freshwest
freshwest's JournalI like that little piece of poetry, regardless, and am stealing it.
Although I like this one, too:
What Is Life?
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across
the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
~ Attributed to Crowfoot (ca 1830-1890), chief of the Canadian Blackfoot tribe.
I do live in that community. It's the one Michio Kaku said we should have from 0:51 to 1:26:
When I see the 'nothing can be done' or 'they are all powerful' talk I know I am speaking to a person who has internalized this on an subconscious level, the conservative view, although they are not conservative in their awaked conscious. We have been drowning in this media environment for years.
Kaku talks about those who say that violence is 'just human nature.' That belief gives power to conservatives. I consider not voting or getting involved as that belief causing them to surrender.
There are few things in life as aggravating as trying to work these things out in a public sphere and face to face when confronted with this mindset, which I feel expresses both the worst of the LEOs and anti-LEOs beliefs about society and 'human nature.'
There is a better way, but not voting or refusing to get involved is accepting, unconsciously, being a victim. When I read such words as 'kill the pigs' that is the same camp as a conservative, IMHO.
Employing the methods of violence don't make life better, they only defer the solution to the problem. It's a huge failure, a last resort. A free, democratic society is a preventative medicine to that.
As far as making OPs go, I usually don't. as I get several requests. If you or anyone wants to use any thoughts I share to make one, feel free. Life if short, share the ideas.
BTW, I posted that video earlier, just because of that concept. Here it is, it long since disappeared off the page in V&MM:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017155930
Not much interest. Should I have posted it in GD?
Her targets are liberals, progressives and Democrats. Said that proved they are incapable.
Now, if they just would vote the *right way* they should be *allowed.*Give up the freedom to think. We already told you what to think, but you didn't obey. Therefore, you are unqualified to vote!
This thread needs a dose of the truth. Tired, but still as needed as ever!
This is what they really believe. I have a more ominous version, but prefer this classic from 2009. Sorry if you've seen me post it before...
+1. Only thing is, if the voters are all gloom and doom, they'll get away with it.
Not voting or refusing to dirty oneself with local politics is not a neutral act. It is a subservient one to things going on that more involved communities do not tolerate.
If the majority believe government can never work for them and don't vote or vote a very narrow interest, they get exactly that. The We the People government is not us and them, it is We. They reflect our values.
If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them.
~ Paul Wellstone
And using the generic 'you' in this rant, not specic to you, DUer:
Don't like the police?
Get into your community groups or visit the police and their supporters to find out what is going on. Don't wait until things go to hell. I mean it, go to the police station and talk. Tell them you're concerned about the path being taken and let them know you can't vote to fund such things from tax money, or explain to you why it was deemed legal by them. You may find that they did it with good intent, or they were being assholes.
They are the tools of the legislature and governor and follow whatever they are told they can do. This was obviously not a spur of the moment decision. It was planned out and all the medical people agreed to do it. Why?
Talk to legislators about why these things are legal. They make the law. Are they ignoramuses who don't care?
Let you know you do.
Don't approve of medical 'professionals' abusing a citizen the way is being done in NM?
Go to the hospital board meetings, find out who is paying for this, confront them for being tools.
Don't like the creationists putting their religion into public school cirriculum, the dumbing down of the coming generation by lack of history on labor, civil rights and the real history of this country, editing text book for wingnuttery?
Run for school board. We all know that wingnuts never miss a chance to get into office, and they show up at all the PTA and other meetings to push agendas.
Nothing's written in stone, not the New Deal or other programs. You can't count on the past to make your future. You got to be there.
And prepare yourself to deal with the wingnuts and shady characters since they'll be there with bells on and you have to deal with what is in place if you community has been asleep at the wheel.
It may show a person a lot about why things are not just dealt with by fiat from Washington, D.C. You may have to work with people you think are very wrong. While you are there, you will be forced to park your own ego. They think they and their ideas are as good as you think yours are.
Understand that the more deeply you hold your ideals, the more you are morally obligated to be pragmatic... Idealism without pragmatism is just a way to flatter your ego.
- Barney Frank
Why should theirs be the only voice?
Don't like the housing or the homeless situtation?
Run for planning board or attend those meetings for the public posted as 'land use actions' that come up since the developers will be there. Why not work to influence them?
P. S. Anyone who thinks these mundane things don't make a difference is kidding themselves. They create the basis of society.
Excuse me, I had to 
Thought for a moment this would be another video I saw as the Rust Belt's eulogy:
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
"Youngstown"
Here in northeast Ohio
Back in eighteen-o-three
James and Dan Heaton
Found the ore that was linin' Yellow Creek
They built a blast furnace
Here along the shore
And they made the cannonballs
That helped the Union win the war
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
Well my daddy worked the furnaces
Kept 'em hotter than hell
I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer
A job that'd suit the devil as well
Taconite coke and limestone
Fed my children and make my pay
Them smokestacks reachin' like the arms of God
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
Sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
Well my daddy come on the Ohio works
When he come home from World War Two
Now the yard's just scrap and rubble
He said "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do."
These mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this country's wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
From the Monongahela valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalachia
The story's always the same
Seven hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name
And Youngstown
And Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
When I die I don't want no part of heaven
I would not do heaven's work well
I pray the devil comes and takes me
To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell
Not sure which song makes me cry more, probably Springsteen's. Thanks for memorializing the men who lost their lives doing their job to take care of their families. A lot history is written around the Great Lakes.
It's worse than that. They profit off and encourage unemployment in several ways.
It maximizes profit to have less workers, and it creates chaos in their lives in order to prevent them from having the time to get out of poverty and organized to make political change to would improve their lot.
Politics was traditionally known as the luxury of the leisure class, and they want it that way again.
They resist all aid to those unemployed, to force the above hardships and disenfranchisement to consoliate their power.
They want those still employed kept in a state of fear to further drive down wages and rights, as they put us in competition with slave labor abroad.
Then demand we create that same class here or they will not bring back the capital they stole from American workers who created it for them.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
~ Abraham Lincoln
The GOP is no longer the party that freed the slaves; they are the party that thrives on that system.
That wouldn't be productive, so he won't do it. Also, he does not seem willing to go the low road.
Imagine the squalling if he or any Democrat acted in what could fantastically be construed as being heavy handed or even a remotely critical fashion officially against this gang of paid shills for big money.
I can hear it now:
It's like a chapter out of Fahrenheit 451! He's after the 1st Amendment! It's Censorship! Dictator! Iraq! Syria! Benghazi!
Oh wait, they've already trotted out most of those memes. Never mind.
Still, the man is too busy with getting things done to go after the naysayers. As he's said more than once, he won't be POTUS again. His time is very limited.
Coch Brothers Syncophants?
IF THEY DON'T DEVOTE AS MUCH AIRTIME TO DEBUNKING THIS AS THEY DID AIRING AND ADVERTISING:
FUCK 'EM!
You know this will be used to hurt Democrats who Obama has campaigned for and winning. That lame protest in Dallas was created by this oh, so delicious lie. They've also been caught lying about the ACA for their Koch masters. They are a cancer, destroying a major source for many people to make informed voting choices.
I'd wish the FCC would yank their license, but then we really would be the party CBS represents.
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