies? They seem to rally together for impression management not for serious swamp emptying.
As too big to fail corporations become global mega-conglomerates and still influence our national and state governments, the gated community of the global wealthy noe pre-empts any national loyalty to the welfare of the US community at all levels. I'm thinking we all better start fighting for each other as Americans and the rest of the world's 99% since the 1% has globally rallied to screw all of us.
The 1% exploit our national patriotism for corporate profiteering -- that seems to be the MO of the oligarchs. Those not in the gated community are irrelevant cannon fodder.
It is heartbreaking and demoralizing to have the progressive camps so divided. I worked for years for Dem candidates. But the Democratic Party leadership has jumped the shark and lost my trust and respect. And it needs to be fought and stopped as much as the Republican Party leadership. I see the union leadership so corrupted by cronyism they have stabbed the backs of the union members, of the working class.
best, libby
"Jan, once the bashing is done, who will be left standing?
"And will there be anything left to stand for?"
This is a really good question. Judging from the lack of critical mass of those of us protesting the criminality of the Obama administration there is no strong rallying of the left. Lesser evilism perspective clearly still prevails.
But I believe in as in the 12 step meeting that we have to start with AWARENESS, facing down the scope of the reality of corruption, how morally unmanageable our country is. The white collar and foreign criminality not just of Obama and his executive branch but of the other two branches as well as a mainstream media that protects and defends crony capitalists, even on murderous decisions whether overseas or now domestically by homeland security type questionable extrajudicial killings or defends them for the slower economic induced murderousness.
One of the reasons I saw the Green Party as an oasis for integrity was that it followed the law with campaigning and was integrated into the election process and it had policies that were attentive to the common good and the public trust, the stuff that is in the oaths the corporate-captured politicians take upon launching their supposedly sacred trust careers and then they get seduced and slip down the slope of lobby money and bribed-ness.
So many citizens are too cynical or too trusting or too dispirited or too distracted to be proactive against the rampant corruption and presumptuous mis-use of our tax dollars and our public institutions and our laws.
The Democratic Party repairing itself from within? Who is going to do that among the cronies? They seem to rally together for impression management not for serious swamp emptying.
As too big to fail corporations become global mega-conglomerates and still influence our national and state governments, the gated community of the global wealthy noe pre-empts any national loyalty to the welfare of the US community at all levels. I'm thinking we all better start fighting for each other as Americans and the rest of the world's 99% since the 1% has globally rallied to screw all of us.
The 1% exploit our national patriotism for corporate profiteering -- that seems to be the MO of the oligarchs. Those not in the gated community are irrelevant cannon fodder.
It is heartbreaking and demoralizing to have the progressive camps so divided. I worked for years for Dem candidates. But the Democratic Party leadership has jumped the shark and lost my trust and respect. And it needs to be fought and stopped as much as the Republican Party leadership. I see the union leadership so corrupted by cronyism they have stabbed the backs of the union members, of the working class.
best, libby
jonathan, thanks for coming by. I really appreciate this sentiment:
"I find, btw, passion attractive too, in men and in women. It's why my new book's got that work in its title: passion and rationality are in equal parts required for any change that lasts."
Congrats on your book! Again, appreciate that sentiment!
I am sorry for the animosity and wounding that happens over the issues and debating over the issues within our website and outside it. I have participated at times in that MO and will probably slip into it again, but will try harder not to.
It is dangerous when we reduce those -- especially individuals -- who don't think or feel like us or we can't identify with to a slotted and negative caricature, especially happening when we feel they have done this to us already and we are defending ourselves and our stances.
I know that my blogs get skipped if they are political by people who don't trust or like my political voice or who trust those who don't like and trust it and they won't even hear me out for themselves because of a strong sense of cronyism. And that can be true of me regarding the blogs of others, too.
Often this wounding I mentioned happens when trust has been broken. Often secondary fighting is more wounding than primary fighting, when friends of friends find themselves punching away at each other personally out of loyalty for the wounding of their friends. Often times that is when people, myself included, are harshest, defending someone I trust and misguidedly assuming they can't handle it themselves, their fight, and need me to flex my anger and righteousness and when I slip into personal attacks rather than presenting my feelings and ideas about issues. And that invites friends of the opponent of my friend to take me on often personally and hurtfully.
Sigh.
Sometimes groupthink and collective egotism gets things so divided. I am not talking about any particular side of issues. I am talking about human nature and all sides.
I think we need to express TOUGH LOVE with each other when it is called for. And not sacrifice principle for personality and toxic harmony at the expense of justice and right. But try to remember it is TOUGH LOVE. And try not to project anger and frustration and lose our balance. But it is hard considering what some of us see is at stake! And when others seem to want to punish us for seeing and saying what we do.
It seems like the MO of the global pirates is to get everyone to fight everyone else so the spoils can be gathered by them when everyone is wounded and depleted. I don't want to promote that for sure.
It seems that is happening a lot in our world and our culture.
We live in soul-trying times and we also need to do important values clarification for ourselves and with each other. This can be necessarily messy and confusing and spiritually exhausting, but communication is so vital now!
best, libby
"I find, btw, passion attractive too, in men and in women. It's why my new book's got that work in its title: passion and rationality are in equal parts required for any change that lasts."
Congrats on your book! Again, appreciate that sentiment!
I am sorry for the animosity and wounding that happens over the issues and debating over the issues within our website and outside it. I have participated at times in that MO and will probably slip into it again, but will try harder not to.
It is dangerous when we reduce those -- especially individuals -- who don't think or feel like us or we can't identify with to a slotted and negative caricature, especially happening when we feel they have done this to us already and we are defending ourselves and our stances.
I know that my blogs get skipped if they are political by people who don't trust or like my political voice or who trust those who don't like and trust it and they won't even hear me out for themselves because of a strong sense of cronyism. And that can be true of me regarding the blogs of others, too.
Often this wounding I mentioned happens when trust has been broken. Often secondary fighting is more wounding than primary fighting, when friends of friends find themselves punching away at each other personally out of loyalty for the wounding of their friends. Often times that is when people, myself included, are harshest, defending someone I trust and misguidedly assuming they can't handle it themselves, their fight, and need me to flex my anger and righteousness and when I slip into personal attacks rather than presenting my feelings and ideas about issues. And that invites friends of the opponent of my friend to take me on often personally and hurtfully.
Sigh.
Sometimes groupthink and collective egotism gets things so divided. I am not talking about any particular side of issues. I am talking about human nature and all sides.
I think we need to express TOUGH LOVE with each other when it is called for. And not sacrifice principle for personality and toxic harmony at the expense of justice and right. But try to remember it is TOUGH LOVE. And try not to project anger and frustration and lose our balance. But it is hard considering what some of us see is at stake! And when others seem to want to punish us for seeing and saying what we do.
It seems like the MO of the global pirates is to get everyone to fight everyone else so the spoils can be gathered by them when everyone is wounded and depleted. I don't want to promote that for sure.
It seems that is happening a lot in our world and our culture.
We live in soul-trying times and we also need to do important values clarification for ourselves and with each other. This can be necessarily messy and confusing and spiritually exhausting, but communication is so vital now!
best, libby
Jan, this is strongly said:
"My point is simply if you don't exercise power too confront evil power it will smash you. I lived through the depression in the 1930´s and what energized FDR to act was the real threat of revolution for the blatant stupidities of the same people who are smashing the USA today."
"I don't know if revolution is necessary but some effective power surely is and and it has yet to emerge and if it doesn't emerge and soon, the slide into terrible misery will be much worse than if it doesn't. And that would be a good observation from anybody with a clear vision, where ever he or she originates."
end of your quote
We have reached Orwellian dimensions of reality now surreality. Obama and the military are using tax dollars to enable Al Qaeda in Syria topple a sovereign country the same way they toppled Libya, causing massive deaths and displacement, and continuing to lie one more time that we and the other global pirates are the "good guys" but because bin Laden may have accessed wikileaks on the internet Manning has sacrificed a life out of prison while the amorality is covered up and minimized by a corrupt media. Our media goes along with the Iraq playbook. Syrian rebels really Al Qaeda fundamentalists use chemical weapons and our media ignores it, but if Assad troops had used it it would have launched world war three with the righteous US proclaiming their humanitarian intentions.
Bradley Manning sees gratuitous and sociopathic killing by his comrades and reports it and is threatened with life in prison or a death sentence. Manning actually thought Obama being in power would make a difference. It did. It meant not only did Manning not have authority on his side, but those very many many many who are still in obama's thrall and trust his lesser evil policy making despite the ever collecting evidence that this president is hustling to shut down democracy totally as we knew it and implant fascism and uber state control using extrajudicial killing and intimidation of easy incarceration for anyone willing to fight back against institutionalized criminality. That is what Manning is fighting!!!! And we should have his back!!!
What do we do next? It is late in the game and we are very much behind. But I won't give up my faith. They say in the theory of the 100 monkeys, it only takes 100 monkeys to get it before the consciousness then sweeps quickly through the monkey nation. I don't know how close we are to the 100th monkey but we must keep appealing!!!
best, libby
"My point is simply if you don't exercise power too confront evil power it will smash you. I lived through the depression in the 1930´s and what energized FDR to act was the real threat of revolution for the blatant stupidities of the same people who are smashing the USA today."
"I don't know if revolution is necessary but some effective power surely is and and it has yet to emerge and if it doesn't emerge and soon, the slide into terrible misery will be much worse than if it doesn't. And that would be a good observation from anybody with a clear vision, where ever he or she originates."
end of your quote
We have reached Orwellian dimensions of reality now surreality. Obama and the military are using tax dollars to enable Al Qaeda in Syria topple a sovereign country the same way they toppled Libya, causing massive deaths and displacement, and continuing to lie one more time that we and the other global pirates are the "good guys" but because bin Laden may have accessed wikileaks on the internet Manning has sacrificed a life out of prison while the amorality is covered up and minimized by a corrupt media. Our media goes along with the Iraq playbook. Syrian rebels really Al Qaeda fundamentalists use chemical weapons and our media ignores it, but if Assad troops had used it it would have launched world war three with the righteous US proclaiming their humanitarian intentions.
Bradley Manning sees gratuitous and sociopathic killing by his comrades and reports it and is threatened with life in prison or a death sentence. Manning actually thought Obama being in power would make a difference. It did. It meant not only did Manning not have authority on his side, but those very many many many who are still in obama's thrall and trust his lesser evil policy making despite the ever collecting evidence that this president is hustling to shut down democracy totally as we knew it and implant fascism and uber state control using extrajudicial killing and intimidation of easy incarceration for anyone willing to fight back against institutionalized criminality. That is what Manning is fighting!!!! And we should have his back!!!
What do we do next? It is late in the game and we are very much behind. But I won't give up my faith. They say in the theory of the 100 monkeys, it only takes 100 monkeys to get it before the consciousness then sweeps quickly through the monkey nation. I don't know how close we are to the 100th monkey but we must keep appealing!!!
best, libby
o/e -- if you want to make personal peace with me you'll have to do it via pm. You jumped the shark on incivility in your comments to me on my blog threads and I asked you to no longer comment on my blogs. I will continue to delete without reading your comments. Please respect that boundary I have put up. I don't know why you are so keen to comment on a thread where you have been asked not to comment. You are free to write your own blogs or comment on others you are welcome on. You are welcome to establish your own boundaries there. Please respect my request.
