Pearls Before Swine

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Yeah, okay, so the piece that ek posted the other day, Dont Ask, Don’t Give, kinda ticked me off. Not at ek for posting it, no. Just the whole idea of giving money to the DNC or any of those vermin annoys me. Like… ever. Not that I have any to give, and I never have, but if I did, I wouldn’t.

But if I did….

First, let me say this:  I am Christian by culture, but not by faith or practice or belief. The Christian references are generally just the most handy to me in my brain files. {blame the nuns}

Okay. Now. Let’s see. There were several comments in ek’s piece of folks who suggest alternate donatees. Ill grab those in a minute. Campaign Finance Reform was one. lol.

h/t top dharmasyd for pointing me to this site, and this excellent, plain speaking piece: Played, Betrayed, Health Care Delayed: House Passes Bailout For Private Insurance Companies..

There’s no polite way to put it. If you’re one of millions who voted Democrats into Congress and the White House last year to enact universal health care, you’ve been played and betrayed.

Which then led me to this other site, Mobilize for HC … I suggest you take a look. They have several Buttons for civil disobedience etc, but here’s a good one! …

I cannot risk arrest, but I will donate money to help those who can pay bail, get civil disobedience training, and expand this important campaign.

They have quite some blurbage about it, and I’m in total agreement. I’ve really had it with the compromises and the bargaining crap that our elected officials are being paid already (with your tax dollars) to do.

On September 27th, the Mobilization for Health Care for All launched a national campaign of “Patients Not Profit” sit-ins at insurance company offices to demand an end to a system that profits by denying people care. We want the real “public option”: Medicare for All, a single payer plan that cuts out the profit and puts patients first.

Together, through this campaign, we can turn the tide and win the fight for health care for all. To succeed, we need to organize sit-ins in as many cities as possible in the month of October. The campaign began with the local leadership of Private Health Insurance Must Go (PHIMG) in New York City on September 29th and continued in Chicago on October 8th and in 9 cities across the country on October 15th. The next wave starts on October 28th and we will continue to organize actions in as many cities as possible until we win health care reform that ensures that the insurance companies no longer stand between the American people and the health care that we need. It’s time to cut out the profit and put patients first with Medicare for All.

So that’s just a little quickie there.

On to broader thoughts… I’m thinking out loud a bit here, and also there’s some gelling of various comments and convo’s from recent weeks mixed in. How can I approach this? hmmm.

We need better thinking around our money.

“We” … progressives in general I guess, and maybe just Dharmanauts, more specifically.

I have this sister… and she has four grown kids (the oldest is one of us DFH, but I’m not in touch with him much) She and her husband and her three daughters, and their extendeds, are “committed” Christians. I’m telling you, they are so networked and connected it’s unbelieveable, and they’re global. They’re all involved in mission work. Not a one of them has a regular ol’ secular job-job, but they live just fine. They have things set up in ways, I don’t even know.

I really think we could take some clues from those models. The whole concept of tithe-ing. Oh wait. These people are cahrrrrrazee I forgot. Stewardship not much better. Boy they sure know how to fuck up some good shit.

Okay. I was actually just thinking small, like encouraging a regular, dependable, monthly stipend donation to Docudharma and maybe something special to help support MoT. heh. But then I get on a roll and my thinking just gets… well.

Anyway, I also thought I’d point out some comments from banger in a recent MoT essay that got lost and buried, but I think deserves some attention or discussion at least.

We need to create jobs   (4.00 / 4)

I do mean “we”.

I’ve been advocating that those of us on the rational left (as distinguished from what usually passes as “progressive”) should be creating our own unions, cooperatives, and corporations. One goal is to give work to each other. And there is work to be done. If I’ve noticed anything in my “normal” work in the corporate fields it is that excellence is not that common — so nearly everybody that writes on this blog would probably do very well in business if they aren’t already. We could create economically viable businesses. And we could raise the money to do so. We just need some minimal trust and organization.

What do you think? I have a number of ideas that I think could work — of course they take time and most people today are so impatient. I would only start or help start a new venture that supported people who wanted to be more conscious.  

and then

well, here’s the general drift   (4.00 / 2)

for starters start a skill-bank. For example I have web and management skills and I’ve been involved in various facets of education.

My main interest right now is in education, for example, how do we get young people truly educated without incurring a fortune in debt. Also I’d like to work on creating a coherent “picture” of what we can call knowledge as well as knossis and sell it through lecture/demos and workshops. Wisdom of the heart and of the mind in other words. I could flesh some of my ideas out when I have time. But an exchange on this is what we really need.

I mean the real issue is how do we support each other? Do we want to support each other and be willing to commit to something that could prove painful, dangerous and potentially very rewarding?

If you are interested I could go on at some other time — I’ve got work to do.

{bolds added by LL}

Meh. Enough of my rambling. For now. heh. I have plenty more thoughts on all this, but it’s just not very coherent…. yet. Part of me would just as soon run away but ……. sigh.

Your thoughts?

11AM UPDATE: jeezuz. Okay, just did a little quick hop across the tubes for a morning glance. This is just beyond ridiculous. Ratbastards.

see Chris Bowers, Open Left:  Bayh, Conrad, Feinstein, Lieberman and Warner form national suicide pact

see Jane Hamsher, FDL: Harry Reid: “Leave Lieberman Alone, I’ll Handle Him”

then there’s Hersh New Yorker piece: Defending the Arsenal  In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?, by Seymour M. Hersh;

And finally, this one Hunter on the FP over at GOS: The Corporate Empire Strikes Back: Corporate Dems Seek “Alternative” To Public Option. Again.

I’m so over this shit.

One more. Breaking, WaPo has Hasan to be charged with premeditated murder.