It's the Issues, Stupid!!

[Pathless]

A thread dedicated to discussion of political issues, grassroots organizing, direct action, and other means of democratic change that have nothing to do with punching a hanging chad in November. If I wanted to see a f'in horserace, I'd go to the goddamn racetrack.

There's a problem too, of course, with the conventional abbreviation of the Civil Rights Movement into two names - Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. What about Fannie Lou Hamer, who led the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's delegation to the 19464 convention? What about Ella Baker, Fred Hampton, Stokely Carmichael and hundreds of other leaders? The Great Person theory of history may simplify textbook-writing, but leaves us with no clue as to how change actually happens.


Women's rights, for example, weren't brokered by Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem over tea. As Steinem would be the first to acknowledge, the feminist movement of the 70s took root around kitchen tables and coffee tables, ignited by hundreds of thousands of now-anonymous women who were sick of being called "honey" at work and excluded from "men's" jobs. Media stars like Friedan and Steinem did a brilliant job of proselytizing, but it took an army of unsung heroines to stage the protests, organize the conferences, hand out the fliers, and spread the word to their neighbors and co-workers.

Barbara Ehrenreich: Hillary's Real MLK Problem - Politics on The Huffington Post

Yesterday I was arranging some books for sale on a table--Barack Obama's books, Hilary Clintion's books, books about MLK, Mike Huckabee's book about how to lose weight--that's right! Presidential superstar hopeful's book is about how to stop eating your way to the grave. Now I know that obesity is a real and serious problem in America, but I still find it surreally stupid that one of the books that one of the serious Republican contenders wrote has to do with food. Lest I soon become guilty of the same kind of stupid distractions that I am railing against, let me shift my focus.

How is it that we get caught up in a media blitzkrieg every fourth year, with morons and corporations shilling presidential candidates that don't represent us? Do we even need a president?? Maybe that is the burning issue of the good ol' US of A in the good ol' 2K. Maybe we need not one president, but five. Ten. Maybe we need a council of freakin' elders in this country. I'm not talking crotchety old white men, neither, but a vast spectrum of regional leaders brought together to discuss the long-standing and burning issues in their communities and nation. Wait, wait--you say we alread have that? Congress?? Hruuumph. Congress needs a rehaul, then, I'm guessing.

Back to superstar presidential politics. What about the issues?? I don't want the media to tell me Hilary Clinton cried and then, later, hear from another media source while I am driving that indeed, she did not shed a tear, but got a little choked up... WHAT?? Okay, okay, but what about the ISSUES??!!

1. Is Hilary going to get our soldiers out of Iraq? Is Obama? I'm not asking about the Republican candidates because it's clear that they, except Ron Paul, will not.
2. Can we reduce some of that bloated military budget and work on education in this country? Huh? Can we?
3. I want to hear Obama talk more about universal health care. I want to hear everyone talk more about universal health care. As a matter of fact, I can't subject myself to the psychic and intellectual violence of wading through the superficial Brittany Spears-laced and Presidential Two Ring Circus media to hear about it. I want these discussions on the FRONT PAGE of every major newspaper that I pass in a glass box on my way to work. I have the audacity to think that there should be at least some major media outlets out there who report what happened, not which candidate farted or wore the wrong color tie considering their political party.
4. What is happening in New Orleans?? The devestation and gentrification that Hurricaine Katrina brought is not going away by itself. I want fallout from this and other natural and humanitarian disasters brought back to the front page of the newspapers, too.
5. What about gay marriage?
6. We're not actually going to build a wall between Texas and Mexico, are we?
7. We're not going to go to war with Iran, are we?
8. What about jobs?
9. Can someone please talk about the problem of continuing colonization in a world that is plagued with racism, sexism, ageism, and capitalism??
10. Oh and by the way, what does my dollar actually stand for?? I would like to know what the economy that I support and that supports me--that I am embedded in like breatheable air--does to create sustainable and stimulating conditions for all life--human, animal, plant, mineral--on this planet. Can we talk about the politics of economics?

