Stats

Comments Posted By choicelady

Displaying 691 To 720 Of 5,146 Comments

The 2nd Amendment, Crazies, and The Social Compact

Last night I went to a concert of a group I like a lot – Antsy McClain and the Trailpark Troubadors. They do great music much of which celebrates the lives of very ordinary people who live in aluminum. It’s gently joshing but also deeply respectful of hard working souls making the best of their hard times. Great crowd, good humor, lots of fun.

Except…for the one guy wearing a “Take it if you can” shirt with a Bushmaster picture. It interested me that EVERYONE gave him wide berth. No one talked with him, everyone moved away as he walked by – nobody was into it at all. And I’m totally sure lots of people there have guns – it’s a hunting crowd for whom that is an essential part of protein for their families. But NOBODY liked his stance OR that he chose to wear that into this event that was nothing but good cheer.

Interesting to see a very different set of attitudes than may have been present a month ago. That was hopeful.

» Posted By choicelady On December 29, 2012 @ 10:35 am

Molly Ivins defined it well. She said Americans today cannot tell the diffeence between tyranny and inconvenience. Tim McVeigh’s buddies, the Nichols brothers, railed against the tyranny of government in making them get drivers’ licenses and register their car. Inconvenience. Not tyranny. BTW – the Nichols brothers accepted farm subsidies. Just saying…

Americans have had instance of government intrusion and injustice. Shay’s Rebellion was one when farmers and all people were abruptly forced to pay all debt in specie – but had none. This was a radical intrusion in people’s sovereignty over their interactions with one another, and they resisted. And were quashed.

Slavery, labor bondage, exclusion acts and internments – all things that could easily have generated uprisings but did not.

So today’s “Second Amendment remedy” people are claiming their “freedoms” are being taken away – and have yet, after 8 years under Clinton and 4 under Obama, to be able to define WHAT freedoms they have lost. They can define inconveniences they think are the same, but they cannot define a single right of which they have been deprived.

So much for logic.

» Posted By choicelady On December 27, 2012 @ 9:07 pm

Happy Holidays 2012 From PlanetPOV!

I always thought this version, in its own way, was one of the most poignant. Thanks for the memory!

» Posted By choicelady On December 26, 2012 @ 8:41 am

AdLib, Kalima, KQuark, and bito – and Khirad, Sally, and Sue with their wonderful features – you all have given us a wonderful place to come to think, reflect, speak, and, best of all, often laugh as I am doing at this rewrite of the classic song!

Happiest of holidays to you all wherever you are. Life on the Planet is better because of all of you and what you give to all of us. Thank you!

» Posted By choicelady On December 25, 2012 @ 11:13 am

Covering All the Bases: The Pro-Life Party That is Pro-Death

In a moment of utter rage in 1999, I had to be restrained from gutting Flip Benham as he pontificated on his hypothesis that Columbine was due to abortion. He was picketing a city where, four months earlier, one of the providers of abortions had been shot through his own window, a fact Flip and his brethren celebrated loudly privately while pulling po face in public.

These are the people who, along with racists, anti-government folks such as McVeigh, et al. have found rationales for killing anyone who pisses them off. And then they blame ABORTION? There is absolutely NO correlation between women’s private choices and these despicable public acts – but there IS a high level of association between public acts of murder that are JUSTIFIED and EXCUSED and younger people thinking they just got the green light for acts THEY can “justify” in their own minds.

The right – especially the religious right – has created the world of situational ethics they pretend to abhor. The “politics of me” may have started back in the 70s with self indulgent whiny faux liberals, but it got rolling as a movement with the RW who think they can do anything they want. One time an anti-abortion protester told pro-choice escorts to “fuck off”. When one of the escorts, in mock horror, said, “That’s not very Christian” the protester said, “I’m born again. I can do anything I want.”

So they see NO hypocrisy here. It’s all about controlling YOU and never about their responsibilities to others because if they are in charge of their personal salvation, well then they have no obligation to you because all you have to do is get born again.

Then you, too, can do anything you want. To anyone who pisses you off.

Suh-WEET.

» Posted By choicelady On December 20, 2012 @ 9:37 pm

A Thanksgiving Tradition – 2012

Oh what a lovely thing to say! Thank you so much! I count you the same, Sally – you enrich me daily with your insights and GREAT sense of humor and irony! Life is NOT complete any day if I can’t see something you’ve said! Thank you for the gift you give to us all – YOU! A big, post T’giving <<<>>>!!

» Posted By choicelady On November 25, 2012 @ 7:44 pm

Hi all – also sorry not to be around T’giving Day. I’m grateful for all of you, for the hard work AdLib, bito, KQ, Kalima and now Sally do to put together a constant flow of information for us. Gratitude to Sue for her new series on courage in action. Even MORE grateful for the good discussions around it all.

I hope that what happened in 2009 does not occur again.America sat back and thought it could all go on “autopilot” with Obama in the WH and Dems in both houses. The past four years have shown that PBO was correct – democracy is about us, not about them. The reaction against Citizens United, voter restriction, and the hatemongering around us has re-ignited the understanding that democracy is eternal work. That energy needs to be on tap to withstand the idiocy we see – reflected in Sally’s cartoons this week – of a GOP that still thinks, somehow, it won. They are NOT giving up! So we cannot relax this time either.

But gratitude is for evidence that Americans are more wise now, are more energized, and that neither the slavering Right nor snarling faux Left have actually undermined the American people. United we stand. Period.

» Posted By choicelady On November 25, 2012 @ 9:53 am

Morning Blog

Such GREAT news! We all recognize that the ‘bumpy start’ was essential, and we’re thrilled that your ability to totally enjoy life again is now the manifest outcome of such a hard choice that you made. We all want you here on the Planet for a VERY long time! Congratulations on steady and wonderful progress – and do keep stopping to smell the roses!

» