Displaying 4,021 To 4,050 Of 5,146 Comments Hi BD- Thank you for this incisive analysis. It’s not the first time this nation has undergone an assault from corporate rulers, nor is it the first time the media capitulated to them. From “yellow dog journalism” to journalism for hire, we’ve done this before. I just never thought we’d get so stupid as to do it all over AGAIN. I studied the Progressive Era as a history major and was completely amazed at the activism of those days from the muckrakers in the news to activists in the streets. So much of it was energized by groups such as labor and women – and today it’s pretty much vanished. MoveOn gave us too easy a way out. Click and send a pre-written letter that is considered “political spam” by the legislative staff, and you think you’ve done something. Maybe yes, lots of times no. PlanetPOV is the ONLY blog I know that has moved from networking to actual organizing with a direct action – our Truth in Political Advertising initiative proposal. Wow. This is critical because just talking among ourselves does NOT move us out of the glass sphere of social isolation that has actually harmed democratic engagement. GROW and TIPA are qualitatively different. I hope this CoffeeParty action effort accomplishes something of the same. I agree with Malcolm Gladwell who wrote “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be Tweeted” in the Oct. 4 New Yorker. It takes people in organizations, interacting and trusting one another, to effect real change. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It demands engagement for real, and it demands working with others – even those who are less than your stellar ideal on some matters. It also means you have to “kill your darlings” – the writer’s point about losing your fave phrases and habitual ways of presenting issues and ideas. I am not sure we are up for what the youth of the 60s did. I just got word that several peace folks, some in their 80s, have been convicted of federal crimes for entering a nuclear weapons facility and staging a non-violent protest. One, an 83-year-old nun, may die in federal prison. How many of us would risk that? Is it worthwhile? I heard NOTHING about this on MSM or even alternative blogs or tweets. I am in tears in admiration of their dedication. That IS what it takes. The night the war started – March 20, 2003 – I was in a gathering of faith people working against hate crimes. We had just seen the film on Deidrich Bonhoeffer who gave up his life to stop Hitler. We discussed it, and the group leader said, “You have to be prepared to lay down your life for justice.” When one woman asked what he meant, he said, “You have to dedicate your life to democracy, to justice, to peace. You have to make that the focus of your energies. And then – you may have to lay down your life, period.” That is the scariest thing I’ve ever heard. And words I try to follow every day. I am terrified of what might come if the Tea Baggers get their way – and I’m terrified that if we just tweet and blog, they most certainly will. I’m disgusted that the anti-abortion zealots use Bonhoeffer as THEIR role model (for others in their ranks, not themselves) while the engage in building precisely the Fourth Reich – a Christian one – that Bonhoeffer died to end. But what is the price of democracy? Every day we need to ask that question. And every day we need to ask ourselves – what price ARE we willing to pay? It looms larger every moment. I don’t think we’re needing to pay in our physical lives at this point, but we are needing to HAVE lives that make a difference. Without that commitment, we surely shall lose, and democracy deserves and demands more. » Posted By choicelady On December 20, 2010 @ 10:38 am Hi Mighty- Indeed! What the essence of faith ought to be is kindness to all beings. No exceptions. What the essence of non belief ought to be is kindness to all beings. No exceptions. Khirad goes to the deepest part of our shared heritage, and you to the universality of the values regardless of their origin. I think there are precisely no substantive differences among people of good will. Some day the world will realize that and be much happier. » Posted By choicelady On December 19, 2010 @ 7:55 pm Set Your Watches to the Wrong Time Ques- I think yes, there were even WORSE times in the late 19th C. There was vastly more rampant corruption, local to federal, and the government was so nakedly on the side of corporations that they killed people to preserve privilege. From the militas abetting Frick and CArnegie at the Homestead Lockout in 1892 to the Army riding down the Bonus Marchers in the early 1930s (MacArthur and Eisenhower at the head), there have been more openly aggressive acts against ordinary people, more economic insecurity (we had depressions every 3-8 years with NO assistance to the unemployed), to child labor, violence against people of color, massive exploitation of those same people even