So I am concerned. I am concerned that the country I live in is indeed stupid, is indeed represented by the cultural legacy of the Jerry Springer Show. I overhear people in the grocery store check-out line talking about marriages and pregnancies, only to figure out that they are talking about far-away celebrities that they have never met and likely never will. I wonder how many unmarried women around us in this community I live in are pregnant, are struggling, are in section 8 housing? I wonder how those women's children will grow up--hungry, neglected by a culture that puts a premium on shine and glitz and horserace prezzie campaigns. Will they grow up confused and angry? Will they be taught the ever-changing skills and techniques it takes to survive in this post-industrial wilderness that we all inhabit? Will they learn love, compassion, the value of human relationships? Or will they perhaps miraculously pick themselves up by those non-existent "bootstraps" and become another engineer designing devastating tinker-toys in the perpetual war on "Terror"? Will they be one of the elect few, completely stripped of humanity, who battlecharge into the ranks of the elite rulers of this representative democracy of ours, pushing forward agendas that benefit the few, not the many? The elite, not the tired, not the poor?

How long, Lord, how long??

 

[Paladin]

Okay, first of all, take a deeeeep breath, have a little chocolate, take a hot bath and remember what you are seeing on the tube is for the rubes. You must know that what is really going on has already been decided and what you are seeing out on the campaign trail is just a show for the masses. Hmm shall I vote for the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right?

 

[Snoopy]

Hmm shall I vote for the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right?

You got one on the right and one on the left?! Amazing! We've not had that for years...

s.

 

[flowperson]

Many of us are still hoping that the "Cookie Monster" will run as an independent. He seems single minded and neither on the right or left. COOKIE !!!

flow....

 

[Pathless]

Okay, first of all, take a deeeeep breath, have a little chocolate, take a hot bath and remember what you are seeing on the tube is for the rubes. You must know that what is really going on has already been decided and what you are seeing out on the campaign trail is just a show for the masses. Hmm shall I vote for the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right?

That should outrage you. Why doesn't it?

You got one on the right and one on the left?! Amazing! We've not had that for years...

That should outrage you!!

Hell, I'd vote for the Cookie Monster if he ran. He has to have more brains than the current infant playing Risk in the oval office.

Seriously, this country is stupid.
Short sighted
and
very stupid.

And staring at this computer screen is making me stupid. It's like eating lead paint: the internet, these forums. Dumb dumb dumb.

Why does everyone seem so complacent??

Apologies in advance to everyone, but I don't know how else to express my ongoing indignation here.

 

[path_of_one]

Oh, there are lots of us ticked off. I'm one of them. We just don't know what to do about it in the four hours each evening we have between getting home from work and going to sleep.

I'd like to ask: can someone tell me if we're ever going to be really capitalist? If we're not, can we just own up to that fact and quit making believe that we are?

Does anyone seriously think that going to war in ever-more places is going to lead to peace?

Is anyone dumb enough to think Al-Qaeda is like a country that we can just go to war with and win? Hello, people- a terrorist organization is not the same thing structurally and it doesn't just go away when you get rid of its leaders! Anyone have a plan for how to actually FIX the terrorism issue- that is, fix the roots of WHY people become terrorists?

Can anyone explain their plan for helping us become in line with the education and health care standards every other first world (and many third world) countries have? When even the people I know making $100K a year are struggling to pay their insurance and health care bills, you know there is a problem. When people are electing to have major surgery in INDIA because it is CHEAPER than using their insurance in the US, you know there is a problem.

Can anyone make it clear to me how anyone can claim they are pro-life and that life is sacred, yet be pro-war, pro-capital punishment? How is this logical? Either life is sacred, or it isn't, or it only is if it is a baby. I want people to quit hiding behind illogical statements that the vast majority of people dumbly accept without question. While we're at it, what the heck is up with Bush being against stem-cell research but for in vitro fertilization. HELLO?! The embryos are PRODUCED by in vitro fertilization, dummy, and then the ones not used are A) indefinitely frozen (which basically means they are not allowed to live), B) thrown away like garbage or C) used in research. Personally, if life is sacred and embryos are human life, can they at least contribute to other human life through research and therefore have meaning? Or can there be some logical consistency and can the anti-stem cell crowd also be against in vitro fertilization? And is anyone in that crowd someone who has or has a close loved one with Parkinsons or other diseases that are projected to be cured by this research?

