It was the most civil of wars in a most uncivil time.

They taught us by revulsion at the strongest of speech not to even use strong speech. They taught us to value Political Correctness above our Moral Compass. They brought out the Racist Media Showmen to influence the weak and weaken the strong. They brought out the Racist Politicians to laud abuse of one group and show how only the truly powerful could get away with it. They brought out Liars and Ideologues to shape the propaganda to support the Elites. They ridiculed and railed against even those who would protest against it even mildly. They held up a holographic mirror of deceit to us over and over, until we began to believe that image was indeed our own: Weak, powerless, divided.

The poorest in capacity soon began to hate more, addicted to the adrenalin rush of rage.

The brightest soon began to despise any rage to the point where any strong criticism of any wrong doing by anyone was taboo. “You are acting just like them,” was the Pavlovian reply, “Your rage and hate is unacceptable!” We began to believe that we could do nothing in the face of such power without becoming what we despised. There was no room left for grey. There was no room left for for truth.

We had become utterly trained to remain genteel in the face of every opposition. We lost skirmish after skirmish negotiating politely with those who held us in contempt with hatred.

We wrung our hands and muttered among ourselves, careful never to step too hard on anyone’s toes, nor miss using a Capital letter in naming a group, for fear of offending anyone. They replaced hooded abductions from old wars to social ostracization and job insecurity in this new war.

It was a rare voice that would ever address the Elephant in the room, while the PTB explained how complicated things were, and how they couldn’t help us.

No one wanted to be the first to speak aloud to it, except those of us with little at stake; those who already lost everything, those with dead end jobs no one else wanted, those in the relative safety of having chosen to live, and die, in another land.

I apologize to you budhy, if my comment the other day hurt you. It never occurred to me that my opinion in any way carried any weight. I always see myself as very inconsequential.

People lose it.

We all have our Achilles Heel. Mine is Rape. Remember the great “Thereisnorape” wars, where a poster blamed women for being out certain times of night, for their clothing, and said even taking one drink makes women responsible for their own rapes?

I fucking came unglued on the Motherfucker. My stomach still knots thinking about that day. It triggered my own pstd type behavior as a survivor of rape.

So here we are, with two people who lost it, and a metafest sucking the dialogue out of my beloved DD.

I did what I do, although I bit my tongue hard for a couple days trying NOT to get involved. It is not my place, nor my business to offer the admins here advice. But thats who I am. I do advice. I advocate. I negotiate. I always see both sides.

I too, as OTB did, would have closed comments, after leaving a comment about cooling off and WHY. I probably wouldn’t have deleted the essay, for the simple reason that people like me would see what happened with more clarity. I have done so in the past, and regretted it. It lets people off the hook, they tantrum and then can have a clean slate like their harsh words never happened. But again, its never an easy call.

I don’t blame her, I don’t blame Budhy. But I do opine its time to do something to define your (and my part-time) community here.

But I want to talk a little about walking wounded and excellence.

(Xposted from WWL)

I know what I’m doing, Mr. President. I’m refusing. I’m rebelling.

I’m refusing to be coerced into supporting the Megaindustry of Insurance, for the only thing that has been ensured is that their profit will grow.

So are many, many like minded people who cannot afford these new premiums, this new cost of existence in a world in which many of us were barely getting by prior to the burden you added. A burden, mind you, that benefits only the elites. A burden that was approved also, by the greed of the few whose retirement was placed in the gambling dens of the same elites, for upper middle class entitlement has always been their enabler.

So, what will you do now that we cannot pay? What will you do when the employers themselves dump their benefits, and create more customers who will not, or cannot pay for your new mandate?

Shall we all go to debtors prisons?  

What will you do when the Dow dives? How will you force us to provide ever more fodder for Wall Street? How will you get blood from the rock?

(Yesterday I was challenged to provide a workable set of agreed underlying principles of existence on my “The Core” essay at my home blog, The Wild, Wild Left. Here’s my attempt)

In order to establish and maintain the Great Peace, provide that this Earth on which we reside shall flourish and affirm Humanity’s continuity, set forth these tenets as Undeniable:

The human race is one race, and so it shall be taught as established Scientific Fact; as such we revere our Unity, but shall not deny our place as just one of many species in a Greater Ecosystem that must be nurtured and preserved.

That Man must serve one another, with full autonomy balanced with social duty to survive as a species, and that only through a commitment to Peace shall this come to bear.

No affiliation by nationality, clan or religion shall ever be held above the Principles of the Great Peace that unites us as One.

In order to promote the Great Peace, no standing armies shall be maintained, nor weapons of mass destruction be created or held.

In order to promote the general welfare of our species, it is held that every individual has equal and full rights that shall be impugned by no other for any reason.

The Council of the Great Peace shall represent all People’s using fair courts, just laws and tempered reason and will be the Universal Law accepted globally. There shall be no local laws created by any Peoples.

The glass fogs from my own breath.

I wipe it away, but the veil remains. Perhaps it is on the other side of this pane. Is the window flawed, or is someone there on the other side breathing and wiping and trying to see me too?

Do you see the mental image of my creation, or adopt the image provided? Or do you only the microdots of pixels formulating characters put together in strands, the culmination of ancient works that created a written form of this language that still fails to convey meanings that try to claw their way out of my brain?  

Still, I feel on the cusp of something larger, like almost to the place where the glass will become crystalline. Its the damned language in the way. Allegory, parable, images, comparisons, examples and yet, and yet, I can never get to the philosophical place I need to be to solve this. Philosophy defies mere verbage, it scoffs the very attempt.

How can we fix this thing if we can’t actually get to the place where we discuss it?

Wow. People all over the blogosphere are having some kind of mass crisis of faith. From GBCB diaries, to doom essays, to cocoon metaphors, to isolate yourself, to conquer them with the loooooooove, the weather in the tubes seem mostly cloudy with a chance of self-destruction.

We all have our own feelings as we watch not one change we had hoped for come trotting over the pass. There is no shining armor, there are no letters to deliver, there will be no smiting of the temple money changers. Yeah, it all gets to be an emotional drag.

It’s still yesterday without the singular focus of a Bush or Cheney to vent against. Instead, it’s yesterday with a face that is hard to rally against. A black man, a man who speaks with big words and clear eyes. A man with a hot wife and adorable kids. A man who the right continues to vilify, perhaps in order to make us reflexively support, so we won’t really argue with his Bush/Cheney agenda.

We refuse to fight Obama directly, we lefties feel squeamish about attacking anyone with a D by his name, let alone admit we were total tools in supporting him. Hope is only useful if it’s not a lie. Hope is only useful in small doses to assuage apathy.

Pragmatism is God. Realism is the Savior. Action is the embodiment of the Spirit that completes the trinity.



Obama support? We need to get over that. Today. Right Now.

The only way to win, is to NOT LET IT WORK.