AFTER slavery was abolished – horrible, horrible times. The historical comparison is what keeps me from utter despair – and knowing the terms and conditions OF that misery makes me eagle eyed about anyone who wants to turn places such as OHIO into a ‘right to work” state. Destruction of rights – labor, women, children, immigrants, etc. – is NOT impossible. But this time there are coherent voices speaking out when a century plus ago, there were few. What IS troubling is that too many of the voices are just blogging, not acting. Where are the activists following labor? Where are the people marching in the streets? Where is the Bonus Army and all those who have a reason to speak out? The teabaggers have shown us HOW – and they are people living merely in fear of change, not people who’ve lost anything or are likely to. So what happened to American moxie? How freaking lazy ARE we that we will not stand up for what is right? We won’t ACT, we only whine? I can’t believe the difference among us between even the 60s and now. Where did all the action GO? GROW and the Planet may well be THE exception – the time we have taken to get to know one another and to make contact may well prove to be the new model. And for that – all I can say is WOW! It’s a whole different ball game if we set the stage for more than just complaining. To quote an ally: Don’t whine – ORGANIZE! So that’s what WE are doing here. Stay tuned – AdLib may have started something amazing and effective – and I’m honored to be part of it!!!! » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2010 @ 6:11 pm WTS – Cambridge is very near where I currently AM at the moment. Went to lunch at a lovely, historical restaurant not all that far away, and because it was “upper class” everyone was a pretty normal weight, give or take 10 pounds. But I also drifted around that Cambridge area and saw what you saw – HUGE people. I must say it also attends a trip to the Iowa Machine Shed in western Iowa or Des Moines. Or Farmer Brown’s in Omaha, all of which are MY roots. I have a hypothesis – you are seeing coal miners and hard labor people in Ohio, I’m seeing farmers in IA and NE – and none of them is still working. They EAT as if they were, but they are not. Add to that the mass produced food (what a friend of mine once called “another good food product from duPont”… Wait for it. It WILL sink in) in front of us while “good” food is buried in the sides and backs of grocery stores, and you have a recipe for disaster. I am pretty much average weight, could lose 10 and be “happy” of course. But extremes in weight tend to afflict those whose work was once manual, stressful, low wage, and uncertain. When once it was the sure thing of our society, when hard labor was a fact, we simply did not have so much obesity. There were studies done of slaves who lived on an island off South Carolina and who had guns – because in addition to tending the fields, they were expected to hunt their own food. Estimates by contemporary researchers showed they averaged – gasp – 7000 calories per day, yet NO one had a weight problem. Many lived to be reasonably elderly. Today the Amish eat incredibly rich food and lots of it, and no weight problem. Active farmers tend to be thin. Retired ones – or those who lost their farms – are obese. The common denominator – exercise. We live as our forebears did, but we don’t have to. Heft in the 19th Century was a sign of affluence. Not until the health movements of the early 20th C. did people begin to question that. Once there WERE massed produced products such as the heaps and piles of “stuff” shown at the 1901 Pan American Expostion in Buffalo, NY was there some reasonable cognizance that you could pick and choose what you consumed. In a very odd way, mass produced food – Nabisco’s Shredded Wheat – gave people access to BETTER food than many had ever known as they moved from farm to factory, from rural to urban. Yes, they lost the capacity to grow their own, but they also had alternatives to fat back, fried dough, and other rather questionable habits. During wartime rationing, women’s magazines featured NON butter-lard-meat-eggs-sugar kinds of food. For “Rosie the Riveter” the recommended breakfast was high fiber cereal, whole grain toast with honey plus some fruit. In other words – what was NOT rationed. Women in those war years were probably better nourished than before or since. Post WWII – very different story. People who survived the Depression and war rationing CRAVED abundance, so abundance they got. They still did not have a lot of money, so food producers helped them stretch their food budgets – literally. They invented “Merlinex” a NON nutritive cellulose that made the 12-feet long, 1-pound loaves of Wonder Bread and the 3 cubic feet, 1-pound hunk of Velveeta. Your foot got puffed up in a variety of ways so you could feed kids lots of food on very little money. And to make it palatable, they added fats, sugars, and