Can we discuss why we're one of the few first world nations that have the death penalty and incarcerate a gazillion people (at great cost to all of us, by the way) but somehow we STILL have higher crime rates, especially violent crime, than most other first world countries? Most of the people I know from Europe are shocked that we have so many kidnappers, pedophiles, murderers. WHY? And why do we all buy into fearing terrorism as the major threat to our lives, when clearly we're all much more likely to die from lack of quality health care or at the hands of one of our own (either through the stupidity of something like DUI or the maliciousness of violent crime)? Does it make the public feel better to externalize their fear and blame it on some far-off country or people? Because it isn't fixing anything and it doesn't make me feel better.

I can't stand the presidential race with all the posturing and sound bites and Television crap. There was some huge discussion at one point about Hillary's cleavage because she wore what was in my opinion was a highly conservative top that managed to give a hint that she actually might have boobs. My God! (Literally, I cry out to Him in my frustration.) Can we just move ON with things and actually get to the issues rather than who had an affair, who has boobs, who is biracial, and all these other things that don't MATTER?!

You know... it is the American public's fault. The media just sells what sells. The politicians pander to whatever people want to hear. Americans want to (apparently) hear about this crap, along with whatever celebrities are doing/wearing/saying and incessant articles about dieting and people's sex lives. I don't even bother getting the paper or watching the news anymore, because it's a load of horsecrap that is A) boring and B) stupid and C) depressing.

In the meantime, I just keep trying to figure out local ways to help out. I gave up on policy and politics a long time ago, and to be honest, I kind of gave up on my fellow Americans. It seems like most of us who bother to care are overwhelmed with too much need, not enough resources to help, and a disillusion that anything we do will matter in changing policy. The rest of the folks are either too poor to have any time to care, too uneducated to realize the scope of the issues or challenge what is spoon-fed to them, or too apathetic to bother, preferring to watch whatever the latest crappy reality show is and debate about who should get kicked off next.

I'd never start this thread, but it makes me feel better to type up my rant. Thanks. Now I can go back to ignoring it all and trying to do a little good locally...

Path

 

[wil]

I remember Socrates (plato) saying somewhere along the line that we wouldn't hire a brick mason to do fine carpentry or something to that effect. In regards to the fact that we need professional politicians, and rather than get into politics himself as one man, he thought he'd spend time teaching and developing politicians.

 

[Paladin]

That should outrage you. Why doesn't it?



That should outrage you!!

Hell, I'd vote for the Cookie Monster if he ran. He has to have more brains than the current infant playing Risk in the oval office.

Seriously, this country is stupid.
Short sighted
and
very stupid.

And staring at this computer screen is making me stupid. It's like eating lead paint: the internet, these forums. Dumb dumb dumb.

Why does everyone seem so complacent??

Apologies in advance to everyone, but I don't know how else to express my ongoing indignation here.

What makes you think I'm not angry about all this? I've had many more years to be angry at the guberment and just getting a little philosophical about it. I see more tin foil hatters running themselves into the ground over the shadow government, the Bilderberg group etc etc...
The only thing we can do is try to spread the word here on the internet and among friends at a grass roots level because politics just doesn't work. I applaud the efforts of people like Alex Jones (Endgame) for trying to wake people up.

Keep posting, keep ranting, what used to be science fiction is becoming reality. Orwell might have been a prophet and Vonnegut seemed to understand where all this may be heading. Americans seem to be easily distracted with wishy washy entertainment and seemingly big issues that shouldn't be before the Federal Government anyway. When the Gay Marriage issue hit the papers it was just a way of taking attention away from where it should be. An important issue? yes but let's face it we got bigger fish to fry first!

 

[flowperson]

Well, I do have to admit that my cookie monster proposal was facetious.

Two Paths, I appreciate your rants and reminding me of who and what I was thirty years ago. I've written these things in essays. I've passed them on to important people who knew who I was and where I had been to reach my verifiable conclusions. No one in "authority" has had the courage or moral fortitude to question my conclusions, except through surrogates. Our belief systems are mired in the concrete of the past, and our dreams for the future are being systematically destroyed for our own good (in the opinion of our betters).