I won't reward disrespect. o/e. Persistent disrespect does not improve the situation.
libby
I won't reward disrespect. o/e. Persistent disrespect does not improve the situation.
libby
kosh, I am glad you are straightening out the chess board. So it is about gaining power. You mean winning power. Hmmmm.
You write:
"When I talk about the chessboard, people seem to think I mean Work within the system. Actually, I mean Gain Power. I don't care if a thought-out path runs through the system, I just care that there be one. This step leads to that step."
When the health care debate was happening I read someone's article that said to get to universal health care we had to make a "leap" over the chasm, you couldn't take a few steps across. You had to make the leap, the jump. Maybe that is why I draw on the 12 step recovery steps themselves. The first is a leap of faith where you have to make that first step trusting though you can't see there is a way out you are willing to stop denying and embracing addiction and face the unknown but that unknown holds potential. The system of capitalism and profitmaking is not going to let us step by step move away from an anti-humane situation and dismantle the profit-making mechanisms. The common good and the profitmaking are SKEW lines in terms of the direction of their systems. We have to be DRAMATIC and leave that path to survive. Otherwise was are lemmings following someone pretending to be the lesser evil when the path ends up over the cliff nonetheless.
Btw, I really appreciated your sharing the myers briggs configurations of you and your wife. you really communicated a lot with that to my feeling-intuiter sensibility. I left you a comment about it on the other Morality thread.
Now though I am relieved you are not advising me to quiet down, which I thought was your message about "coaxing" people to one's point of view, I am confused. What do you mean answering questions and stupid questions. ????
I need you to expand more about having "patience to answer stupid questions."
I figure I am very much an informational channeler. What I learn as I learn it I carry to open salon and share it. I wish I were more learned and scholarly about history and politics but I am devoted to it now. Trying to sort things out and most importantly trying to stay clued in on what is going on in real time and what is being hidden by the ruling class and their propagandized media that had me bobble-headed not very long ago.
Thanks for the communication, kosh.
best, libby
You write:
"When I talk about the chessboard, people seem to think I mean Work within the system. Actually, I mean Gain Power. I don't care if a thought-out path runs through the system, I just care that there be one. This step leads to that step."
When the health care debate was happening I read someone's article that said to get to universal health care we had to make a "leap" over the chasm, you couldn't take a few steps across. You had to make the leap, the jump. Maybe that is why I draw on the 12 step recovery steps themselves. The first is a leap of faith where you have to make that first step trusting though you can't see there is a way out you are willing to stop denying and embracing addiction and face the unknown but that unknown holds potential. The system of capitalism and profitmaking is not going to let us step by step move away from an anti-humane situation and dismantle the profit-making mechanisms. The common good and the profitmaking are SKEW lines in terms of the direction of their systems. We have to be DRAMATIC and leave that path to survive. Otherwise was are lemmings following someone pretending to be the lesser evil when the path ends up over the cliff nonetheless.
Btw, I really appreciated your sharing the myers briggs configurations of you and your wife. you really communicated a lot with that to my feeling-intuiter sensibility. I left you a comment about it on the other Morality thread.
Now though I am relieved you are not advising me to quiet down, which I thought was your message about "coaxing" people to one's point of view, I am confused. What do you mean answering questions and stupid questions. ????
I need you to expand more about having "patience to answer stupid questions."
I figure I am very much an informational channeler. What I learn as I learn it I carry to open salon and share it. I wish I were more learned and scholarly about history and politics but I am devoted to it now. Trying to sort things out and most importantly trying to stay clued in on what is going on in real time and what is being hidden by the ruling class and their propagandized media that had me bobble-headed not very long ago.
Thanks for the communication, kosh.
best, libby
jonathan, yes I appreciate the Green Party but I also see it needing a lot of work, a lot of new members, a lot of energy and commitment. I find Jill Stein awesome in ideas and charisma and lack of ego.
Today I seem to be pulling on the 12 step recovery philosophy a lot to pull out of dysfunction. One could look at the crony capitalism as being the addictive system. Those trying to change the system from within but still enable it remind me of the co-addict side of the situation. As I have said, playing a rigged game is giving in to the corrupt gamespeople. Like the bluff and scare tactic of "too big to fail." We must let the administration gives us crumbs because we are afraid of being crumbless. We need to demand change and take the risk and go after everyone. We don't have anyone but our fellows. Not the media, not the pols, not the judges, not the military. We have got to work together!
I see cronyism with the Dem party as fostering and cultivating myopia.
What scares me, jon, is how widespread the corruption is. and how the two teams, red and blue, vying with each other are missing the incredible power grabbing and cheating coming from the top 1%. we need to think up vs down, not right vs. left.
Congress is not acting for the people. I am sorry to generalize so completely, but sometimes you have to decide. Is there potential or not? Do we stay respectful and trusting when we keep getting scammed and cheated and our kids keep dying in wars, or committing suicide or being unemployed and uneducated. Bastards are earning $9000 an hour as CEOs while people starve. 1 out of 6 Americans is now food insecure.
Where is the progress?
Those in power need to feel and see our anger and our working together not only with us as victims in this country but other civilians in other countries. Stress makes people narcissistic naturally but we must overcome that and not be narcissistic and instead be altruistic.
There was no threat to Obama second term. Just not being Romney should not be enough. First election, just don't be Bush. WTF?
I see the media as being such a covert enemy of us the people especially.
best, libby
Today I seem to be pulling on the 12 step recovery philosophy a lot to pull out of dysfunction. One could look at the crony capitalism as being the addictive system. Those trying to change the system from within but still enable it remind me of the co-addict side of the situation. As I have said, playing a rigged game is giving in to the corrupt gamespeople. Like the bluff and scare tactic of "too big to fail." We must let the administration gives us crumbs because we are afraid of being crumbless. We need to demand change and take the risk and go after everyone. We don't have anyone but our fellows. Not the media, not the pols, not the judges, not the military. We have got to work together!
I see cronyism with the Dem party as fostering and cultivating myopia.
What scares me, jon, is how widespread the corruption is. and how the two teams, red and blue, vying with each other are missing the incredible power grabbing and cheating coming from the top 1%. we need to think up vs down, not right vs. left.
Congress is not acting for the people. I am sorry to generalize so completely, but sometimes you have to decide. Is there potential or not? Do we stay respectful and trusting when we keep getting scammed and cheated and our kids keep dying in wars, or committing suicide or being unemployed and uneducated. Bastards are earning $9000 an hour as CEOs while people starve. 1 out of 6 Americans is now food insecure.
Where is the progress?
Those in power need to feel and see our anger and our working together not only with us as victims in this country but other civilians in other countries. Stress makes people narcissistic naturally but we must overcome that and not be narcissistic and instead be altruistic.
There was no threat to Obama second term. Just not being Romney should not be enough. First election, just don't be Bush. WTF?
I see the media as being such a covert enemy of us the people especially.
best, libby
Jan, this is interesting:
"I misinterpreted your allegory about chess. Chess is a set game with well known pieces. There are several ways to beat the game. You can convince people that they had better get off their asses and start pushing back hard, you can convince the multibillionairs that it's better for them to live in a secure world with happy creative dynamic people rather than a sick world full of misery and starvation and hatred for the rich, you can take over the Arecibo radio telescope and broadcast to the galaxy that the top species of the planet is committing suicide and we need an immediate invasion of aliens to take over and straighten things out. The last one seems most likely to me."
Jan, I like your analysis.
Just as I can't figure out the extraordinary passivity of my fellow citizens, I can't figure out the extraordinary degree of greed and sadism and willingness to cheat and scam on the part of the powers that be. it really is an alice and wonderland upside down world of corruption and amorality. a spiritual dark age!!! CEOs that feel they deserve millions of bonus money even when they destroy the company?
I remember my mother used to say of my dad's alcoholism, "I can't believe alcohol is stronger than love." Process or physical addictions can not entertain morality. that is the heartbreaking tragedy. The upper class doesn't even care about the earth. Everything short term gratification and narcissistic indulgence off the charts.
best, libby
"I misinterpreted your allegory about chess. Chess is a set game with well known pieces. There are several ways to beat the game. You can convince people that they had better get off their asses and start pushing back hard, you can convince the multibillionairs that it's better for them to live in a secure world with happy creative dynamic people rather than a sick world full of misery and starvation and hatred for the rich, you can take over the Arecibo radio telescope and broadcast to the galaxy that the top species of the planet is committing suicide and we need an immediate invasion of aliens to take over and straighten things out. The last one seems most likely to me."
Jan, I like your analysis.
Just as I can't figure out the extraordinary passivity of my fellow citizens, I can't figure out the extraordinary degree of greed and sadism and willingness to cheat and scam on the part of the powers that be. it really is an alice and wonderland upside down world of corruption and amorality. a spiritual dark age!!! CEOs that feel they deserve millions of bonus money even when they destroy the company?
I remember my mother used to say of my dad's alcoholism, "I can't believe alcohol is stronger than love." Process or physical addictions can not entertain morality. that is the heartbreaking tragedy. The upper class doesn't even care about the earth. Everything short term gratification and narcissistic indulgence off the charts.
best, libby
`
I think that `notion about:
`
Tough Love makes sense
`
My brain gets good and weary.
But, it a Good Discipline Weary.
Minds are like a ` Citadel Fortress.
It may atrophy as ` Bone Backbone.
Mind and Sciatic ` Tense Nerve Aches.
On Feb. 10, 2013 in DC ` Ouch Sciatic!
I had to relearn ABC` Sesame Exercise.
Minds need ABC discipline` Gymnasium.
The Education use to be a` Gymnasium.
Analogy & Metaphors may` Fall Short.
`
I try to say` We must Try as` Hamartia.
If we don't sim for bull's eye` We ruin.
It a word reeks etc., used for` Honesty.
`
My brain almost caught my hair on fire?
This Post was good for mental acumen.
Minds require Cam And Restful Repose.
It was Minds Cashing and Sparks Upward.
Wit sharpening. Minds need Tense Times.
Amish sign:` Tools Sharpening Services.
`
After a Errand Run Yesterday I went to sit.
There's a 64- Acre Lake. It one hiding Place.
I do Like to 'spar' up to a Reasonable Point.
`
I prefer to remain hush and Listen and Learn
I think that `notion about:
`
Tough Love makes sense
`
My brain gets good and weary.
But, it a Good Discipline Weary.
Minds are like a ` Citadel Fortress.
It may atrophy as ` Bone Backbone.
Mind and Sciatic ` Tense Nerve Aches.
On Feb. 10, 2013 in DC ` Ouch Sciatic!
I had to relearn ABC` Sesame Exercise.
Minds need ABC discipline` Gymnasium.
The Education use to be a` Gymnasium.
Analogy & Metaphors may` Fall Short.
`
I try to say` We must Try as` Hamartia.
If we don't sim for bull's eye` We ruin.
It a word reeks etc., used for` Honesty.
