Ripples in a Pond – What One Person Can Do

This diary is a tribute to the power of the individual and is dedicated to two particular individuals who, as they say, require no introduction, kid oakland and Land of Enchantment.  I would never have had the pleasure of meeting my dear friend Land of Enchantment at YKOS last year had it not been for the scholarship program started by Kid Oakland.  This diary is in support of that program.

In this age of great and persistent evil it is easy to become overwhelmed by the never-ending cascade of horror and madness that the daily news has become.  How does one stand against the tide of violent hatred, willful ignorance and blind running greed when its onrush is so powerful, its influence so ubiquitous, its effects so devastating?  What in the world can one person do?

Consider the power of the individual as you listen to Senator Edward Kennedy’s touching eulogy for his brother, Robert F. Kennedy following his tragic assassination in 1968 (thanks to noweasels for the video).

“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

“To be nobody but yourself — in a world which is doing it’s best, night and day, to make you like everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.”

e. e. cummings

And of all the individuals in the world bloggers are (IMHO) a very special breed.  

“There never was an idea stated that woke men out of their stupid indifference but its originator was spoken of as a crank.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“We are reluctant to admit that we owe our liberties to men of a type that today we hate and fear — unruly men, disturbers of the peace, men who resent and denounce what Whitman called ‘the insolence of elected persons’ — in a word, free men.”

Gerald W. Johnson

There are many who want to stop us from being individuals and free-range humans and they are trying to pass legislation to put an end to our freedom.  The bill is the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, HR. 1955 / S. 1959.  Many people don’t see how sinister this legislation really is.   They are trying to hide its true intent (IMHO) under the rubric that is establishes only a commission (or some such nonsense), when the truth is it aims to outlaw dissent and codifies the notion that ‘radicalization’ equates to terrorism.  Its effect would be to outlaw ‘radical’ thought.  I shudder when I consider just who might get to define ‘radical’.  

Here Come the Thought Police: The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007

Could Rosa Parks, who was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 for violating segregation laws by sitting in the white-only section of a bus and refusing to move, be considered a “homegrown terrorist” by the U.S. government today? Under the terms defined in the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act she just might be.

Center for Constitutional Rights

Sign the petition to stop this march to fascism and defeat this despicable legislation.

In the course of my research for this diary I came across my YKOS diary from last year that I never finished or posted.  At first there was such a flood of YKOS diaries that I procrastinated but then it became not so relevant so I never finished.  I’ll post what I had written here because I think it gives some sense of what it was like for me and my son and what you might help make possible for some promising young bloggers (and maybe some old ones too).

Love and Betrayal: Yearly Kos and the Fate of the Republic

Disclaimer:  If you’re sick of hearing about Yearly Kos you might want to skip right to Part II – Betrayal and the Fate of the Republic.  Part I contains unabashed gushing.  I advise you to skip it of you’re already ODed.

Part I – Love and Yearly Kos.

Yearly Kos was nectar to my weary soul.  I found such love and goodwill there, such intelligence, heart and commitment.  I met people for the first time for whom I already had great or even overwhelming affection.  It was transcendental.  It was sublime.

As my son Daniel and I found Chicago’s McCormick Place Wednesday evening and approached some kossacks (the orange lanyards were a dead giveaway) sitting around a table on the patio, Land of Enchantment introduced herself but I didn’t hear her clearly, making Lithium Cola the first person I recognized.  I was appropriately star struck you can rest assured.  I believe I heard myself say “Oh my God!” which is something I never say and it’s embarrassing to admit it now, but hey! – it was LITHIUM COLA!

LC strikes me as quiet, thoughtful and as deep and expansive as the ocean.  And he is of course a writer of well-known brilliance.

I eventually got around to asking LoE to tell me her screen name again.  When I heard Land of Enchantment I freaked!  LoE was at the top of my list of people I wanted to meet – we’re Photoshop brethren and sisteren.  So YKOS was off to a good start for me and the kid.  Not to mention that initial group also contained one Trashablanca, one of my dearest online amigos.  Trashy is both a joy and a wonder, brimming with intelligence and good nature, and yet one senses an undercurrent of steely resolve.  Initiate pie fights with this kossack at your own risk I’m thinking.

We also met grndrush that night, the American expat from Memphis living in Canada – a very cool guy who seemed to be having as much fun as I was, and SallyCat who was obviously enjoying herself, and Irish Patti (the fabulous), who was so excited she treated us all to a happy happy joy dance.  Then I met srkp23 and Got a Grip, two of my favorite kossacks.  Each new discovery of an old online friend was accompanied by a rush of excitement.  The heady conversation between old friends newly met was something to behold and be a part of.  There were human treasures everywhere you looked.

If I’m leaving anybody out forgive me, my head was in a whirl.  The kid and I hung out for a while basking in the glow of my newly corporeal kossack buds.  I met Kid Oakland that night and thanked him for the scholarship program he put together.  I believe there were 18 kossacks in attendance who otherwise couldn’t have come.  Good on ya KO!  That was a very cool thing to do.