I have appeared in Who's Whos because of what I've written. No matter, all that has happened to me personally is the loss of meaningful work, the shredding of my life with two good women, the almost total loss of my assets twice, and the denial of passing on what I know and feel to my two children, which of course is the greatest crime against humans. In short it has been the almost total sabotaging of an otherwise quite ordinary human life.

We live in an age where technological systems determine and direct almost every aspect of our lives, while the illusion of freedom is desparately maintained for the benefit of the controllers. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the truth of our situation. When one is subjugated under such systems, one lives a life of eternally having one's fantasies fed, and at the same time having one's dreams methodically murdered.

How did we get here ? What does it mean for our children ? How do we approach an overhaul of reality ? What is reality ? I'm with you Paladin my friend. These days I'm content to watch the detrius of our collective stupidity accumulate and wonder just where and when the tipping points will be reached and real change happens.

I'm still writing my version of the truth however, even though it is disguised as fiction and I am forced to watch others suffer at the hand of the cruel and heartless because of my personal quest for meaning. All of you, just follow your hearts and bliss and do what you believe to be right and true. In the end, this will all pass away only if enough of us do just that. What we all are really watching and living in these times is the eternal struggle between those who believe in the enslavement of and those who believe in freedom for the soul of Humanity.

flow....

 

[Snoopy]

That should outrage you!!

I didn't say I found the political climate healthy; I do not. The political class in the UK is separate from the populace, this is now the great divide, no longer is it between the left and the right. This will change eventually and perhaps in a manner not benign.

Of course Pathless you are free to feel what you will and express it accordingly; as am I.

s.

 

[Pathless]

Paladin, Flow, and Snoopy; Path of One; Wil; Lurkers and Readers:

Yes, of course. I think I knew (somewhere in my subjugated mind) yesterday that y'all (P/F/S) are just looking at the situation from a different, calmer perspective, and that we don't disagree. I know we don't disagree. But I still get pissy about the continuing heartlessness, injustise, and toxic stupidity that pours from the machinery of western civilization. Sometimes having calmer heads around isn't exactly what I need.

For this reason, it was very nice to read the other Path's rage on the page here. I still want to see more of this from people! We all need to see/hear/taste more outrage. Yes, the revolution is not being televised, but YES it is going on. I know this, even in isolation and despair, because I have the privelege to read widely and observe and seek out media that does serve me.

Still, the revolting ignorance and pomp of the election circus has caught me off guard. NOTHING meaningful is happening, it seems, candidates like Dennis Kucinich who actually might have something to offer the American People and the World are being quietly sidelined/disqualified, and the workings of the electoral process are more obscure than ever--either that, or I'm simply paying more attention than before--or a combination of these things.

I'll be discontent, still, I know, no matter who gets into office to replace the current cunning illusionist(s) who has/have been running and ruining Oz for the past 8 years. But as the Beatles do say, "Things are getting better all the time," at least from certain perspectives.

There's a lot of work to do, and it becomes clearer and clearer to me in times like these that the personal is political and indeed that that is perhaps the only sphere in which I can truly create change. I'm glad Path brought up the importance of local, direct action. I think part of my rage comes from knowing that there is a farce happening on the national televised stage and there is really very very very litttle--really absolutely nothing besides tossing out a very probably meaningless vote in several months--that I can do about it. I'm also very pissed off because part of the illusion of this national televised farce is that everything is hunky-dorey, and the people are okay with it, let's go shopping.

People are not okay with it.
People are very much upset.
People are also tired and disillusioned. This fight has been going on for a long, long time. It's a veritable centuries-old war of class struggle for the soul of humanity and the Earth.
I get that. That makes me even more pissed. And so yes, thank you very much, I will keep ranting, raving, digging, progressing, digesting, shoring up more and more resources and re-investing those in beautiful communities of passion, compassion, intelligence, and wisdom.

Soon enough, some day, the current power structure will collapse and rot beyond reapir, and new, diverse organic sources of meaning and power will bloom and flourish, having already taken root. Those power sources are rooted now, growing, nourishing, blooming.

We've got the internets and stuff, too, as well as traditional print media that has become more accessible and diversified. And we've got the teevee. If we can figure out how to use that one properly, whooo dawgy! The revoltion won't need to be televised at that point, 'cuz it will be ongoing.