`
My brain almost caught my hair on fire?
This Post was good for mental acumen.
Minds require Cam And Restful Repose.
It was Minds Cashing and Sparks Upward.
Wit sharpening. Minds need Tense Times.
Amish sign:` Tools Sharpening Services.
`
After a Errand Run Yesterday I went to sit.
There's a 64- Acre Lake. It one hiding Place.
I do Like to 'spar' up to a Reasonable Point.
`
I prefer to remain hush and Listen and Learn
Libby,
The system is dysfunctional.
The 1% is why.
Do you know Tom Cordle? He wrote a post recently in defense of Obama. Not a "the guy is great" post, because very few on OS would go that far, but a "knock it off, this guy is no Republican and you can tell by policy" post. His wife has cancer. Obamacare is why she's covered instead of it being a Preexisting condition.
This is a great example of what I mean by answering stupid questions:
Why is the Lesser Evil argument invalid?
Your case has been that Obama is sufficiently awful to render differences between the parties insignificant.
Not to Tom.
Tom is a smart guy, a passionate guy, a moral guy, a responsible guy. So when he asks you:
If I throw away my vote, my wife dies; how would that be a responsible act?
what will you answer?
So far, it's been
There is no Lesser to speak of.
Sure there is.
That doesn't mean that Lesser trumps everything, but it should be included and acknowledged in your answer.
The system is dysfunctional.
The 1% is why.
Do you know Tom Cordle? He wrote a post recently in defense of Obama. Not a "the guy is great" post, because very few on OS would go that far, but a "knock it off, this guy is no Republican and you can tell by policy" post. His wife has cancer. Obamacare is why she's covered instead of it being a Preexisting condition.
This is a great example of what I mean by answering stupid questions:
Why is the Lesser Evil argument invalid?
Your case has been that Obama is sufficiently awful to render differences between the parties insignificant.
Not to Tom.
Tom is a smart guy, a passionate guy, a moral guy, a responsible guy. So when he asks you:
If I throw away my vote, my wife dies; how would that be a responsible act?
what will you answer?
So far, it's been
There is no Lesser to speak of.
Sure there is.
That doesn't mean that Lesser trumps everything, but it should be included and acknowledged in your answer.
Lezlie, I have nothing to add to this well-expressed and earnest declaration! You write:
"I agree with Jan Sands that what we are doing now isn't even close to working. And Jan and I agree: neither of us has a clue as to what needs to be done to stop the train before the wreck is too massive to ever repair. We need to educate, we need to provoke by stating facts, and then we need to stop talking and start coming up with actual tactics for "the people" to entertain."
best, libby
"I agree with Jan Sands that what we are doing now isn't even close to working. And Jan and I agree: neither of us has a clue as to what needs to be done to stop the train before the wreck is too massive to ever repair. We need to educate, we need to provoke by stating facts, and then we need to stop talking and start coming up with actual tactics for "the people" to entertain."
best, libby
onislandtime, I appreciate you stopping by on both recent blogs and saying what you said. Will work on it. best, libby :-)
kosh, re persuading rather than alienating. I appreciate that. But sometimes someone has to say "the emperor has no clothes" to people who are insisting he does.
as I see it, our president ain't wearing any pro-citizen clothes. And I and others keep saying it, hoping people will look and listen harder for themselves and see that it is true, not trust a corporate media sleazily describing him as being dressed pro-citizen.
Susan Forward wrote a book called "Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them". In it she says that it is very easy for a woman to fall in love with a pscyhopath. Often women who do are very hard on themselves for falling them. She says it is hard not to. They tell the woman everything she wants to hear. Not hard for the psychopath to promise a lot and be rewarded for it initially. To set up an ideal fantasy persona. The sign of a mentally healthy woman is her ability to recognize the pathology when it starts to leak out as promises are not kept, respect is not shown, and to detach, not to stay hooked and denying about the enthralling man, not let her doubt her own cognitive dissonance and surrender her own will and judgment.
best, libby
as I see it, our president ain't wearing any pro-citizen clothes. And I and others keep saying it, hoping people will look and listen harder for themselves and see that it is true, not trust a corporate media sleazily describing him as being dressed pro-citizen.
Susan Forward wrote a book called "Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them". In it she says that it is very easy for a woman to fall in love with a pscyhopath. Often women who do are very hard on themselves for falling them. She says it is hard not to. They tell the woman everything she wants to hear. Not hard for the psychopath to promise a lot and be rewarded for it initially. To set up an ideal fantasy persona. The sign of a mentally healthy woman is her ability to recognize the pathology when it starts to leak out as promises are not kept, respect is not shown, and to detach, not to stay hooked and denying about the enthralling man, not let her doubt her own cognitive dissonance and surrender her own will and judgment.
best, libby
(((((jmac)))))
You know, if open salon didn't exist I wouldn't get to discover at times what a colossal bitch I can be. Just reacting to another "schadenfreude" blog starring me. Hah! Present thread company excluded ... well, almost!
Take care. I am sorry to be missing so much of your writing. Hope to get back in my reading others groove soon! Thanks to classy you for so often keeping up with long-winded me!!! Bless ya!!!
best, libby
You know, if open salon didn't exist I wouldn't get to discover at times what a colossal bitch I can be. Just reacting to another "schadenfreude" blog starring me. Hah! Present thread company excluded ... well, almost!
Take care. I am sorry to be missing so much of your writing. Hope to get back in my reading others groove soon! Thanks to classy you for so often keeping up with long-winded me!!! Bless ya!!!
best, libby
(((((james)))))) -- appreciate the wisdom. hah, the james boys. you make them sound like the outlaws! :-) Throwing your lot in with the other brother! (me, an English major know Henry better) love the grease-spreading metaphor. spot on! (pun intended!) especially love the last quote with its wicked consequence! Credit!!! Credit!!! No?
thanks for sharing and so lovely to see you here! best, libby
thanks for sharing and so lovely to see you here! best, libby
myriad, I have no problem with kosh's style. admirable. I have different voices here depending upon subject matter and mood and scenario. i think there is a big difference in men's and women's dynamics in communicating. thanks for stopping by. best, libby
hey kosh, getting back to you finally. On days I work I work double shifts so it bounces me away from the website for a sustained length of time. I also worked on a Manning blog I felt was timely.
You ask:
"Is attempting to elect Greens the most efficient way to effect real change? Is that the best path we have? And, in the meantime, what exactly do we do about the GOP?"
end of your quote
I don't see that much difference between the Repubs and the Dems and I hang fire for that statement -- but I don't. I didn't think that back when Nader declared they were both corporate-captured in 2000 but he was so right. It took me a long time to get it.
Obama had Dem majority and he blew it. Well he and Rahm and Axelrod went for Blue Dogs since winning was everything to them. But Obama plays the "good cop" look how hard I am trying framed by the Republican crazy meanies. We can choose Dem lying sleazy fraudsters or we can choose Repub crazy overt fraudsters I suppose.
We need a third party not corporate captured. Greens with Stein had a great New Deal program addressing what needs to be addressed for the common good and the public trust and as I said she was asking the citizens to vote for her -- she who had promised not to take corporate bribes. crickets from the citizenry without that marketing from corporate media. She was handcuffed to a chair on Long Island during the third insipid debate for 8 long hours which was nearby between Obama and Romney. Imagine the nerve of her asking to be included in a national debate.
Green program addressed homelessness, joblessness, health care, military violence, police state-ism, the environment, etc. All the important stuff that the main stream media and Obama administration and Congress and courts don't deem important. Their overlords are oligarchs. Dem or Republican. And look how the police and the media and Obama effectively silenced Dr. Stein.
I think those policies you list are horrifying, but I blame both the parties. Austerity. The cat food commission. Obama never even spent all of the stimulus money on ordinary citizens. Why not? $85 billion a month goes out from Fed to sustain the banks. WTF? Food stamps vs. bankster bonuses? Who wins? You know.
You write:
"There are two simultaneous battles going on here - the battle to make things better and the battle to keep things from getting worse. When they take power, people don't eat. Some of the Dems may be cynical, but he GOP is flat-out nuts."
end of your quote
"Some of the Dems may be cynical?" Cynical? They are like fish in a fishbowl and water = corruption, and the fish are not aware of what water is. Does that make sense?
As I campaigned for Greens at last elections I had smug Dems scoff at me, "They can't win." So they would not vote Green if the next Dem guy wouldn't. Winning somehow over-rode the serious issues like joblessness and foreign slaughter. Hmmmm.
So no one is willing to take a risk for a MAJOR change in direction which we desperately needed. Obama is assigning Bush people to his cabinet positions. WTF? That commerce woman who defrauded 1400 pensioners in her bank. Ooopsie. And the FBI guy another example who under Bush signed off on torture and helped make warrantless surveillance "legal". He was not as bad as john yoo. I'm thinking cold comfort.
You write:
"Obama will be President until January of 2017, barring impeachment, resignation, or health issue. So, what do we do about civil liberties and other issues in the meantime? His party is not solidly behind him on this stuff. What will be easier to accomplish, getting Greens elected or moving current officials off their current path?"
end of your quote
I think everyone has to select what he or she can do to inspire movement, whether blogging, volunteer work, etc. I muckrake with my blogging and do my best which works for some and not for others. so be it. For now I am doing this. I don't know what I will do next. I don't know honestly what to do about an Obama administration that is willing to trash civil liberties and to give immunity to corporate criminals.
I believe in AWARENESS, the importance of that, and communicating it especially in this obamaworld of propaganda.
You write:
"Yup, it's all corrupt. Agreed. Two out of five Americans don't have any money and that number is growing."
Now what?
Why do you think such questions to me are STUPID? I feel the desperation, too.
Do you think it is Obama and his people and most of the shyster Dem Congresspeople who are fighting for food stamps??? On the contrary. They talk the talk but they are slashing like crazy for their corporate pals to have their HUGE bonuses and executive salaries.
You write:
"Maybe your answer goes something like this:
"It's like with addiction. You have to hit bottom before you commit to fixing the problem. Maybe we need to hit bottom to galvanize everyone to commit to change, and voting Democratic is like trying to cut down from six drinks a day to four, just delaying the inevitable.""
Well, that is interesting and makes sense. Jill Stein's answer is similar that both parties are sinking the US Titanic. She suggests the Dems are doing it more slowly. I disagree. I agree with Glen Ford of BAR who says Obama is the more effective evil. He cons with his rhetoric and then makes his dirty backroom deals with the devils. Fellow devils.
kosh, you write:
"The status quo sucks. The status quo is dangerous. The status quo is a path to disaster. Agreed on all counts. But, as I keep telling you, I'm all about the path. You want out, I want out, loads of us want out. Please don't spend all your time telling me why we want out. I know that already."
Do you, kosh? Do you know the full monty of corruption? the assembly line of it? cuz it seems every day there are fresh hells of corruption. Are you staying on top of them? the mainstream media sure isn't helping us learn of them. Of the reality in Syria. If you are, great. Some aren't. Hard to keep up with all of it!!! The FBI killing unarmed witnesses and then the media making stuff up about the witnesses being armed. Wow. Talk about collusion. Lying.
