Category: Meta

In our efforts to form a more perfect Union we look to the Constitution for guidance for how we might shape the form and function of Government; many who seek to interpret that document try to do so by following what they believe is The Original Intent Of The Founders.

Some among us have managed to turn their certainty into something that approaches a reverential calling, and you need look no further than the Supreme Court to find such notables as Cardinals Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia providing “liturgical foundation” to the adherents of the point of view that the Constitution is like The Bible: that it’s somehow immutable, set in stone, and, if we would only listen to the right experts, easily interpreted.

But what if that absolutist point of view is absolutely wrong?

What if the Original Intent Of The Founders, that summer in Philadelphia…was simply to get something passed out of the Constitutional Convention, and the only way that could happen was to leave a lot of the really tough decisions to the future?

What if The Real Original Intent…was that we work it out for ourselves as we go along?

Technical difficulties at Soapblox.

It is about time for the 112th House to come back into session, and the first thing on the agenda appears to be an effort to take away any healthcare reform that have been passed by this Administration.

Next comes an effort to slash Social Security and Medicare, an effort to reverse financial reforms, and proposals to “slash” spending-but only on domestic discretionary items.

If the House majority had its way there would be no restrictions on offshore drilling, no rules designed to prevent climate change-in fact, few if any environmental protections at all…and all of this is intended to bring to life the philosophy that government, for all intents and purposes, should just go away and leave us all alone.

I don’t buy into that kind of thinking-not even a little bit-and today we’re going to look around the world and see if we can’t figure out why.

The seeds of development strategy is for a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo, trapped between a massive, oppressive debt burden left it by a preceding less than legitimate regime which grabbed power with both hands but left responsibility on the table for someone else to pick up, with collapsing infrastructure, and a far less than progressive head of state working with an even weaker governing majority in the legislature.

So, nothing like the US situation, after all, but still …

… build from the bottom up. Create local producer cooperatives, to ensure fair markets in the central market town for a set of villages. Give jobs to a cadre of mostly younger people looking to establish themselves to serve continuing education, primary health care, local credit union, local cooperative work on maintaining paths for transport to the central market town and transport beyond. Trial fields to prove out crops fitted to local conditions and then make seeds and cuttings available to local farmers.

Minimize hard currency purchased inputs, maximize leverage of local resources, to keep the official value of the activity low, to stay off the radar scope of the locusts known as International Aid Agencies.

Cooperatives will fail. Some of the young cadre will be incompetent. Some of the field trials will be failures.

BUT, as opposed to the United States Agency for Locust Deployment, the low external resource cost and high leverage of abundant local labor means that instead of having to put all the resources into one trial, there are thousands of trials spread around.

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no concealment possible. When, then, did he come?”

    Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four

cross posted at writing in the rAw, dKos, and firedoglake

i’ve suffered from writer’s bloc. no fire with which to write. no inspiration. no… no well no anger.

not like the good old days, the BushCo days. in some perverse way, george bush and I carried on a stormy, passionate affair. it was addictive. it was seductive. and it was satisfying.

maybe that sounds strange. but as god as my witness, it’s true. i loved writing (in a perverse way) about this man, his presidency, and the utter subversion of our country and my ideals. i loved finding my political voice and the salonesque experience of writing at places like Daily Kos and Docudharma.

the whole affair gave me purpose and directed my priorities. i was part of a group of people working, writing, campaigning to to keep our country safe by exposing bushCo.

x posted at writing in the rAw

original post 22 September 2008

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That’d be roughly seven hundred billion dollars.

Yeah. $700 billion.

$700,000,000,000. heh.

So. the frayed ends finally rip and tear. It finally becomes clearer: most Democratic politicians aren’t interested in being courageous. They are, however, interested in cash, campaigns, and power. They love to wordsmith and dazzle progressives with fabulous politicSpeak: yes, they do. More and better words delivered by more, but not necessarily better, Democrats.

Perhaps it is just plain decency that Democrats lack… the decency to stop playing both sides of issues. The decency to stop exploiting Republicans. Yes. You heard me. The Democrats have been the minority, the majority, with and without a sitting president and STILL the fucking Republicans are road blocks? It’s always the Republicans’s fault? No matter how it is sliced and diced, the Dems are always having their hands tied by some outside force.  I’m not buying it.

cross posted at writing in the rAw and Daily Kos

(Crossposted from Orange, and also posted at Writing in the Raw.  buhdy, my friend, this one is for you, because you catalyzed this at least in part.)

This has been a hell of a year.

And I don’t mean that in a good way.  It’s been the culmination of four years of stress, grief, anger and pain.

A silver lining exists, though, and that has been the journey I began in late spring, trying to reconnect with my deepest self.  Recently, an exercise in my ethics class (UUF) really shocked open the vague sense of unease that had been nagging at me for a year or two.  The exercise was the selection and ranking of my ten most important values.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

How exhausting is blogging?  That’s the $64,000 question for some as following a discouraging election, they seek solace in drifting away or, even, posting a GBCW diary.  As a follow-up to this wonderful series — Welcome New Users — by LaughingPlanet and smileycreek, I add my voice addressing not just newbies on this (and other) blogs but, also, a bunch of oldies.

JekyllnHyde’s Tip #1: and take a look at your computer keyboard first!