to let people in america- and around the world- know that there are those of us who understand what democracy and freedom is supposed to be and who aren't stupid like the right wing morons who hang on newt gingrich's every word and follow palin around like she's a princess... there are those of us who aren't stupid enough to believe in a being that doesn't exist- and even if we did- we wouldn't attempt to convert people who didn't simply to keep our own dysfunctional construct in place...
i blogged so that folks would understand that there are americans in this country who screamed at the top of our lungs while our country was taken over and made into a corporatocracy- and would have been on the front lines of any battle waged to take it back... and now, because there wasn't a big enough movement- we have too little too late in the midwest- i get to simply say 'i told you so' without anything even remotely approaching satisfaction...
and i give huge hugs to chris hedges who has a gift that i can only dream of:
"The liberal class is discovering what happens when you tolerate the intolerant. Let hate speech pollute the airways. Let corporations buy up your courts and state and federal legislative bodies. Let the Christian religion be manipulated by charlatans to demonize Muslims, gays and intellectuals, discredit science and become a source of personal enrichment. Let unions wither under corporate assault. Let social services and public education be stripped of funding. Let Wall Street loot the national treasury with impunity. Let sleazy con artists use lies and deception to carry out unethical sting operations on tottering liberal institutions, and you roll out the welcome mat for fascism."
he is still out there telling it like it is as if it is going to make a tinker's damn...
7 comments:
In order to maintain our inner balance while we recognize the wrongs around us and use creative expressions of words and protests and street theater we have also to affirm the positive, the hope that change can come. Even though Obama was using "hope and change" just for marketing we still have to affirm what we care about. Our creative expressions, our blogs, our poetry, our banners, our street theater puppets, our creatively expressed words and song reaffirm our inner strengths and help us keep in balance.
While life gets hard at times we are each a thread of the cosmic life force and it is up to us to affirm what we like. If we like being happy we should allow and encourage this manifestation of our being. We should strive to keep creating pockets of heaven from within and allow our inner energy to radiate and lighten the surroundings. We should smile and be happy, projecting our happiness to others, inspiring those around us, and if we do, we may see their reflective energies and smiles coming back to yet inspire us as well.
while i agree with you in principle, there comes a time when we have to acknowledge that what we are facing is dictatorship and loss of human rights. it isn't about what makes us happy- and positive change isn't always passive. there are times when even positive people have to use force- as chris hedges illustrated quite well in his article. these folks don't give a rat's ass about love and light and positive and happy. they care about profit and power and they are not going to sit by and let us just be. there is nothing in human history- ancient or modern- that suggests they will...
I've about given up on the U.S. Hedges says it well and I may just give his as the last word on politics you'll ever see on my blog again. It just about sums it up for me. Thanks.
I like Redwood's comment a lot. I am trying to "project" my happiness through my interactions with people and the natural world. I hope it helps the political/social climate (it certainly helps me personally as well as those I encounter daily, both in the blogging and the world-at-large) but otherwise I'm done with being a slave to politics. Particularly paying attention to idiots like Palin, et all.
It will make a difference. They have a power structure that depends on the willingness of people from a socioeconomic class that they're mercilessly persecuted to shoot people from the same socioeconomic background on their behalf. That never, ever works. Sometimes there will be some short-term success, but frankly I doubt they'll have even that, now that they've turned their venom on police officers.
It is far more likely that this country will break up, as the USSR did. And that moment is coming very soon, unless something changes.
Bonjour Betmo,
Nobody knows what the future has in store for the United States. But I don't think it will be fascism. Remember that your conservatives call your universal health care program a step to Hitler's fascism. The ruling party of that time was called "National Socialist Worker's Party" of which "Nazi" is a wellcome abbreviation.
No, I think you will, may be, elect one of these days an Emperor, like the Romans did with Augustus, doing away with SPQR = Senate and People of Rome. Could be this Emperor, or Supreme Protector will tell you what to do and what not to do.
Georg
Batmo... Hedges words are what many of us have been saying for years. You are correct, you told us so. So many of us stood up and pleaded that more get involved, write legislators, show up for marches, etc etc etc.
Now, seems like it's too late. But I wonder, did we ever even have a chance against the almighty dollar? This has been happening for all time in America, and especially in the 1950's when this country really took off with its prosperity.
What do we do now? For me, I still stand in protests. I still write, but in private messages to individuals and letters to those in power. I see an ocean of people that are like you and I, they get it. Most undertsand that we are why it happened. From our inaction, our tolerance, our ignoring the situation because we were too busy or too complacent in our everyday lives and didn't want to be bothered.
I've always said that there would be no war in Iraq if 3 million people showed up when it started. But there were 10,000. Not enough to warrant a look.
I'm afraid of the fact that as an old man I might go out this way, fighting for peace and justice, instead of rocking in a chair smiling and peaceful.
Peace.
We blog because we must. The human spirit sometimes burns the brightest in dark times.
Sharing the light is always better than cowering in darkness.
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