I don't think working for or voting green was the WRONG path. Just because millions of Americans didn't choose what I considered the right path does not negate my taking the right path in my mind and heart. I am glad I didn't reward Obama who sure as hell has betrayed ordinary citizens like me.
I followed the people with a policy, an answer, a principle. I MOVED. Not away from justice and an intelligent answer but to it.
Even if Stein hadn't won but gotten more support -- enough support to give those lazy-assed and corrupt Congress members a wake up call that their election wasn't gonna be a cakewalk. Obama has screwed up the economy so badly that the pendulum is swinging back to the only alternative the media presents to citizens, the other corporate party. Don't make me responsible for that. I think the Repubs need to be called out and are. MSNBC does that. I also think we need watchdogs for the corruption of the crony Dem party that idealizes a president who shouldn't be idealized! I think I am helping with that.
I noticed when there was a health care debate that the centrist left was furious with us lefties for wanting universal health care totally and not being pragmatic enough. People like Jane Hamsher at FDL was out and out hostile like we were the enemy, the traitors, on a different side. Angrier at us than at the Repubs. I was confused. We were asking for what we believed in. And we all got sold out by Dem leadership on that score. Obamacare. Obama's giveaways to the medical industrial complex. Sorry not to celebrate Obama's crumbs. He didn't champion ordinary citizens. He marketed that he did. He has a few loss leaders to sell it, like in advertising, but he sold us out. Just like the union leadership betrays the workers now having over-cronied for nice salaries with the Dem leaders. Money sure does corrupt. And cronyism.
You say you want to know HOW?
You are exploring and writing about the mess in this country. That is good. Raising the consciousnesses of low information citizens. This isn't going to be a quick conversion/evolution/revolution, especially considering the passivity of so many citizens.
Stress makes us all more narcissistic. We need to fight that and realize we are all in this mess together. To be altruistic. Not to let MSNBC cherrypick what to look at between the parties. If the Obama administration is colluding as well as McCain with Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria, let's face that down!!!! If the nuclear industry is flooding Obama with campaign money let's look at that. The drone manufacturers! The oil companies, etc.
As for our pols, they seem to have to sell their souls to get in the game or system, so they have no soul, no moral compass to use. Only the toxic game to garner more corporate funding to win their next election. Would love some one term wonders but with a citizenry that takes its marching orders from mainstream corporate media, that proved that most of it (the citizenry) was incapable in the last election of heeding how monumental it would be to have a chief executive who was NOT a corporate puppet, spending his or her term for payback to their campaign pimps. Screwing us for them -- to complete the metaphor. I just read somewhere that Bill Clinton and Hillary gave Chelsea at $3 million wedding. Corporate cronyism was good to them, wasn't it? Is Hillary gonna be the new lesser evil? Oy vey!
Sorry, kosh. I know I didn't answer your question -- not close at all.
But glad we explored.
best, libby
You ask:
"Is attempting to elect Greens the most efficient way to effect real change? Is that the best path we have? And, in the meantime, what exactly do we do about the GOP?"
end of your quote
I don't see that much difference between the Repubs and the Dems and I hang fire for that statement -- but I don't. I didn't think that back when Nader declared they were both corporate-captured in 2000 but he was so right. It took me a long time to get it.
Obama had Dem majority and he blew it. Well he and Rahm and Axelrod went for Blue Dogs since winning was everything to them. But Obama plays the "good cop" look how hard I am trying framed by the Republican crazy meanies. We can choose Dem lying sleazy fraudsters or we can choose Repub crazy overt fraudsters I suppose.
We need a third party not corporate captured. Greens with Stein had a great New Deal program addressing what needs to be addressed for the common good and the public trust and as I said she was asking the citizens to vote for her -- she who had promised not to take corporate bribes. crickets from the citizenry without that marketing from corporate media. She was handcuffed to a chair on Long Island during the third insipid debate for 8 long hours which was nearby between Obama and Romney. Imagine the nerve of her asking to be included in a national debate.
Green program addressed homelessness, joblessness, health care, military violence, police state-ism, the environment, etc. All the important stuff that the main stream media and Obama administration and Congress and courts don't deem important. Their overlords are oligarchs. Dem or Republican. And look how the police and the media and Obama effectively silenced Dr. Stein.
I think those policies you list are horrifying, but I blame both the parties. Austerity. The cat food commission. Obama never even spent all of the stimulus money on ordinary citizens. Why not? $85 billion a month goes out from Fed to sustain the banks. WTF? Food stamps vs. bankster bonuses? Who wins? You know.
You write:
"There are two simultaneous battles going on here - the battle to make things better and the battle to keep things from getting worse. When they take power, people don't eat. Some of the Dems may be cynical, but he GOP is flat-out nuts."
end of your quote
"Some of the Dems may be cynical?" Cynical? They are like fish in a fishbowl and water = corruption, and the fish are not aware of what water is. Does that make sense?
As I campaigned for Greens at last elections I had smug Dems scoff at me, "They can't win." So they would not vote Green if the next Dem guy wouldn't. Winning somehow over-rode the serious issues like joblessness and foreign slaughter. Hmmmm.
So no one is willing to take a risk for a MAJOR change in direction which we desperately needed. Obama is assigning Bush people to his cabinet positions. WTF? That commerce woman who defrauded 1400 pensioners in her bank. Ooopsie. And the FBI guy another example who under Bush signed off on torture and helped make warrantless surveillance "legal". He was not as bad as john yoo. I'm thinking cold comfort.
You write:
"Obama will be President until January of 2017, barring impeachment, resignation, or health issue. So, what do we do about civil liberties and other issues in the meantime? His party is not solidly behind him on this stuff. What will be easier to accomplish, getting Greens elected or moving current officials off their current path?"
end of your quote
I think everyone has to select what he or she can do to inspire movement, whether blogging, volunteer work, etc. I muckrake with my blogging and do my best which works for some and not for others. so be it. For now I am doing this. I don't know what I will do next. I don't know honestly what to do about an Obama administration that is willing to trash civil liberties and to give immunity to corporate criminals.
I believe in AWARENESS, the importance of that, and communicating it especially in this obamaworld of propaganda.
You write:
"Yup, it's all corrupt. Agreed. Two out of five Americans don't have any money and that number is growing."
Now what?
Why do you think such questions to me are STUPID? I feel the desperation, too.
Do you think it is Obama and his people and most of the shyster Dem Congresspeople who are fighting for food stamps??? On the contrary. They talk the talk but they are slashing like crazy for their corporate pals to have their HUGE bonuses and executive salaries.
You write:
"Maybe your answer goes something like this:
"It's like with addiction. You have to hit bottom before you commit to fixing the problem. Maybe we need to hit bottom to galvanize everyone to commit to change, and voting Democratic is like trying to cut down from six drinks a day to four, just delaying the inevitable.""
Well, that is interesting and makes sense. Jill Stein's answer is similar that both parties are sinking the US Titanic. She suggests the Dems are doing it more slowly. I disagree. I agree with Glen Ford of BAR who says Obama is the more effective evil. He cons with his rhetoric and then makes his dirty backroom deals with the devils. Fellow devils.
kosh, you write:
"The status quo sucks. The status quo is dangerous. The status quo is a path to disaster. Agreed on all counts. But, as I keep telling you, I'm all about the path. You want out, I want out, loads of us want out. Please don't spend all your time telling me why we want out. I know that already."
Do you, kosh? Do you know the full monty of corruption? the assembly line of it? cuz it seems every day there are fresh hells of corruption. Are you staying on top of them? the mainstream media sure isn't helping us learn of them. Of the reality in Syria. If you are, great. Some aren't. Hard to keep up with all of it!!! The FBI killing unarmed witnesses and then the media making stuff up about the witnesses being armed. Wow. Talk about collusion. Lying.
I don't think working for or voting green was the WRONG path. Just because millions of Americans didn't choose what I considered the right path does not negate my taking the right path in my mind and heart. I am glad I didn't reward Obama who sure as hell has betrayed ordinary citizens like me.
I followed the people with a policy, an answer, a principle. I MOVED. Not away from justice and an intelligent answer but to it.
Even if Stein hadn't won but gotten more support -- enough support to give those lazy-assed and corrupt Congress members a wake up call that their election wasn't gonna be a cakewalk. Obama has screwed up the economy so badly that the pendulum is swinging back to the only alternative the media presents to citizens, the other corporate party. Don't make me responsible for that. I think the Repubs need to be called out and are. MSNBC does that. I also think we need watchdogs for the corruption of the crony Dem party that idealizes a president who shouldn't be idealized! I think I am helping with that.
I noticed when there was a health care debate that the centrist left was furious with us lefties for wanting universal health care totally and not being pragmatic enough. People like Jane Hamsher at FDL was out and out hostile like we were the enemy, the traitors, on a different side. Angrier at us than at the Repubs. I was confused. We were asking for what we believed in. And we all got sold out by Dem leadership on that score. Obamacare. Obama's giveaways to the medical industrial complex. Sorry not to celebrate Obama's crumbs. He didn't champion ordinary citizens. He marketed that he did. He has a few loss leaders to sell it, like in advertising, but he sold us out. Just like the union leadership betrays the workers now having over-cronied for nice salaries with the Dem leaders. Money sure does corrupt. And cronyism.
You say you want to know HOW?
You are exploring and writing about the mess in this country. That is good. Raising the consciousnesses of low information citizens. This isn't going to be a quick conversion/evolution/revolution, especially considering the passivity of so many citizens.
Stress makes us all more narcissistic. We need to fight that and realize we are all in this mess together. To be altruistic. Not to let MSNBC cherrypick what to look at between the parties. If the Obama administration is colluding as well as McCain with Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria, let's face that down!!!! If the nuclear industry is flooding Obama with campaign money let's look at that. The drone manufacturers! The oil companies, etc.
As for our pols, they seem to have to sell their souls to get in the game or system, so they have no soul, no moral compass to use. Only the toxic game to garner more corporate funding to win their next election. Would love some one term wonders but with a citizenry that takes its marching orders from mainstream corporate media, that proved that most of it (the citizenry) was incapable in the last election of heeding how monumental it would be to have a chief executive who was NOT a corporate puppet, spending his or her term for payback to their campaign pimps. Screwing us for them -- to complete the metaphor. I just read somewhere that Bill Clinton and Hillary gave Chelsea at $3 million wedding. Corporate cronyism was good to them, wasn't it? Is Hillary gonna be the new lesser evil? Oy vey!
Sorry, kosh. I know I didn't answer your question -- not close at all.
But glad we explored.
best, libby
Libby,
It's the beginning of a shot. Maybe answering my Tom Cordle question would get us closer.
I don't think most people become Democrats because they want to sell us out. I don't think Republicans even view it as selling us out - they actually think this is moral, because they're Social Darwinists. That leaves us with a whole lot of conflicted Democrats. Your average Democratic voter probably likes the Green agenda better than the Democratic reality. Again, keep in mind that most elected officials are local. Where I live, a borderline Red state, the shift from Dems to Republicans has had horrific consequences.
There are not that many politically active people on OS who have problems with the Green platform. That's not the issue.