artificial tastes upon which we became reliant and dependent. Today – it’s simply about profit. Total cereal costs more for the box and advertising than for the wheat. There is less than 10 cents worth of wheat in most cereals – but they’ve been pureed, re-cooked, shaped, formed, colored, and dried into something resembling cereal, but without a lot of food value. Spray-on vitamins, also cheap, are the only nutritive value most cereals now have. Snacks have become a substitute for eating. At the same time, REAL food – produce – has been regenerated to be fit for shipping but to hell with the TASTE. It is far more important to producers and grocers that you can drop a tomato 10 feet without damage than it is how it tastes. So of COURSE someone will reach for an apple turnover rather than an apple – the turnover tastes MORE like an apple than does the apple. But it’s the embedded mythology of “the clean plate club children are starving in China” that endures with kids that morphs into obsession in grown ups. I won’t go into the “food is love” issue – which it IS – but we simply don’t know how to eat for the bodies we have that sit all day. You know. Typing on eletronic keyboards. I read somewhere that switching from a manual typewriter to an electric one caused women (who mostly used them) to gain 10 pound per year from that one fact alone. Now we have other things slowing us down. Such as Blogging. I haven’t pitched hay in, well, quite a long time. But I do write a great deal. Daily. Sitting down. With an electronic keyboard. So excuse me – I’m off for some dessert. This is all just wearing me out. Take care, y’all. Even the Size 0 among us. Snort. » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2010 @ 5:49 pm Khirad – thank you for poking holes in the Big K. What scares me about today comes from my enduring belief that JFK was assassinated for planning to pull out of Vietnam. I’ve begun weaving together things from several sources – “The Family”, “Best Evidence” about conflicting details over JFK’s assassination, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, and other things that all seem to point toward powerful shadow people linked with the CIA. They do NOT wish an end to war and hostilities since there’s money – huge money – in it for them. JFK I think was a pivotal president moving from the conventional to possibly something remarkably different with respect to our military engagements around the world. I think he died because of that. So indeed – delaying or preventing the implementation of a new START treaty that would undermind those very powers is critical to the maintenance of the Rightwing and its goals. And pressing for a new view of the balance of powers is deeply courageous of our president. I fear every day for the well being of this man. The more all of us stand up to the few of “them” on these issues, the less likely it will be that the few will reign supreme. At least I hope so. Thank you for being one of the voices! » Posted By choicelady On November 27, 2010 @ 10:41 am I think I can say with real certainty that W is NOT a Muslim. That would require devotion and sacrifice. Can you honestly ascribe either attribute to him? He could not drink even “near beer” either. Nope. Being a Christian is all W can muster. It requires nothing at all of you. Used to, and social justice Christians have huge demands on them. But being a ‘saved’ Christian is the path to total disregard of anyone but yourself. Years ago one of the born again protesters outside a women’s clinic told clinic supporter to Fuck Off. When a clinic supporter recoiled in mock horror and said that wasn’t very Christian, the protester said, “I’m born again. I can do anything I want.” So there you have it. For George there could never be 30 days of fasting, attention paid to Sharia law that forbids interest and exploitation of others, or even modesty in one’s person and actions. How could W EVER be a Muslim???? » Posted By choicelady On September 8, 2010 @ 12:32 pm No – they have to have room for the bloated beer bellies. All tea party people are either malnourished or overweight. What’s up with that? » Posted By choicelady On September 8, 2010 @ 12:23 pm I think they have swollen to 50 members! A whopping 66.6% increase (and you thought HS math was useless…unless I’m wrong, of course.) I think the MSM ought to be horsewhipped for covering this so intensely. Why do a handful of wingnuts generate all this press and publicity unless the entire MSM is what we all thought – just Yellow Dog journalism, tabloid mentality, sensationalist at heart? Same thing happened when marriage equality briefly arrived in CA. People from a variety of faith communities (mine represents 1.5 MILLION people) showed up in support, while a handful of men from one Ukranian Pentecostal church protested across the street. Church has 75 members. I have millions. The news media refused to interview ANY of the supportive faith people but