That’s where I left it.  Never got to mention meeting Occam’s Hatchet, Dallasdoc, Errevan, Markos, dday, Snud, QuickSilver, Ben Masel, RickEagle, claude, BruinKid, BeachMom, MBNYC, DrSteveB, Grapes, SherriG, Jerome a Paris, TimRoff, CTLiberal, CanYouBeAngryAndStillDream (Ron Shepston), the Angry Rakkasan (Brandon Friedman), kerry from Diatribune, the Unapologetic Mexican, Cosmic Debris, Volvo Driving Liberal, Navajo, OrangeClouds, Kath25, Scout Finch, ct, bumblebums, llbear, Ilona Meagher, shermanesq, John de Herrera, Booman23, DemMarineVet (Elliot Anderson), Jesselyn Radack or John Tasini.

Didn’t get to write about DemocraticLuntz stealing my hat, which became the subject of a viral video (a mildly feverish one anyway).  Did not get to tell the tale of how Land of Enchantment and I got tossed out of the Hospitality Suite together (one for the record books I tell ya).  Did not get to describe the inspired, brilliant and nearly never-ending rant I witnessed on the patio one night courtesy of (a perhaps slightly inebriated) Jennifer Claire.  Did not write about the historic bear hug between me and Major Danby (with whom I had fought tooth-and-claw on the internets).  Didn’t get to mention how touched I was to meet my dear friends Dreaming of Better Days and Vigilant Meerkat.  Did not get to write about meeting David Sirota or Tom Hayden.  Sirota spilled coffee on me (my fault though – never approach an author in an autograph line holding a cup of hot coffee) and Tom Hayden very graciously chatted with me for a while.  I got to thank him for all he has done to counter the right wing madness in America and to tell him what a hero he had been to me as a young hippie in the 60s in Huntsville, Alabama.  This is what he said to me, “If you were a hippie in Alabama in the 60s, I think you were the hero.”   I’ll never forget that.  You never know who you might meet at a gathering of the NetRoots.

I hope to see this Netroots Nation Scholarship Program become a time-honored tradition of progressives helping progressives.  There could be no better cause in the realm of grassroots/netroots politics (IMHO).

We have more applicants than we can pay for this year, as many as a hundred now I believe.  I’d love to see us cover them all but times are tough out there.  Not everyone can donate.  If you are doing okay and you can spare a few bucks, we could sure use them for this effort.  Programs like this help strengthen the progressive movement.  We must never again allow the regressives to dominate the discourse in America.

I was surprised last year when I asked my son Daniel (then about to turn 17) if he wanted to go with me to Yearly Kos.  I thought he’d pass, but he said, “yes, I think I would.”  The extent of his exposure to politics up to that point had been listening to his old man rant, and I figured he only half-listened to that, but he surprised me.  The first speeches we caught at YKOS were Andy Stern of the SEIU talking about the labor movement and Howard Dean talking about the Presidential race and the Democratic party.  I watched Daniel paying rapt attention.  As he hung on every word, I realized I was watching a political awakening.  

Daniel would later have the opportunity to spend a good bit of quality time with Ben Masel, a wise and erudite veteran of the struggle against right wing madness in America and claude, who was an original San Francisco Digger and a key player in the underground press movement of the 60s.  Daniel absorbed their wisdom like a sponge.  

He later got to meet Markos, Dallasdoc and a host of other DailyKos luminaries, and he relished every moment.  The YKOS experience was deeply transformative for Daniel as it was for many of us.  Just imagine what future results might obtain from helping someone attend Netroots Nation who couldn’t otherwise afford to be there.

So if you can afford to, please toss a few extra pebbles in the pond and empower some promising individuals.  You could be seeding the future.  There is no telling the impact it might one day have.

Please donate to the Netroots Nation Scholarship fund

For a Dancer – Jackson Browne

P.S.

Another fine example of the power of one is what Dennis Kucinich has done by introducing 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  Dennis, the man so cruelly mocked for proposing a Department of Peace and for looking like something other than a Hollywood leading man, has shamed every other politician in our government by having the balls to do what no one else had the courage to do.  Take that you superficial worshippers of all that is shallow and craven.  Take that all you lily-livered, mealy-mouthed impeachment traitors.

The only way to fix what’s broken in this country is to bring the criminals in our government to justice and to recoup our losses.

Sign the petition supporting Dennis and his articles of impeachment.

Please donate to the Netroots Nation Scholarship fund

STOP THE PRESSES!!! DFA has extended the deadline to the end of this week.  Yup, till Friday the 13th.  (Donations will be accepted for at week or so after that.)

And if you’re going to Netroots Nation, check in in the comments.  Maybe there’s rides to arrange or hotel rooms to share or drinks to buy.

from LOE’s diary earlier today

Please donate to the Netroots Nation Scholarship fund