I don't know if there are Green candidates locally. I don't know if the real liberals try to run as Greens or as Democrats in the primaries. If you were a candidate, what would be your best shot at reaching office? It's not just that Dems are corrupt and Greens aren't because that's partially a function of the Greens being out of power.
That's a Path question. I'm not sure the best formula isn't to back outfits like MoveOn to the hilt so that they can hijack the Dems back, which is I think where they're going. I don't know. I don't know how good the Greens are at recruiting capable people. Not good people, nice people, compassionate people, but capable people.
But this is partially a tangent, because here's the thing:
No matter how bad the Dems are, a lot of observant, intelligent people notice very significant differences between the parties. This doesn't mean they think Obama got us a good deal on........fill in the blank. It means that they see a difference between Bad and Worse. Making Obama look worse every day, whether or not he deserves it, doesn't make the perceived difference disappear. People who worry about the difference view ignoring it as irresponsible.
You would define yourself as hyper-responsible. You're not getting credit for that; instead you're getting credit for being an ideologue. That isn't good for your inspiring change.
Kim Gamble says something pretty close to We have to kill the patient in order to save it, so let the GOP win and let the public see what that's like. While I disagree, because I think the consequences of that are dire and damned near impossible to reverse, I have to respect Kim for being honest about what he has in mind and in acknowledging that there is a difference. I disagree with him, but now the discussion could move to the likely consequences of each course of action, which is where the discussion should be. We agree on what we want so now let's evaluate ways to get there.
But he gets that a vote for the Greens won't elect the Greens and he's on to the next question, which is, sort of,
How do we get Greens into power later on if not now?
I don't know the answer, but I know the first step is having a realistic question.
So, if we can't elect a Green to the White House soon, what's the best thing we can do now?
It's the beginning of a shot. Maybe answering my Tom Cordle question would get us closer.
I don't think most people become Democrats because they want to sell us out. I don't think Republicans even view it as selling us out - they actually think this is moral, because they're Social Darwinists. That leaves us with a whole lot of conflicted Democrats. Your average Democratic voter probably likes the Green agenda better than the Democratic reality. Again, keep in mind that most elected officials are local. Where I live, a borderline Red state, the shift from Dems to Republicans has had horrific consequences.
There are not that many politically active people on OS who have problems with the Green platform. That's not the issue.
I don't know if there are Green candidates locally. I don't know if the real liberals try to run as Greens or as Democrats in the primaries. If you were a candidate, what would be your best shot at reaching office? It's not just that Dems are corrupt and Greens aren't because that's partially a function of the Greens being out of power.
That's a Path question. I'm not sure the best formula isn't to back outfits like MoveOn to the hilt so that they can hijack the Dems back, which is I think where they're going. I don't know. I don't know how good the Greens are at recruiting capable people. Not good people, nice people, compassionate people, but capable people.
But this is partially a tangent, because here's the thing:
No matter how bad the Dems are, a lot of observant, intelligent people notice very significant differences between the parties. This doesn't mean they think Obama got us a good deal on........fill in the blank. It means that they see a difference between Bad and Worse. Making Obama look worse every day, whether or not he deserves it, doesn't make the perceived difference disappear. People who worry about the difference view ignoring it as irresponsible.
You would define yourself as hyper-responsible. You're not getting credit for that; instead you're getting credit for being an ideologue. That isn't good for your inspiring change.
Kim Gamble says something pretty close to We have to kill the patient in order to save it, so let the GOP win and let the public see what that's like. While I disagree, because I think the consequences of that are dire and damned near impossible to reverse, I have to respect Kim for being honest about what he has in mind and in acknowledging that there is a difference. I disagree with him, but now the discussion could move to the likely consequences of each course of action, which is where the discussion should be. We agree on what we want so now let's evaluate ways to get there.
But he gets that a vote for the Greens won't elect the Greens and he's on to the next question, which is, sort of,
How do we get Greens into power later on if not now?
I don't know the answer, but I know the first step is having a realistic question.
So, if we can't elect a Green to the White House soon, what's the best thing we can do now?
I wish you hadn't paraphrased me Kosh.
Thanks for the respect but I suggested nothing like "kill the patient."
There's such frailty in words, in this form of communication.
What I suggested is incremental ie. no, nothing's going to happen overnight, but here at least we have a deciding vote in the Lower House now, and the Upper House ( Senate ) where legislation is passed.
It's a beginning, & it's not to be sneezed at.
Thanks for the respect but I suggested nothing like "kill the patient."
There's such frailty in words, in this form of communication.
What I suggested is incremental ie. no, nothing's going to happen overnight, but here at least we have a deciding vote in the Lower House now, and the Upper House ( Senate ) where legislation is passed.
It's a beginning, & it's not to be sneezed at.
OK Kim,
Sorry about that one. The interpretation I gave was painting it in a more extreme light than you intended.
(On another subject, I wouldn't suggest to Frank that he delete something in order to protect Bill. I very much believe that we are responsible for what we post, and I'm not close enough to Frank to ask for that kind of favor if my lack of ethics ran in that direction. Contrary to what you may have heard, I am not a pack animal.)
Anyway, I think it's a valid case, whether or not I agree with it.
Sorry about that one. The interpretation I gave was painting it in a more extreme light than you intended.
(On another subject, I wouldn't suggest to Frank that he delete something in order to protect Bill. I very much believe that we are responsible for what we post, and I'm not close enough to Frank to ask for that kind of favor if my lack of ethics ran in that direction. Contrary to what you may have heard, I am not a pack animal.)
Anyway, I think it's a valid case, whether or not I agree with it.
Gack, why am I reading this? To avoid working, that's why.
But again I bring up my experience with AlAnon. Libby, you refer to them as some kind of model. I attended a few meetings, they recommended I stop "enabling", i.e., stop paying the bills, that would straighten my husband right up. Well, no it wouldn't and I wasn't gonna let my kids freeze in the dark.
To me, there is some kind of parallel here with what Kosh mentions about Tom C's position, that the Repubs are dead set against Obamacare, but it is saving his wife's life. It's a stinky dismal system (say I from Canada), BUT IT'S BETTER THAN NOTHING. If you want people to join your way of thinking, you have to overcome the need of the hoi polloi to keep on living, however miserably, as opposed to being wiped-out to support a principle (or even possibly pie-in-the-sky better life). The masses risking death, as in Egypt (for a while) and currently in Syria and Turkey is not the norm. Most people are too busy trying to work and take care of their families to immerse themselves 110% in politics, which is where the power to change things lies.
And once again I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that some of the antagonism you encounter here is because of your gender. (The most hysterical person here is not female. Coolness and heat are represented by both/all genders participating in these discussions.)
But again I bring up my experience with AlAnon. Libby, you refer to them as some kind of model. I attended a few meetings, they recommended I stop "enabling", i.e., stop paying the bills, that would straighten my husband right up. Well, no it wouldn't and I wasn't gonna let my kids freeze in the dark.
To me, there is some kind of parallel here with what Kosh mentions about Tom C's position, that the Repubs are dead set against Obamacare, but it is saving his wife's life. It's a stinky dismal system (say I from Canada), BUT IT'S BETTER THAN NOTHING. If you want people to join your way of thinking, you have to overcome the need of the hoi polloi to keep on living, however miserably, as opposed to being wiped-out to support a principle (or even possibly pie-in-the-sky better life). The masses risking death, as in Egypt (for a while) and currently in Syria and Turkey is not the norm. Most people are too busy trying to work and take care of their families to immerse themselves 110% in politics, which is where the power to change things lies.
And once again I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that some of the antagonism you encounter here is because of your gender. (The most hysterical person here is not female. Coolness and heat are represented by both/all genders participating in these discussions.)
Kim, you write:
"If voting was compulsory in the US, ie. a $50 fine imposed on anyone over 18 who didn't vote ( as is the case here ) would it make a difference ?
"If nothing else, it might get people to take their responsibilities more seriously.
"Younger Australians, ( and increasingly the older, ) vote Green, giving them for the last five years a deciding vote in both Houses."
end of your quote
An interesting scenario for sure!
Clearly freedom is taken for granted to exponential degrees in America. That is why as it is being taken from us dramatically even piece by piece there is so little outrage.
A condition of freedom I guess is the right not to be constantly vigilant (what Jefferson advised) in protecting it. So many adults, not kids I know, and these adults peers that brag about their anti-Vietnam days don't want to hear anything about the corruption about their government. Leave Obama alone, libby, yadda yadda yadda.
People whom you would think would know better. Great role modeling for our young people.
I listen to the accounts right now of how the Turkish people are rising to the call and risking so much to pushback against the oppression of their government. It gives me hope since there was passivity and despair there.
It is hard to stay aware. It is even physically and emotionally and spiritually depleting to keep hearing about the scope and depth of government betrayal in the US. Denial or minimization is far more short term comfortable.
After Obama was nicey nicey for a few minutes of sound bite on Gitmo, now there are new GENITAL searches going on if a detainee wants to meet with his lawyer. Obama is institutionalizing sexual torture on his victims in Gitmo, more punishment for their hunger striking and embarrassing him. More escalation of cruelty on many innocent people who have been even officially cleared as innocent. It just keeps getting uglier!!!
Thanks for stopping by, Kim. :-)
best, libby
"If voting was compulsory in the US, ie. a $50 fine imposed on anyone over 18 who didn't vote ( as is the case here ) would it make a difference ?
"If nothing else, it might get people to take their responsibilities more seriously.
"Younger Australians, ( and increasingly the older, ) vote Green, giving them for the last five years a deciding vote in both Houses."
end of your quote
An interesting scenario for sure!
Clearly freedom is taken for granted to exponential degrees in America. That is why as it is being taken from us dramatically even piece by piece there is so little outrage.
A condition of freedom I guess is the right not to be constantly vigilant (what Jefferson advised) in protecting it. So many adults, not kids I know, and these adults peers that brag about their anti-Vietnam days don't want to hear anything about the corruption about their government. Leave Obama alone, libby, yadda yadda yadda.
People whom you would think would know better. Great role modeling for our young people.
I listen to the accounts right now of how the Turkish people are rising to the call and risking so much to pushback against the oppression of their government. It gives me hope since there was passivity and despair there.
It is hard to stay aware. It is even physically and emotionally and spiritually depleting to keep hearing about the scope and depth of government betrayal in the US. Denial or minimization is far more short term comfortable.
After Obama was nicey nicey for a few minutes of sound bite on Gitmo, now there are new GENITAL searches going on if a detainee wants to meet with his lawyer. Obama is institutionalizing sexual torture on his victims in Gitmo, more punishment for their hunger striking and embarrassing him. More escalation of cruelty on many innocent people who have been even officially cleared as innocent. It just keeps getting uglier!!!
Thanks for stopping by, Kim. :-)
best, libby
jan, Obama is getting more and more fascistic and serious about shutting up people pointing out the corruption of his regime. His charisma and collusion with media is giving him lots of time to get dirtier and more ruthless. The only hope that truth-tellers have is in the American people having their backs. Judging from the nightmare of Manning's treatment, among others, the backs of truth-tellers are exposed to dire consequences. The criminalization of dissent goes against the first amendment along with others. Awareness and understanding of US government war crimes is far higher in most countries than in this one. Patriotism should not be about minimization and denial of war crimes (not that subtle at this point in devastation) and marketing of our celebrity leaders! Patriotism should be about protecting our constitution and our whistleblowers!!! best, libby
mark -- yes, the 6 prosecutions by Obama of whistleblowers should make us all outraged!
ande -- thanks for concurring! It is murder by depraved indifference of our Prez and our Congress!!!!