interviewed several from the ONE church. Do you see as much about the thousands of interfaith gatherings protesting Dove Global Ministries’ actions as you do about Dove? Nope. The media are a bunch of sensationalism whores. Period. » Posted By choicelady On September 8, 2010 @ 12:20 pm Remember that RW Christians have now espoused the notion that Jesus would be a televangelist, would drive a big car, and would carry a gun. Not much use asking people with SUCH a bizarre notion of “their lord and savior”. Hint to extremists – he wasn’t even blond… » Posted By choicelady On August 27, 2010 @ 2:21 pm Bet Norwegians know the difference! Pays to have a good eduction, eh? » Posted By choicelady On August 27, 2010 @ 2:18 pm Yup – manufacturing. We threw those jobs away NOT because of “foreign competition” but because they historically make under 10% profit per year. But they continue to MAKE profit, provide good jobs, and put money in everyone’s pockets. Just not so much in the pockets of the top few. The wailing from the RW about how backward Europe is comes entirely from that – they are more profitable and stable NATIONS, but their upper class is less awesomely bloated. We really caved to “Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous”. We crave a ruling class, don’t like democracy that is slow and messy and egalitarian. We want plutocrats and aspire to rise, like the rare example of Andrew Carnegie, from bobbin boy to global menace. So we throw away the middle class even though the vast majority of us are IN the middle class. We just don’t want to be in the same parts of it. In Youngstown, OH where the decline began, steelworkers had stable income, home ownership, and good lives. Management got more money but could and did join the country club. Other than that – not a LOT of difference. Retirees are now on vastly different levels – steelworkers struggle, managers prosper all in RETIREMENT. America is going to the dogs – dogs of war, hounds of hell. Someone needs to pump for us and stop getting in the way in Congress. If HuffPo is right, and the Reeps regain the House, we are doomed. Brave new world. » Posted By choicelady On August 27, 2010 @ 2:17 pm Last similar shock also broke a few bottles and windows but never put the power out or collapsed homes of interrupted services in any way. Never mind that – some teabagger ranted that Obama had not sent FEMA there. Uh huh – he’s obviously anti-American sending help to Haiti but not to the US border towns. I’m still shaking my head at what the writer of that screed thinks she “lost” in the quake. Must be up there with the “rights” Obama has taken away. » Posted By choicelady On July 8, 2010 @ 7:16 am Khirad- I’m green with envy! I once gambled on roulette (stupid) with $20 as my total “purse” and lost it all. That was in a fancy casino in Freeport, Bahamas, and it was the high and low point of ALL gambling. So you’re well ahead of me! I never could see the point, since I have no talent for gambling at all. Might as well stand on a street corner and hand it all out to homeless people who could eat anyway. Enjoy the moment! And don’t spend it all in one place, not even on Sprite. » Posted By choicelady On June 24, 2010 @ 5:58 pm Khirad- I’m green with envy! I once gambled on roulette (stupid) with $20 as my total “purse” and lost it all. That was in a fancy casino in Freeport, Bahams, and it was the high and low point of ALL gambling. So you’re well ahead of me! I never could see the point, since I have no talent for gambling at all. Might as well stand on a street corner and hand it all out to homeless people who could eat anyway. Enjoy the moment! And don’t spend it all in one place, not even on Sprite. » Posted By choicelady On June 24, 2010 @ 5:58 pm Oh. My. God. » Posted By choicelady On June 22, 2010 @ 2:47 pm Did anyone ever notice that nowhere in the Constitution is there a right to private property? NOWHERE. » Posted By choicelady On June 22, 2010 @ 2:45 pm Oh! Oh! The BEST one is left off! They want to jail any straight person supporting LGBT rights and equality!!! That would be ME! Hoo boy – I can see it now. Prison overcrowding in Texas due to ministers and little blue haired ladies who support marriage equality and the common humanity of LGBT people!!! Way to go Texas! I support secession. NOW! » Posted By choicelady On June 22, 2010 @ 2:44 pm Hi bit-o! So glad you’re back with us. Hope you’re doing well! » Posted By choicelady On June 10, 2010 @ 1:24 pm Thanks for saying this – I was noticing that, too. And where is Felonious? Have not seen anything in months. I hope they both are all right. » Posted By choicelady On May 5, 2010 @ 10:18 am Dear Rarest – As I’ve said, I lived in Tullahoma so went to Nashville now and then (did a semester at MTSU, Too.) Went back in ’98 and found it much lovelier and livelier than it had been, newly hit by a tornado, and now this. I was in all the areas under water, and it makes me sick with