Food isn’t about Nutrition
Clothes aren’t about Comfort
Bedrooms aren’t about Sleep
Marriage isn’t about Romance
Talk isn’t about Info
Laughter isn’t about Jokes
Charity isn’t about Helping
Church isn’t about God
Art isn’t about Insight
Medicine isn’t about Health
Consulting isn’t about Advice
School isn’t about Learning
Research isn’t about Progress
Politics isn’t about Policy~Robin Hanson, Politics isn’t about Policy
Tag: revolution
Oct 07 2008
Quote for Discussion: The Revolution is not about Revolting
Oct 06 2008
Revolt: How To?
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Continuing the theme, (I’ll stop when ‘they’ do!) of revolution and what it means. Especially in light of the bailout/robbery that was supposed to magically fix everything and save the economy. It was passed Congress over the weekend, and today of course, the economy (if you are naive or disingenuous enough to believe the Dow is the economy) is tanking big time.
So…if WE are FORCED to pay 700,000,000,000 dollars to the very rich people who fucked up enough to need it….who then tell us they can ‘fix it’ if we pay for it….and it DOESN’T ‘fix it.’ and we are out Seven Hundred Billion….AND stuck with a tanking economy…..NOW WHAT???
And how do we do it?
Oct 04 2008
On the Subject of Revolution
I posted a diary yesterday on the bailout for billionaires, which I adamantly oppose for reasons laid out in that diary. I was thoroughly pissed when I wrote it and some of my rhetoric became a bit heated (as my rhetoric sometimes will), and my meaning was misconstrued by some who read the piece. This is an effort to clarify.
Sep 29 2008
Class War: Stupidity or Evil?
Our ‘elite’ is broken. Nobody really knows what the fuck they are doing. Nobody really knows the results of what they are doing. And to a certain extent is has to be said, they just don’t care either. They don’t care about us. All they care about is covering their own ass. At our expense. This is out and out Class War, they know, we know it, and the rest of The People seem to waking up to it.
Our financial elites don’t know and don’t care, they are in strict CYA mode, taking breaks only to figure out how to game and leverage the bailout so that they can transfer even more wealth from the taxpayers into their pocket. If things don’t turn out well, they open their Golden Parachutes and go live on a beach in the Caymans and sip rum drinks.
Stupid or evil? Conclusion: it doesn’t matter. We The People get screwed either way.
Our political ‘elite’ are even worse, they have NO clue as to what is going on. They are running around with their hair on fire in super-duper CYA mode, taking breaks only to figure out how this crisis can be maneuvered for political advantage and trying not to piss off their corporate masters, while keeping The People calm enough to not riot after assault piled on assault and insult piled on insult tax even the incredibly resilient somnabulance of Mr. and Mrs. America. As kos points out, they continue to think we are buying this crap. The party is over??? Gimme a fucking break Nancy. You are about to serve the fucking canapes, the party is just getting started. Just because you are buying their bullshit doesn’t mean we buy yours.
Stupid or evil? Conclusion: it doesn’t matter. We The People get screwed either way.
The only people who seem to have, well to be getting, a clue are The People, who are finally waking up from their slumber of post 9/11 fear and are looking around and seeing what has been going on and wondering why their ass hurts. It hurts because our ‘elite’ have been screwing them. And each time we get screwed, the ‘elites’ just tell us we have no choice but to trust them. Are they right? Are we at their mercy, no matter how badly they screw up? ARE we just sheep to be shorn by the ‘elite?”
Or will things be different this time?
Sep 22 2008
Bush Finally Unites Americans – in Outrage!
The top of the volcano is starting to come off. Here’s some a’a and pahoehoe (actually, it’s more of a pyroclastic flow):
Naomi Klein
CNN
Boston Sunday Globe
NYT on Foreign Banks bellying up
Agence France-Presse
Wall-to-wall on HuffPo
I got this in my mailbox from democrats.com – a call for Bush/Cheney/Paulson to resign:
http://www.democrats.com/resign
You may want to take about one minute or so to go add your name to the petition. Send it along to friends and family to sign up, too.
Educate yourself tonight or first thing tomorrow. Take the time to read the bill. It’s incumbent on you as a citizen to be self-informed. This proposed bill is a total give-away with no accountability whatever for any decisions made. No oversight. No redress. Pure Bush/Cheney. This is the Patriot Act stampede all over again – and we know where that got us.
I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m on the phone first thing tomorrow to my CC Bill Delahunt and Sen Teddy and Sen Diebolded. I want blood – and I’m a peaceful man. I intend to raise my voice in anger. No more Mr. Nice Guy polite BS. I’ve been through that with Delahunt on impeachment to no avail. Gloves are off now.