The following statistics from Andre Damon of wsws in "The social crisis in America" I just posted in my latest blog:
... For the vast majority of the population, however, life five years after the Wall Street crash of 2008 is dominated by the daily struggle to make ends meet.
snip
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the past decade has seen a sharp increase in the US suicide rate.
Among those aged 35 to 64, suicides soared nearly 30 percent between 1999 and 2010. More people in the US now kill themselves than die in car accidents. The fundamental cause is no mystery. It is the economic crisis, which has brought with it a rise in unemployment, poverty, malnutrition, illness and homelessness, and all of the personal and family problems that go along with these scourges.
The social crisis affects all sections of the working population—young and old, working and unemployed—of all races, genders and ethnicities.
For millions of older workers, the prospect of economic security and a decent retirement is growing ever more distant as the elderly are forced to dip into their savings and take on ever greater debt just to survive. The debt of Americans aged 65 to 74 is rising faster than that of any other age group, according to Federal Reserve figures. For a typical household led by someone 65 or older, household debt grew by more than 50 percent between 2000 and 2011.
The already insufficient benefits provided by Social Security and Medicare, the federal retirement and health care programs, are being scaled back. Fewer and fewer retirees have a guaranteed pension. Among those that do, many have resorted to borrowing against their pensions and paying usurious interest rates to unscrupulous lenders.
snip
Conditions are no better at the other end of the age spectrum. Almost 16 million children in the US, or 22 percent, live in families whose income is below the federal poverty line, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty. Last month, the United Nation’s Children’s Fund released a report showing that, among developed countries, the United States ranks 26 out of 29, behind Greece and just above Lithuania, Latvia and Romania, in terms of the percentage of children living in poverty.
Every year, 1.3 million students drop out of high school in the United States, and, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, low-income students fail to graduate at six times the rate of higher-income youth.
Those students who get to college are increasingly saddled with student loans they will never be able to pay off. Between 2003 and 2012, the portion of 25-year-olds with student debt rose from 25 percent to 43 percent.
snip
The bulk of new jobs are in low-paid service industries, and even manufacturing workers increasingly make as little as $10 an hour—a poverty wage for a family of four.
The effects of poverty are myriad. According to one recent study, 80 million adults in the US, about 43 percent of the total population, did not get medical care sometime in 2012 because they could not afford it. This is up a shocking 17 million since 2003.
Growing poverty and social distress are treated essentially as non-issues by the mass media. According to a recent study by the Pew Research center, the US media focused just one fifth of one percent of its news coverage on the topic of poverty. ...
snip
In an earlier period, such indices of social distress would have been treated as a national disgrace. Today, far from proposing any measures to address the social crisis, the Republicans and Democrats, with the Obama administration in the lead, vie with each other over how best to slash Social Security, Medicare and other vital social programs.
ande -- thanks for concurring! It is murder by depraved indifference of our Prez and our Congress!!!!
The following statistics from Andre Damon of wsws in "The social crisis in America" I just posted in my latest blog:
... For the vast majority of the population, however, life five years after the Wall Street crash of 2008 is dominated by the daily struggle to make ends meet.
snip
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the past decade has seen a sharp increase in the US suicide rate.
Among those aged 35 to 64, suicides soared nearly 30 percent between 1999 and 2010. More people in the US now kill themselves than die in car accidents. The fundamental cause is no mystery. It is the economic crisis, which has brought with it a rise in unemployment, poverty, malnutrition, illness and homelessness, and all of the personal and family problems that go along with these scourges.
The social crisis affects all sections of the working population—young and old, working and unemployed—of all races, genders and ethnicities.
For millions of older workers, the prospect of economic security and a decent retirement is growing ever more distant as the elderly are forced to dip into their savings and take on ever greater debt just to survive. The debt of Americans aged 65 to 74 is rising faster than that of any other age group, according to Federal Reserve figures. For a typical household led by someone 65 or older, household debt grew by more than 50 percent between 2000 and 2011.
The already insufficient benefits provided by Social Security and Medicare, the federal retirement and health care programs, are being scaled back. Fewer and fewer retirees have a guaranteed pension. Among those that do, many have resorted to borrowing against their pensions and paying usurious interest rates to unscrupulous lenders.
snip
Conditions are no better at the other end of the age spectrum. Almost 16 million children in the US, or 22 percent, live in families whose income is below the federal poverty line, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty. Last month, the United Nation’s Children’s Fund released a report showing that, among developed countries, the United States ranks 26 out of 29, behind Greece and just above Lithuania, Latvia and Romania, in terms of the percentage of children living in poverty.
Every year, 1.3 million students drop out of high school in the United States, and, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, low-income students fail to graduate at six times the rate of higher-income youth.
Those students who get to college are increasingly saddled with student loans they will never be able to pay off. Between 2003 and 2012, the portion of 25-year-olds with student debt rose from 25 percent to 43 percent.
snip
The bulk of new jobs are in low-paid service industries, and even manufacturing workers increasingly make as little as $10 an hour—a poverty wage for a family of four.
The effects of poverty are myriad. According to one recent study, 80 million adults in the US, about 43 percent of the total population, did not get medical care sometime in 2012 because they could not afford it. This is up a shocking 17 million since 2003.
Growing poverty and social distress are treated essentially as non-issues by the mass media. According to a recent study by the Pew Research center, the US media focused just one fifth of one percent of its news coverage on the topic of poverty. ...
snip
In an earlier period, such indices of social distress would have been treated as a national disgrace. Today, far from proposing any measures to address the social crisis, the Republicans and Democrats, with the Obama administration in the lead, vie with each other over how best to slash Social Security, Medicare and other vital social programs.
Donegal, thanks for your feedback. I appreciate what kosh is doing, too. We can agree to disagree at least and stay conscious of the intentions of each other's perspectives, and not demonize the stance of each other and those of each other's respective cronies! We need the "bridging" style communication. I feel we also need some shock and awe facts and statistics to belie the incredible and overwhelming corporate media propaganda and give truth to power, and sometimes that power is among the enablers of the power brokers. I feel like supporting "lesser evilism" encourages it to go deeper and deeper into evil since the wielders of the "lesser evilism" are not threatened by dramatic citizen pushback and so can continue to serve their corporate overlords at our expense. best, libby
aim, thanks so much for commenting! You write:
"i worked really hard on getting Elizabeth Warren elected While working for a rape crisis center."
You are clearly a proactive citizen who walks the walk with a big heart and big conscience! As a fellow citizen, a fellow woman, a fellow human -- thank you for what you have done and are doing!
best, libby
"i worked really hard on getting Elizabeth Warren elected While working for a rape crisis center."
You are clearly a proactive citizen who walks the walk with a big heart and big conscience! As a fellow citizen, a fellow woman, a fellow human -- thank you for what you have done and are doing!
best, libby
kosh, your reference to hives having queens, don't minimize the lack of empathy of patriarchal systems. The military for example. The lack of responsiveness in terms of suicides, deaths, woundings, collateral damage, sexual abuse, torture, indiscriminate killings, demonization, rampant PTSD, multiple deployments, health care needs, vet benefits. "Response-ability" the ability to respond. A humanist scenario and paradigm is needed. And I don't mean by cultivating female patriarchs like Hillary Clinton or even Rice (maybe this generation's Kissinger only young, female, Black, attractive and pseudo progressive). Some way back when in the women's movement got it wrong. That they thought the way to acquire power was to mimic the men with their own cronyism and power cliques. What was needed was universal partnership and cooperation with both men and women globally. Some got it. Some didn't. Some men and women have come a long way, some haven't. Some women make the worst chauvinists and misogynists, ironically. best, libby
Art James, playful poetry mined with wit and archness -- Where does a drone bee pee? A BP station!!!! Hah!!!
I also really like: "There is No Cure For Life. Pass Gas and Pee./King poop. Queen poop. People poop. Stink./No defile the Inner Life. Gain Riches. O! my,/and Lose Inner-Essence. No sell Soul. Soup?/I believe in the Guidance. No sell out. Love."
and
"CEO's got poop pants."
and I would add heartless chests, those CEOs. Maybe CEO = Chests Empty of Organ (heart)!!! Well, doesn't quite ring but I'll work on it!
best, libby
I also really like: "There is No Cure For Life. Pass Gas and Pee./King poop. Queen poop. People poop. Stink./No defile the Inner Life. Gain Riches. O! my,/and Lose Inner-Essence. No sell Soul. Soup?/I believe in the Guidance. No sell out. Love."
and
"CEO's got poop pants."
and I would add heartless chests, those CEOs. Maybe CEO = Chests Empty of Organ (heart)!!! Well, doesn't quite ring but I'll work on it!
best, libby
Stuart, thanks so much for stopping by!
I really appreciate what you write:
"In general I find the bandwagons people jump on condemning working class bloggers or commentators for being extremely angry and strident about the dire political/economic mess we find ourselves in. If there is a politically correct means of expressing such views, it's clear no one has found it yet - or they would have already built the kind of movement we all talk about. So long as people don't engage in verbal abuse (I feel those blogs and comments should be deleted), the sky's the limit as far as I'm concerned."
Yes, I agree! And I do think that the class divisions are more motivating to expressions of outrage than most citizens of open salon are aware of. Sometimes cronyism with others from lesser imminent economic crises postpones real in-touchness people should have, especially those really threatened and suffering, with legitimate anger at both corporate parties! Cutting slack for the Dem party that those of us economically drowning cannot afford to give according to our irl circumstances!
You go on:
"When I was younger, I and many working class friends were frequently told we were too strident or our opinions weren't "modulated" enough. I always saw this as a typical middle class one-upmanship game. In my mind it makes no sense for middle class activists to engage the working class in this way - assuming they really are trying to organize a movement, that is. Pretty hard to put on a movement without working class participation."
end of your quote
I remember you bringing this up earlier in your blogs, Stuart, the prob b/w middle class and working class bonding and commitment to change and it impressed me and has stayed with me. I read wsws website and they include the horrors that all of us working class people have had to endure across the globe. I agree with them that we need to unite with them as well as each other here in the US.
I look at the Obama-progressives even after so much evidence of corruption and corporate cronyism and war crimes, and how the middle class is still with lower lip above water, unlike so many working class or ex-working class people who are facing down every second of their lives drowning or desperately treading water due to economic terrorism the austerity red and blue teams are inflicting on us and the world.
I was so impressed with fast food workers risking their jobs -- their economic survival -- to fight the bottom feeding scum sucking profiteers exploiting them! all the money pouring into those fast food places and such little respect for those making those franchises work!
best, libby
I really appreciate what you write:
"In general I find the bandwagons people jump on condemning working class bloggers or commentators for being extremely angry and strident about the dire political/economic mess we find ourselves in. If there is a politically correct means of expressing such views, it's clear no one has found it yet - or they would have already built the kind of movement we all talk about. So long as people don't engage in verbal abuse (I feel those blogs and comments should be deleted), the sky's the limit as far as I'm concerned."