Yes, we all wield power every moment of our lives. That power is our lives and how we choose to live them moment-to-moment, day by day.

In Peace, Creativity, and Solidarity,

Pathless

 

[flowperson]

Pathless, what an excellent post my brother. You might be gratified to learn that my favorite cartoon for those past thirty years has been one of two vultures sitting on a dead tree limb. One turns to the other and says, "Patience hell...I'm going to go out and kill something !"

My second favorite cartoon is of two penguins standing and facing each other, but one of them has been half swallowed head first by a very large orange fish. The observing penguin says to the one being swallowed, "Relax...G-d's in charge."

Actually, I like them equally well and believe in the truth of each.

flow....

 

[wil]

While we screw up regularly and we can choose to look at the negative in every situation and illuminate the problems instead of the successes, I prefer not to.

While we've spent trillions blowing things up, we've spent billions more than anyone else building things up.

We here at interfaith like to think we like to focus on similarities, on getting along thru discussion.

Why can't we put our energy into the same regard here? Want change, be the change you want to see. Want anger and ranting and over the top ridiculousness, be that.

Yes become political if you wish rather than rant, or rant if you wish. Will ranting, protesting change things, or will being part of the change?

 

[Pathless]

wil, the problem that I have with that rosey-eyed view is that I firmly believe that no change happens without agitation. Outrage is crucial to create change. Ranting is part of the change.

How about, "Be the outrage you wish to see in the world"? I think that sums it up for me sometimes.

--P

 

[wil]

How about, "Be the outrage you wish to see in the world"? I think that sums it up for me sometimes.

You are right, it does sum it up.

I've got no desire to see a world outraged.

 

[Pathless]

You are right, it does sum it up.

I've got no desire to see a world outraged.

To which I say:

tough banannas.
There's a lot to be outraged about. If this bothers you because you'd rather everyone put on a smile, think positive, and play nice, I say again:
tough banannas.

Or, to quote my generation's finest woman folk singer:

"If you're not angry
You're just stupid, you don't care
Cuz how else can you react
When you know something's so unfair
That the man of the hour can kill half the world in war
Make them slaves to a superpower and let them die poor?"


wil, you seem to be under the impression that outrage is morally wrong, or at the very least, non-productive. I disagree strongly. Once again I say, without outrage, there can be no change. Faced with the decision of a world of outrage or a world of complacency and complicity with injustice and immorality and unethical behavior and murder, I choose option 1) world of outrage.

Playing the smug moral high ground of Gandhian pop psychology and canned spirituality doesn't serve me as an oppressed person, so I've quit doing it. That same fa-la-la allegiance to passivity and and non-aggression certainly doesn't help the REALLY oppressed people in the world. It serves just a few people, really: those in corrupt places. I'm tired of selling them my actions and energy and thoughts. I'm tired of being a day laborer for corporations, tired or whoring myself out to the IRS on a daily basis.

Like I said before, I'm outraged.

You're not???
That's kinda sad.

 

[path_of_one]

I am quite outraged because I feel the world is incredibly unjust. More than anything, I simply can't watch children around the world living in poverty and refugee camps, working in factories to make our $15 t-shirts, sold into slavery and the sex trade, murdered in wars that stupid adults think are necessary, poisoned by the air and water we've polluted because we wanted more and cheaper stuff... and feel OK. I know all those kids that die go straight to God. I know one day humanity will get wiped off the face of the planet anyway and the Earth will pick up her shattered remains and repair herself, and no doubt be as lovely as ever, weaving trees and vines over her scars. But it doesn't make it any less painful for someone who is empathic to live in this world. Because since I was a toddler and could speak, I cried and grieved over the pain that all the ordinary people are subjected to for the greed and carelessness of those few who wish to claim power. I cried for the agony of the Earth.

I can't claim the moral high ground. It isn't hard for me to care, like it seems to be for a lot of people. I can't put on the rose-colored glasses. I can avoid the news, but I can't totally block out the dreams I've had since I was young of the kids dying... the Earth crying out... war... I'm 29. The dreams and empathy started as far back as I can remember. It took me most of my life so far to find a way to avoid being entirely overwhelmed with depression, breaking under the strain of grief.