sorrow. I can’t accept anyone’s dismissal of people, no matter who, and the idea that there is something ‘good’ about the flood because it’s C&W Central is disgusting. I am quite fond of C&W music – great fan of a number of performers – and have not understood the hostility. I was living in TN in 1968 when Dr. King was murdered, and yes I surely did see the virulent racism. I also saw the solidarity – often done even in fear – of white people standing in sadness and shame at this dreadful act. These were brave people who lived in TN, not outsiders like me who could leave, and they stepped out in moral strength, and I will never EVER forget that. It was not safe to do what they did – and they did it anyway. It was a turning point, I think. Our regional arrogance is horrific. I’ve fallen prey to the idiocy of it – had a Manhattanite cringe in revulsion at what condiments I put on my hamburger (a Midwesterner, I use a lot of different things) as if it mattered! He refused to talk to me after that despite the fact we were working on a project together. Now is that nuts or what? I wasn’t making HIM eat it! America is Gulliver’s Lilliputia – we fight civil wars over which end of the egg to open. Bless you, Rarest, for working so hard to help those so dreadfully afflicted by this flood. I will send to the Red Cross and will follow the dreamrow work. Stay safe and know we’re paying attention. We do care! » Posted By choicelady On May 5, 2010 @ 10:16 am Deear Friends – first, bito, hope you’re well. That was an amazing experience, and one we do NOT wish you to repeat anytime soon! I am writing because I’m in total shock at the horror that is unfolding in Poland. For me it’s personal, since I spent 2 weeks in Poland in 1996 as an advisor to the government of Walbryzch in Lower Silesia dealing with preservation of their industrial base both as going concerns or historic preservation through adaptive reuse. It was an exciting time to be there since they were working on a ‘middle course’ between Soviety style central government control of everything, and capitalism that they understanably did not trust. They had moved toward worker ownership of industries, and it was exhillarating to see. Now virtually their entire government has been wiped out with a single plane crash – 97 leaders killed yesterday. I fear for them even though their Prime Minister survives. I do not know what forces are strongest in that fragile but hopeful nation. I just know that they face a challenge unprecedented in human history. I’m reeling with the fear that they could swing to extremes, and that would be horrible. They were making huge progress toward real democracy and vastly greater economic equity. I hope and pray it continues. I am unaware that anyone I met on the trip was aboard the plane, but the impact on all who remain will be enormous. Mind boggling in its enormity. » Posted By choicelady On April 11, 2010 @ 10:46 am C. Diff???? Be SURE you get electrolytes – ice cream is a good start! Nothing to fool with there. Hope you’re on the mend – but keep monitoring your OWN self, too. You’re your own best advocate! » Posted By choicelady On April 7, 2010 @ 10:44 pm Somehow I don’t see Barry as being happy with this move. He was conservative but was not stupid! » Posted By choicelady On April 7, 2010 @ 10:40 pm Cheney is good on gay rights because of his daughter. George Will believes no one should have ANY government supports save for those with a child who has Down’s Syndrome. George Will has a child with Down’s Syndrome. Boils down to “just so I got mine”. » Posted By choicelady On April 7, 2010 @ 10:37 pm Two life lessons come from this: One, it is not better to pretend to be a shoe bomber to cover for smoking in the bathroom. Two, Air Marshalls do NOT have a sense of humor. » Posted By choicelady On April 7, 2010 @ 10:34 pm I think Dick must be a lot like Obama’s grandmother. You remember he said sometimes she said things about people of other races that made him cringe? I think the entire issue of race is absolute lack of knowledge, same with being gay or Muslim or being from some part of the US where you’ve never been. It amazes me, with all of our internet and other instant connections, that we can still be so ignorant of one another. And when we’re close, we discover well, that’s not only NOT so bad, but it’s wonderful, the people are wonderful. Then thee is the other side. My mother was a flaming liberal in principle, but she could not stand individuals. No one ever lived up to her standards (which were very, very narrow.) She tossed some people out of her life because they did not dress according to her standards. She was incredibly lonely because no one was ever good enough for her. I think, however, she is the exception, and Dick is the rule. You fear whom you don’t know, but once you know them, they are not (fill in the blank), they are your family, neighbors, colleagues. Frank Meeink was interviewed today on