Yes, I agree! And I do think that the class divisions are more motivating to expressions of outrage than most citizens of open salon are aware of. Sometimes cronyism with others from lesser imminent economic crises postpones real in-touchness people should have, especially those really threatened and suffering, with legitimate anger at both corporate parties! Cutting slack for the Dem party that those of us economically drowning cannot afford to give according to our irl circumstances!
You go on:
"When I was younger, I and many working class friends were frequently told we were too strident or our opinions weren't "modulated" enough. I always saw this as a typical middle class one-upmanship game. In my mind it makes no sense for middle class activists to engage the working class in this way - assuming they really are trying to organize a movement, that is. Pretty hard to put on a movement without working class participation."
end of your quote
I remember you bringing this up earlier in your blogs, Stuart, the prob b/w middle class and working class bonding and commitment to change and it impressed me and has stayed with me. I read wsws website and they include the horrors that all of us working class people have had to endure across the globe. I agree with them that we need to unite with them as well as each other here in the US.
I look at the Obama-progressives even after so much evidence of corruption and corporate cronyism and war crimes, and how the middle class is still with lower lip above water, unlike so many working class or ex-working class people who are facing down every second of their lives drowning or desperately treading water due to economic terrorism the austerity red and blue teams are inflicting on us and the world.
I was so impressed with fast food workers risking their jobs -- their economic survival -- to fight the bottom feeding scum sucking profiteers exploiting them! all the money pouring into those fast food places and such little respect for those making those franchises work!
best, libby
((((Jack Heart)))) -- appreciate your appreciation of kosh!
kosh,
I appreciate your writing this -- though I think Stuart has a big point about the level of stridency and that certainly could account for urgency and stridency in tone and attitude. You write:
"This isn't about class. This isn't even about modulation.
"Maybe the original Rant post was, but this one is not. My contributions, and I'm who's being answered here, are mainly about the necessity of addressing questions, even if they seem obvious, and about paying attention to the How as opposed to just the What.
"I am not suggesting that Libby tone it down."
end of your quote
Yes, kosh, we do have to unite. the left. We really have to and need to and SOOOOOON!!!!!
I am glad you are asking the HOW. We need to address the how. Though as I have said again and again, I felt Green Party had a blueprint. It was not communicated via grassroots enough and not at all by national corporate media because that is anti citizen priorities and needs.
Waiting for Obama to do the right thing while we sink into the corruption quicksand deeper and deeper is a lousy option. Watching the electorate give the Republicans power sucks, also. The corporate overlords have both teams captured so if we citizens don't get the game we are lost. There aren't any pro-citizen paths from either party in my opinion. Even the so-called Progressive caucus in the House seem such appalling cowards. On the leash of Dem cronyism to sell out in backrooms to corporatists. best, libby
I appreciate your writing this -- though I think Stuart has a big point about the level of stridency and that certainly could account for urgency and stridency in tone and attitude. You write:
"This isn't about class. This isn't even about modulation.
"Maybe the original Rant post was, but this one is not. My contributions, and I'm who's being answered here, are mainly about the necessity of addressing questions, even if they seem obvious, and about paying attention to the How as opposed to just the What.
"I am not suggesting that Libby tone it down."
end of your quote
Yes, kosh, we do have to unite. the left. We really have to and need to and SOOOOOON!!!!!
I am glad you are asking the HOW. We need to address the how. Though as I have said again and again, I felt Green Party had a blueprint. It was not communicated via grassroots enough and not at all by national corporate media because that is anti citizen priorities and needs.
Waiting for Obama to do the right thing while we sink into the corruption quicksand deeper and deeper is a lousy option. Watching the electorate give the Republicans power sucks, also. The corporate overlords have both teams captured so if we citizens don't get the game we are lost. There aren't any pro-citizen paths from either party in my opinion. Even the so-called Progressive caucus in the House seem such appalling cowards. On the leash of Dem cronyism to sell out in backrooms to corporatists. best, libby
rw -- you are a hoot. yes we have jobs and mine has slowed down my responding to so many great comments and participating as much elsewhere here. i had no idea what my original blog on ranting on morality would lead to. i thought it may very well get ignored and was shot from the hip. the participation is bringing my mojo back, though sorry it is taking so long to address stuff. but this is important. and it certainly highlights and gives opportunity for expression the different political perspectives on this site, at least from the left side. best, libby
((((BLEUE!!!!))))) :-) So great to see ya!!
Thanks for the fellow female empathy on being heard in the land of patriarchy with mixed levels of openness to communication from others! I have no doubt you can be formidably assertive. I am tall but assertiveness has always been a challenge. Sometimes I may over-compensate from a big section of my life when I was terminally and self-destructively pleasant and accommodating.
I have thought of your thoughts on citizen passivity often and offered them to others. You write:
"The cronyism will remain until enough who imagine they're safe lose everything. For years I've talked to people who had comfortable lives, they weren't outraged because they benefitted from our system, or they imagined the bad things couldn't happen to them. It's easy to be pragmatic when you still have food, it's a lot harder when you're hungry. When you've lost your job, your home and can't afford food or gas suddenly you begin to emote.
"Some people become quite angry when they lose everything. Some get angry when they see someone close to them lose everything. Some get angry when they see a stranger lose everything. I'm one of the latter but I've had so many hardships that I've learned it's just part of life. I have been homeless with a child, I have been hungry, I have worked two jobs and existed on just a couple of hours of sleep for years. If you're strong, you survive, if not, you die.
"Not everyone understands what it takes to survive on an experiential level, those are just concepts they imagine they understand. Many will have to personally experience great suffering before they're outraged."
end of your quote
Yes!! Well said. Did you read Dr. Stuart's comment above re class divisions on how middle class can be impatient with stridency of lower and working classes demanding change. Your take supports that perspective. I agree.
I am glad your son-in-law gets it and is doing all he can to protect himself.
I want to quote more of your awesome comment (thank you):
"A large part of our population is still fairly clueless (emotionally and mentally). They grew up well fed and secure, if they still have a paycheck, then they imagine they're safe as they've always been safe. Perhaps they're a bit more thick-skinned than others, who knows, but even cows roll their eyes and bawl when the cow next to them gets slaughtered and they smell the blood.
"Things are not going to get better organically, either people will push legislators hard, or it will continue to get worse. All the nonsense spewed out by experts, media and other bobble-heads is just nonsense. Programs will continue to fail, businesses will continue to fail and people here will start to die from preventable things.
"Probably the elderly first, as well as those with disabilities and no family to help them. People suffer, and people die. I am a pragmatist, like the President I accept that Americans will die needlessly. Unlike him, I have zero power to change it, instead I steel myself against the inevitable.
"I hope while you continue to speak out, you begin to steel yourself for what could soon come. It will be hard for those who are very empathetic to watch so much suffering as things worsen."
end of your quote
I appreciate your saying that I am not NOT pragmatic. Thanks. One can be idealistic and pragmatic at the same time.
We need those who look at the forest and report the danger and the crisis and we also need others who are taking notes and reporting in among the trees.
Once again you write so eloquently and strongly:
"Speaking pragmatically or passionately will not change anything, action from the masses will change things. They are still chewing their cuds and gazing at the pasture waiting for legislators or CEO's to toss out bales of hay. Perhaps they are hoping they'll get alfalfa and sweet-feed like in the past but they'll stay behind their fences to eat the hay if it means they don't have to do much to get it. More and more the populace reminds me of our cattle on the farm, the sheep were not so stupid and easy to herd."
end of your quote
You are brilliant and witty and convincing when you write above, as always, Bleue!
Again, you write:
"Jan is right, all hell is going to break loose and the more the MoneyPower tries to suppress it, the worse it will be. As far as the game goes, the only way to win is not to play. I voted for Jill Stein, if there had been more Green Party candidates here I would have voted for them too. I couldn't get anyone else to even look at them. People here still wanted to play the game, they either wanted Romney or Obama. We got what the majority wanted, now we have to survive the powerful and whatever their next power moves are."
[THE ONLY WAY TO WIN IS NOT TO PLAY!!!! YES, BLEUE!!!!]
Thanks, Bleue. I have tremendous respect and affection for you. Thanks for such a wonderful contribution to this conversation. I was hoping you would comment on this thread especially. Peace and love back to you, my friend!
best, libby xxx
Thanks for the fellow female empathy on being heard in the land of patriarchy with mixed levels of openness to communication from others! I have no doubt you can be formidably assertive. I am tall but assertiveness has always been a challenge. Sometimes I may over-compensate from a big section of my life when I was terminally and self-destructively pleasant and accommodating.
I have thought of your thoughts on citizen passivity often and offered them to others. You write:
"The cronyism will remain until enough who imagine they're safe lose everything. For years I've talked to people who had comfortable lives, they weren't outraged because they benefitted from our system, or they imagined the bad things couldn't happen to them. It's easy to be pragmatic when you still have food, it's a lot harder when you're hungry. When you've lost your job, your home and can't afford food or gas suddenly you begin to emote.
"Some people become quite angry when they lose everything. Some get angry when they see someone close to them lose everything. Some get angry when they see a stranger lose everything. I'm one of the latter but I've had so many hardships that I've learned it's just part of life. I have been homeless with a child, I have been hungry, I have worked two jobs and existed on just a couple of hours of sleep for years. If you're strong, you survive, if not, you die.
"Not everyone understands what it takes to survive on an experiential level, those are just concepts they imagine they understand. Many will have to personally experience great suffering before they're outraged."
end of your quote
Yes!! Well said. Did you read Dr. Stuart's comment above re class divisions on how middle class can be impatient with stridency of lower and working classes demanding change. Your take supports that perspective. I agree.
I am glad your son-in-law gets it and is doing all he can to protect himself.
I want to quote more of your awesome comment (thank you):
"A large part of our population is still fairly clueless (emotionally and mentally). They grew up well fed and secure, if they still have a paycheck, then they imagine they're safe as they've always been safe. Perhaps they're a bit more thick-skinned than others, who knows, but even cows roll their eyes and bawl when the cow next to them gets slaughtered and they smell the blood.
"Things are not going to get better organically, either people will push legislators hard, or it will continue to get worse. All the nonsense spewed out by experts, media and other bobble-heads is just nonsense. Programs will continue to fail, businesses will continue to fail and people here will start to die from preventable things.
"Probably the elderly first, as well as those with disabilities and no family to help them. People suffer, and people die. I am a pragmatist, like the President I accept that Americans will die needlessly. Unlike him, I have zero power to change it, instead I steel myself against the inevitable.
"I hope while you continue to speak out, you begin to steel yourself for what could soon come. It will be hard for those who are very empathetic to watch so much suffering as things worsen."
end of your quote
I appreciate your saying that I am not NOT pragmatic. Thanks. One can be idealistic and pragmatic at the same time.
We need those who look at the forest and report the danger and the crisis and we also need others who are taking notes and reporting in among the trees.