It's hard enough for me to block out that pain and trudge on each day, paying my bills and wondering if my life and the sorrow and anger I've felt at the injustice will ever matter. I've spent as much time learning to tune out enough to function as I have doing any useful action. You can't do much when you're grieving all the time. So I tune out to the currents of it all that wash around me enough to function and I tune in to God enough to have joy and peace. But I can't totally shake the background noise of suffering that has been my existence for my entire life, and I don't want to.

All the nameless people who suffer deserve at least someone to grieve for and with them. They deserve someone to care. They may never make it on the news or into the consciousness of most people, but they deserve at least my acknowledgement. If I can give them nothing else, I can give them that. I work toward the goal of uniting joy with grief, honoring the lives of those who are harmed while living in the joy of God. Now I can be hopeful, and mostly calm... and it is from that place that I hope I can be useful.

I bide my time, and I'm in good company. We meet in each other's living rooms and strategize. We are figuring out ways to start innocuous non-profits and media that look harmless but plant the seeds of revolution. We will study the institutions and the cultures and systems until we figure out how to change them without any obvious fight. I'm a pacifist. I don't want to fight. I don't think the answer is in killing anyone, no matter how horrible their actions or policies are. I am all about Ghandi and MLK and pacifist revolts. They work, and they are ethically sound. So... the answer is in outsmarting them...

Logically, I think my life won't accomplish much. And besides, as a social scientist I think we're heading for a collapse anyway, because we're simply unsustainable. It can't be far off.

But emotionally and spiritually, every day that goes by the way it is means more pain and suffering. Every day that goes by means more children that die because of lack of basic health care and sanitation, because adults care more about our stupid superficial differences and buying crap than we do about protecting our most innocent ones. Maybe I was just born different, because I study this stuff until I'm blue in the face and I understand it logically and I look for the weaknesses, the points of entry for a gradual revolution... but I don't get it. It is so simple to me, and that is what hurts the most.

Stop spending so much resources on killing people and unnecessary stuff. Start spending resources on giving everyone food, shelter, clean water, health care, and decent education. Make sure kids who lost their parents get one. Don't take more than we need, because the Earth is a bunch of living beings and they deserve better than our greed.

I just don't get what's hard about it... To me, it is just basic humanity. But then, when you feel others' pain almost as strongly as your own, you want it to stop. You can't ignore it. You just don't have that luxury.

 

[Pathless]

But it doesn't make it any less painful for someone who is empathic to live in this world. Because since I was a toddler and could speak, I cried and grieved over the pain that all the ordinary people are subjected to for the greed and carelessness of those few who wish to claim power. I cried for the agony of the Earth.

I can't claim the moral high ground. It isn't hard for me to care, like it seems to be for a lot of people. I can't put on the rose-colored glasses. I can avoid the news, but I can't totally block out the dreams I've had since I was young of the kids dying... the Earth crying out... war... I'm 29. The dreams and empathy started as far back as I can remember. It took me most of my life so far to find a way to avoid being entirely overwhelmed with depression, breaking under the strain of grief.

It's hard enough for me to block out that pain and trudge on each day, paying my bills and wondering if my life and the sorrow and anger I've felt at the injustice will ever matter. I've spent as much time learning to tune out enough to function as I have doing any useful action. You can't do much when you're grieving all the time. So I tune out to the currents of it all that wash around me enough to function and I tune in to God enough to have joy and peace. But I can't totally shake the background noise of suffering that has been my existence for my entire life, and I don't want to.

Powerful words, Path.

I'm in a similar situation. Every day I wake up and take 100 mg of Sertaline HCL. This is not something that I want to do. I take it because it is helps me function in a way that most people take for granted. Without it in my system--and I hate to admit this and hope that one day this can change--I would very likely spiral down into a depression that would keep me incapacitated with terror, despair, and anxiety.