No bum’s rush to judgement on this one. It took the assholes eight years to screw things up this badly. They can wait eight weeks to get a better thought-out fix. We’re about to get the hosing of all human history if this goes through as is.
For our sake and for the sake of the coming generations, we need to stop the madness NOW! This is one bridge to oblivion too far. It’s time to stop the billionaire welfare. We need to start taking care of our own.
It’s time to hit the streets, people. The conservatives – the real ones – will be right there with us. Bush has finally united all of us in a way that he could never have foreseen. There comes a point in time when you have to say Enough! You can lie down and let them walk over you or you can stand up and start to act like a free people with basic rights and simple human dignity.
We need a Shock and Awe campaign by the taxpayers and for the taxpayers. Get on the phones Monday: federal and state politicians; newspapers; local TV stations; radio stations; pound out those LTEs to every paper you can name. We need a nation-wide firestorm of public outrage in time for the 6:00 news shows.
Get on it. Stay on it. Don’t stop. Let it all out. Hold no outrage back. Raise your voices. Let them feel the anger and outrage. Make it visceral. Scare them. Make them feel fear. Make them tremble. Let them know we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.
Tomorrow, September 22, is the Equinox. It’s a powerful day for change. Make it happen!
Sep 21 2008
The Toilet Paper Revolution
(cross-posted at dKos– go there and rec it if you like it)
Good morning, Ameeeeeriiiiica!
People are waking up to the incredible fraud that is being perpetrated by the investment banksters, the former Goldman Sachs bankster, Henry Paulson, and the complicit Democratic Congressional leadership.
Now this abomination is on the fast track to passage just like what happened with the Patriot Act after another “unforeseeable” crisis.
And your cards, letters, calls and emails will have about as much impact as they did with Alito and FISA.
So here’s an idea that might get some media attention and put some pressure on these thieves and their accomplices.
Sep 20 2008
No to coups! No to U.S. Imperialism! – HOV London organises protests
Original article, by Niklas Albin Svensson , vial Socialist Appeal (UK):
Yesterday John McDonnell MP explained why US imperialism is so concerned about developments in Bolivia and Venezuela: “What the US is terrified of is the prospect that socialism will catch light all across the Americas, so of course it has to go on the attack. But it is exactly for this moment that solidarity campaigns exist.” He explained that, “what is happening is not a personal attack on Morales or Chavez but an attack on the seeds of socialism that they are spreading.”
Aug 25 2008
Laughing Ponies: Che Guevara!
Jun 13 2008
Eyes on the Maobadi: 4 Reasons Nepal’s Revolution Matters
An interesting article by Mike Ely via dissidentvoice.com: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/…
May 12 2008
Coming Together: A Mini Manifesto
Now that even the corporatist beltway elite lackey media has slowly come to recognize the inevitability of the political version of the unbeatable New England Patriots losing the big one it’s time to put the intramural pissing matches aside and to start reorganizing for a shot at the true target. The Hillary Rodham-Clinton campaign now faces fourth and thirty-two, has the ball at it’s own twenty yard line, is down by eight and there are sixteen seconds left in the Super Bowl. It’s not exactly officially in the books yet but the fat lady is humming and the opposing team has just administered the traditional Gatorade baptism to their head coach on the sidelines.
Apr 30 2008
The New Revolution
The New Revolution
I trust that it’s become clear by now that some US citizens are under siege. I use that word guardedly. If under siege, we are in self-defense mode. That means we can take whatever measures necessary to defend ourselves. We have that right. It can’t be taken away under threat, because the threat itself gives us the right to defend ourselves.
If we are at risk of our lives if we don’t respond, that is a threat. If the threat is just to a few of us, the case for siege is hard to make. It’s a matter of where to draw the line between ‘falling through the cracks’ and stopping those cracks from opening to swallow more of us. Where to draw the line between things like misfeasance or malfeasance, and outright siege that will destroy more and more us? Readers will decide where to draw that line, where the tipping point is between neglect and abuse for a few who don’t matter enough (your choice), and neglect and abuse for so many people that it has to be called a siege. Here are some pointers.
Apr 20 2008
Caught a Virus on My Computer
It’s called AOH. Apparently.
Have you ever had that moment, when it just clicks? The metaphors and cliches describing the the moment are myriad. It dawned on me. I was struck by the notion. Then I saw it clear as day.
I was reading Booman’s recent observation about the press yet again seeming to manipulate things in an anti-Obama way. And Boise Lib’s take on finger gate. And plasticseapolluter’s catch of the job the foreign press is doing on our country’s embrace of torture and terror tactics, while the U.S. media more or less ignores these crimes. And OPOL’s ode to a love — and to a life as an activist artist.