Once again you write so eloquently and strongly:
"Speaking pragmatically or passionately will not change anything, action from the masses will change things. They are still chewing their cuds and gazing at the pasture waiting for legislators or CEO's to toss out bales of hay. Perhaps they are hoping they'll get alfalfa and sweet-feed like in the past but they'll stay behind their fences to eat the hay if it means they don't have to do much to get it. More and more the populace reminds me of our cattle on the farm, the sheep were not so stupid and easy to herd."
end of your quote
You are brilliant and witty and convincing when you write above, as always, Bleue!
Again, you write:
"Jan is right, all hell is going to break loose and the more the MoneyPower tries to suppress it, the worse it will be. As far as the game goes, the only way to win is not to play. I voted for Jill Stein, if there had been more Green Party candidates here I would have voted for them too. I couldn't get anyone else to even look at them. People here still wanted to play the game, they either wanted Romney or Obama. We got what the majority wanted, now we have to survive the powerful and whatever their next power moves are."
[THE ONLY WAY TO WIN IS NOT TO PLAY!!!! YES, BLEUE!!!!]
Thanks, Bleue. I have tremendous respect and affection for you. Thanks for such a wonderful contribution to this conversation. I was hoping you would comment on this thread especially. Peace and love back to you, my friend!
best, libby xxx
TL, so glad to see you here. You speak about morality and reality and psychology with such simple eloquence and tremendous forcefulness at the same time.
You write:
"I have seen about seven people on this site who really are able to experience truth with minimal bias and subconscious motive to understand the depth of moral crisis in the world today. It is real and it is unprecedented in size and scope. Never has evil had such a grip on nearly all of humanity. Never in human history. Ever. Everyone else seems driven by rationalizations, self-interested motives, ideology and illusions they dream up in their minds.
"It's not that those who don't see are stupid. Although many certainly act the part. All of these mechanisms that keep people from recognizing reality are driven by the ego's subconscious and conscious fear. What will happen to me if I am successful today and this system fails - I can't imagine so much change because it's too overwhelming to my subconscious hides the truth from me - If corporate capitalism fails, how will I survive or what will happen to my riches acquired under this system - I don't confidence in myself to take responsibility even though I see how corrupt this system is so instead I place my trust and decision-making in the hands of politicians and corporate capitalists and on and on and on.
"Most of our delusions are driven by the subconscious. We aren't born self-aware and mindful and with internal discovery as an intent. We make ourselves that way. Often because of our own failures. Enlightenment is a violent and invasive process.
[ENLIGHTENTMENT IS A VIOLENT AND INVASIVE PROCESS! STRONG POINT, TL!]
You continue:
"Everyone wants to know what to do to dissent against this system or bring meaningful change. Has anyone considered that the best course of action is to do nothing beyond trying to simply lead a life based on a morality you are comfortable with?"
end of your quote:
This reminds me of Gandhi's be the change you want in the world. Or Pete Seeger's "Think globally, act locally" and also the integrity/honesty that is called upon to recover in the 12 step rooms. Take care of your own side of the street. In an amoral world, have moral boundaries. Role model good and right behavior. Moral behavior.
Continuing to quote you:
"This system of control is wildly complex. There are literally trillions and trillions of moving parts. Never before in the history of humanity have we ever seen something so complex yet built on so many inherent contradictions and instabilities.
"There is absolutely no way a small number of people around the world can stabilize or control it. This type of complex system is not consistent with the laws of nature. Not only that but nature hates control. And, in fact, nature will collapse any complex system that is based on control.
"Nature loves simplicity and creates decentralized, uncontrollable ecosystems. Control of a system this complex attempts to defeat the universe's laws of entropy or ever-expanding disorder and chaos. And one must consider this indeed is a natural system. There is no doubt about that. It was created and it evolved no differently than any other natural ecosystem or organism on this planet.
"This system is so inherently unstable that greater and greater control must be exerted to stabilize it. But, the universe will not sit idly by as that happens. The universe is dis-assembling or destroying this system of control as we speak. The endless chaos and volatility we see around the world today is, in fact, this system in the early stages of failure. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
"Does anyone really think Barack Obama or politicians or corporate capitalists can manage a system with trillions of moving parts? They are just making it worse rather than embracing chaos as a normal and expected law of nature. The only thing we can do is lean into the change and embrace it. Because no one can control it.
"It is not democracy or freedom that is in crisis. True democracy and freedom is not a control system. It is consistent with the natural laws or natural rights of the universe. It is institutions of the ego that are in crisis and in various stages of failure. That is, politics, corporate capitalism, the military-industrial complex, money, etc. These are systems of control with massive inherent instabilities and contradictions.
"This global system is going to fail and we don't need to do anything. Just like communism failed. It too was a complex, natural system with massive inherent instabilities and contradictions."
Wow, TL. This stuff above is brilliant and tragic and gripping.
Too bad the addicts destroying so much have to harm so many in their wake of ego-dysfunction oppression!
In the 12 step rooms we talk about low bottoms and high bottoms. Our governance in the US seems hell bent on a low bottom. I watch the failures at imperialism, for example, want to double down and increase the violence and has had such horrifying consequences both intended and unintended! The Fed gives the banksters a cool $85 billion each month, money which the banksters don't use for stimulating unemployment or their citizen victims drowning in their debts to them.
You take care, TL. Thanks for sharing that above. Much appreciated!
best, libby
You write:
"I have seen about seven people on this site who really are able to experience truth with minimal bias and subconscious motive to understand the depth of moral crisis in the world today. It is real and it is unprecedented in size and scope. Never has evil had such a grip on nearly all of humanity. Never in human history. Ever. Everyone else seems driven by rationalizations, self-interested motives, ideology and illusions they dream up in their minds.
"It's not that those who don't see are stupid. Although many certainly act the part. All of these mechanisms that keep people from recognizing reality are driven by the ego's subconscious and conscious fear. What will happen to me if I am successful today and this system fails - I can't imagine so much change because it's too overwhelming to my subconscious hides the truth from me - If corporate capitalism fails, how will I survive or what will happen to my riches acquired under this system - I don't confidence in myself to take responsibility even though I see how corrupt this system is so instead I place my trust and decision-making in the hands of politicians and corporate capitalists and on and on and on.
"Most of our delusions are driven by the subconscious. We aren't born self-aware and mindful and with internal discovery as an intent. We make ourselves that way. Often because of our own failures. Enlightenment is a violent and invasive process.
[ENLIGHTENTMENT IS A VIOLENT AND INVASIVE PROCESS! STRONG POINT, TL!]
You continue:
"Everyone wants to know what to do to dissent against this system or bring meaningful change. Has anyone considered that the best course of action is to do nothing beyond trying to simply lead a life based on a morality you are comfortable with?"
end of your quote:
This reminds me of Gandhi's be the change you want in the world. Or Pete Seeger's "Think globally, act locally" and also the integrity/honesty that is called upon to recover in the 12 step rooms. Take care of your own side of the street. In an amoral world, have moral boundaries. Role model good and right behavior. Moral behavior.
Continuing to quote you:
"This system of control is wildly complex. There are literally trillions and trillions of moving parts. Never before in the history of humanity have we ever seen something so complex yet built on so many inherent contradictions and instabilities.
"There is absolutely no way a small number of people around the world can stabilize or control it. This type of complex system is not consistent with the laws of nature. Not only that but nature hates control. And, in fact, nature will collapse any complex system that is based on control.
"Nature loves simplicity and creates decentralized, uncontrollable ecosystems. Control of a system this complex attempts to defeat the universe's laws of entropy or ever-expanding disorder and chaos. And one must consider this indeed is a natural system. There is no doubt about that. It was created and it evolved no differently than any other natural ecosystem or organism on this planet.
"This system is so inherently unstable that greater and greater control must be exerted to stabilize it. But, the universe will not sit idly by as that happens. The universe is dis-assembling or destroying this system of control as we speak. The endless chaos and volatility we see around the world today is, in fact, this system in the early stages of failure. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
"Does anyone really think Barack Obama or politicians or corporate capitalists can manage a system with trillions of moving parts? They are just making it worse rather than embracing chaos as a normal and expected law of nature. The only thing we can do is lean into the change and embrace it. Because no one can control it.
"It is not democracy or freedom that is in crisis. True democracy and freedom is not a control system. It is consistent with the natural laws or natural rights of the universe. It is institutions of the ego that are in crisis and in various stages of failure. That is, politics, corporate capitalism, the military-industrial complex, money, etc. These are systems of control with massive inherent instabilities and contradictions.
"This global system is going to fail and we don't need to do anything. Just like communism failed. It too was a complex, natural system with massive inherent instabilities and contradictions."
Wow, TL. This stuff above is brilliant and tragic and gripping.
Too bad the addicts destroying so much have to harm so many in their wake of ego-dysfunction oppression!
In the 12 step rooms we talk about low bottoms and high bottoms. Our governance in the US seems hell bent on a low bottom. I watch the failures at imperialism, for example, want to double down and increase the violence and has had such horrifying consequences both intended and unintended! The Fed gives the banksters a cool $85 billion each month, money which the banksters don't use for stimulating unemployment or their citizen victims drowning in their debts to them.
You take care, TL. Thanks for sharing that above. Much appreciated!
best, libby
will be back later to read and respond to more comments. thanks for your patience! best, libby
Libby,
Concerning King Bees, you asked Art, I think,
Matriarchal not Patriarchal apiary?
An Apiary is yard full of behives, a bee yard. Art was punning on Drone; literally, he was talking about kicking the male bees out.
Maybe I'm literal-minded, but beehives are strictly matriarchal. They don't come any other way.
Concerning King Bees, you asked Art, I think,
Matriarchal not Patriarchal apiary?
An Apiary is yard full of behives, a bee yard. Art was punning on Drone; literally, he was talking about kicking the male bees out.
Maybe I'm literal-minded, but beehives are strictly matriarchal. They don't come any other way.
`
Kosh. You are right. A bee colony is matriarchal.
Drones are generally indolent. They aren't workers.
Worker bees groom the Queen, ward off robbers,
and `Pull there share of the work load. A drone
occasionally goes on a mating flight. He dies.
There is classic literature that mention drones.
If the colony has too many drones it collapses.
`
I once had 330 colonies in my honeybee apiary.
I have only two colonies. I don't stack supers.
One colony in a apiary would fill 5- supers.
That tons of honey. I hope to manage again.
I use to Love the chunk-comp harvesting.
A white-paraffin thin layer covers gold.
Sweet. No bacteria can survive in honey.
That's why Physicians in War request it.
Kosh. You are right. A bee colony is matriarchal.
Drones are generally indolent. They aren't workers.
Worker bees groom the Queen, ward off robbers,
and `Pull there share of the work load. A drone
occasionally goes on a mating flight. He dies.
There is classic literature that mention drones.
If the colony has too many drones it collapses.
`
I once had 330 colonies in my honeybee apiary.
I have only two colonies. I don't stack supers.
One colony in a apiary would fill 5- supers.
That tons of honey. I hope to manage again.
I use to Love the chunk-comp harvesting.
A white-paraffin thin layer covers gold.
Sweet. No bacteria can survive in honey.
That's why Physicians in War request it.
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