I take it because it helps me function in a way that most people take for granted, yet I don't think this is because of some necessarily biological fault of mine, or because of a weakness of my personality. Although I know many people find it unbecoming to "blame society" for the ills suffered by the individual, I don't have a problem with doing that. Indeed, if society subjected itself to a rigorous moral scrutiny similar to the standard that I feel natural to hold myself to, we wouldn't be in the mess that we're in--or if we were, we'd be dead. Never mind the fact that the continuing degradation and exploitation of everything makes it feel like we are dead or inhabiting some hell realm. I realize that not everyone shares that perception, and that it may just be a fault of my character or a defect in my biochemical regions, which is why I have heeded the ever-loving wisdom of the medical community and taken a pill to fix my feel-bads for such long periods of time.

Don't worry, though, I get it. We shouldn't, as Americans and civilized westerners, beat ourselves up or hold ourselves to any high ethical standards. Heck, that's what Jesus died for, if you ask a lot of our Christian brothers and sisters. So why bother? It's all paid for, and it is our job to cash in on consumerism, to enjoy the fruit of the labor of the Earth, and thank Jesus on Sundays, giving him a nice tip in the gold-plated offering tray.

Nevermind that our country is built on slavery and genocide. That's all in the past! Don't drag yourself through that mess. It'll only make you feel guilty. Don't worry about the fact that chickens are being strung up by their toes and decapitated by machines on a massive scale to bring you your dinner. Be thankful! Technology is a wonderful thing. Don't sit around brooding over sweatshops or the ongoing economic subjugation of the world's population. I mean, really, if you think of it that way, you're bound to be bummed out. Think of it as Free Trade.

And on and on. So I take the pill and I drink coffee and I consume the silly little products that help make my life bearable and even joyful from time to time. I listen to music, work a little bit for money. I have meaningful conversations with people, when I can get them, about the frustrating realities of the world. And then I'm back to feeling a little glum.

So. What next? Take more pills, drink more coffee, whistle-dee-doo on my kazzoo more loudly? That's fun!! Wheee! Or sharpen up on my techniques of resistance? Hmmm, got to be careful there, though. Wouldn't want to seem like a radical. Might become a "bad guy."

Oh, screw it. Curious, I look up the definition of radical and learn that it means "going to the root." I begin to think about roots, about cultivation, about organic systems, and--why not--about roots and rebel music. I put on some Bob Marley and meditate on the meaning of radical for a while. I read history--not textbook history, but people's history: Eric Foner and Howard Zinn. I watch Spike Lee's Malcolm X, read Black Boy. I read Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil and I am inspired, stoked. The text speaks to me in a way that nothing else ever has. It is urgent and outraged and joyful and full of meaning and the search for meaning. It is irreverant and beautiful, full of dirty words and critical imagination.

I plant trees and work crisis phone lines for people who are having hard times. I write and make art and sing and dance. I meditate and study all types of spiritual faiths. I play games, take pictures, go for long walks outside. I make a radical effort to live and, living, to connect to the living Earth. I want out of the canned commodity culture, but I'm in it. Always in it, even when I'm in the wild lands of National Parks. I'm free, but I can't get free. Inside, looking out and outside, looking in. I'm in a voting booth with two options, knowing neither of them is a choice for liberation. I'm poor and a wage slave in a land that boasts of its richness and freedom. I'm sick to death and breathing, whistle-clean in my soul but at the same time so dirtily guilty with all the crimes that are committed in my name, for my good, by the powers-that-be. I'm powerless and hungry, capable of being full and robust and strong beyond all lines and cages.

I'm moving forward, staying still, pushing against the grain. I'm resisting. My life begins to have some meaning.

Someday
I won't have to take
those f0cking pills

All the nameless people who suffer deserve at least someone to grieve for and with them. They deserve someone to care. They may never make it on the news or into the consciousness of most people, but they deserve at least my acknowledgement. If I can give them nothing else, I can give them that. I work toward the goal of uniting joy with grief, honoring the lives of those who are harmed while living in the joy of God. Now I can be hopeful, and mostly calm... and it is from that place that I hope I can be useful.

I bide my time, and I'm in good company. We meet in each other's living rooms and strategize. We are figuring out ways to start innocuous non-profits and media that look harmless but plant the seeds of revolution. We will study the institutions and the cultures and systems until we figure out how to change them without any obvious fight. I'm a pacifist. I don't want to fight. I don't think the answer is in killing anyone, no matter how horrible their actions or policies are. I am all about Ghandi and MLK and pacifist revolts. They work, and they are ethically sound. So... the answer is in outsmarting them...