NPR. He just wrote “Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead” about his migration from neo-Nazi/skinhead to, well, not. It came about from his desire to play sports in prison, and the only people who’d play football and basketball with him were Black. They also talked about what mattered to him as it mattered to them, rather than being fed trash talk about his girlfriend as the skinheads so blithely dismissed her. The Black inmates loved their families and one also had a girlfriend who was waiting for him. From that came a bond. He got to know these Black inmates better in ways that mattered than he could ever know his fellow Aryan Nation inmates. The Black inmates were the source of his conversion. And so it goes. Knowledge reduces fear and breeds commonality. We just don’t get that chance often enough. We don’t give kids that chance early enough. Dick found it through his own life experiences, and while it may not change his tendencies toward gross generalization, it has opened a light and loving place in his life. Better than nothing. » Posted By choicelady On April 7, 2010 @ 10:33 pm As my unsaintly mother always said, “Saying so doesn’t make it so.” Pat and Benny Hinn and all the guys and gals rolling in dough simply justify it. The problem comes from the “riches on earth” passages which, if you read the WHOLE thing, mean spiritual wealth. You really have to cherry pick to figure out a way the Bible justifies material goods as the “riches” about which various figures, including Jesus, speak. Clearly they have found a way. One night, very late, I saw one of the bejeweled, hair-sprayed, heavily made up evangelists (and you should have seen the WOMEN) strutting around (well, as much as his 300-plus pounds would let him strut at all) telling a story about a drifter who turned his life over to Jay-zuz. “And you know what?!” bellowed the TV pastor. “God gave him a condo in Florida and a Mer-SAY-deez Benz!” So yeah – the “riches” are to come to you are entirely material with the final payoff being the saving of your soul and a trip through the Pearly Gates. It’s why my organization that works to fulfill the teachings about justice will NEVER raise the kind of money these guys do. We can’t promise salvation and we don’t threaten hell since the existence of same is highly dubious, and threats aren’t our thing. So how can WE gouge the poor widder out of her life savings for those three Rolls Royces? How can WE make people give us their cookie jar money when we work for really moral health care policy – but we can’t heal their arthritis? Social justice for all just does not have the same power that fear for your immortal soul generates. Those guys are ON to something! We are definitely on the losing edge. But we would not have it any other way. Except – when I deal with legislators who say stupid ass stuff, especially about poor people, I really do miss the ability to tell them they’re going to hell. Sigh. » Posted By choicelady On March 4, 2010 @ 1:46 pm If we’re fighting each other, we won’t notice the corporate take over of the world. It’s worked GREAT so far. » Posted By choicelady On March 4, 2010 @ 1:32 pm Cher – all of this was not just predicted but solicited as the goal set for effective globalization back in 1975. Three authors, Michael Crozer, Samuel Huntington (yes, that one), and Joji Watanabe wrote “The Crisis of Democracy” and made very clear that eliminating middle class jobs, shoving wages down, and doing away with a free press, unions, and yes, even democracy, were essential if a global economy was going to flourish. The book is STILL being used in colleges. It’s obverse, “Global Reach” predicted the disaster that would come from this set of actions – and that book was written two years BEFORE “Crisis”. I met a postman, unionized and proud of it, who blames state unions for “destroying California”, says wanting to restore higher tax rates is “the sin of envy” of the rich, and proudly proclaims himself “a recovering Democrat” that hates income redistribution. If you have someone in civil service who is trashing what he HAS and is blaming his peers, then the Kool Aid has all been drunk, and we’re just waiting for the results. I do NOT understand people like that and like those who, at low wage levels, lap up Rush’s screed. Thank you for posting this clear and convincing evidence of how we have deteriorated as a solid, self-sufficient nation. Now all we need to find out is why Americans think this is better than restoring Democracy and fighting for decent standards of living and jobs by which they can support themselves. I do NOT get it. » Posted By choicelady On February 23, 2010 @ 11:20 pm Hey bito- you take your “leadership” where you find it, right? At least now CA doesn’t have to be No. 1 in screw ups. We can point at YOU all! » Posted By choicelady On February 23, 2010 @ 11:32 amComments Posted By choicelady
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