Logically, I think my life won't accomplish much. And besides, as a social scientist I think we're heading for a collapse anyway, because we're simply unsustainable. It can't be far off.

But emotionally and spiritually, every day that goes by the way it is means more pain and suffering. Every day that goes by means more children that die because of lack of basic health care and sanitation, because adults care more about our stupid superficial differences and buying crap than we do about protecting our most innocent ones. Maybe I was just born different, because I study this stuff until I'm blue in the face and I understand it logically and I look for the weaknesses, the points of entry for a gradual revolution... but I don't get it. It is so simple to me, and that is what hurts the most.

Stop spending so much resources on killing people and unnecessary stuff. Start spending resources on giving everyone food, shelter, clean water, health care, and decent education. Make sure kids who lost their parents get one. Don't take more than we need, because the Earth is a bunch of living beings and they deserve better than our greed.

I just don't get what's hard about it... To me, it is just basic humanity. But then, when you feel others' pain almost as strongly as your own, you want it to stop. You can't ignore it. You just don't have that luxury.

 

[Jack Halyard]

Stop spending so much resources on killing people and unnecessary stuff. Start spending resources on giving everyone food, shelter, clean water, health care, and decent education. Make sure kids who lost their parents get one. Don't take more than we need, because the Earth is a bunch of living beings and they deserve better than our greed.

I just don't get what's hard about it... To me, it is just basic humanity. But then, when you feel others' pain almost as strongly as your own, you want it to stop. You can't ignore it. You just don't have that luxury.

Amen Amen

 

[Pathless]

Democracy Now! | Noam Chomsky: Why is Iraq Missing from 2008 Presidential Race?

Why aren't the candidates talking more about the Iraq War and the over-arching "War On Terror"--more accurately described as the "War Of Terror"?

Not very long ago, as you all recall, it was taken for granted that the Iraq war would be the central issue in the 2008 election, as it was in the midterm election two years ago. However, it’s virtually disappeared off the radar screen, which has solicited some puzzlement among the punditry.

Actually, the reason is not very obscure. It was cogently explained forty years ago, when the US invasion of South Vietnam was in its fourth year and the surge of that day was about to add another 100,000 troops to the 175,000 already there, while South Vietnam was being bombed to shreds at triple the level of the bombing of the north and the war was expanding to the rest of Indochina. However, the war was not going very well, so the former hawks were shifting towards doubts, among them the distinguished historian Arthur Schlesinger, maybe the most distinguished historian of his generation, a Kennedy adviser, who—when he and Kennedy, other Kennedy liberals were beginning to—reluctantly beginning to shift from a dedication to victory to a more dovish position.


And Schlesinger explained the reasons. He explained that—I’ll quote him now—“Of course, we all pray that the hawks are right in thinking that the surge of that day will work. And if it does, we may all be saluting the wisdom and statesmanship of the American government in winning a victory in a land that we have turned,” he said, “to wreck and ruin. But the surge probably won’t work, at an acceptable cost to us, so perhaps strategy should be rethought.”


Well, the reasoning and the underlying attitudes carry over with almost no change to the critical commentary on the US invasion of Iraq today. And it is a land of wreck and ruin. You’ve already heard a few words; I don’t have to review the facts. The highly regarded British polling agency, Oxford Research Bureau, has just updated its estimate of deaths. Their new estimate a couple of days ago is 1.3 million. That’s excluding two of the most violent provinces, Karbala and Anbar. On the side, it’s kind of intriguing to observe the ferocity of the debate over the actual number of deaths. There’s an assumption on the part of the hawks that if we only killed a couple hundred thousand people, it would be OK, so we shouldn’t accept the higher estimates. You can go along with that if you like.


Uncontroversially, there are over two million displaced within Iraq. Thanks to the generosity of Jordan and Syria, the millions of refugees who have fled the wreckage of Iraq aren’t totally wiped out. That includes most of the professional classes. But that welcome is fading, because Jordan and Syria receive no support from the perpetrators of the crimes in Washington and London, and therefore they cannot accept that huge burden for very long. It’s going to leave those two-and-a-half million refugees who fled in even more desperate straits.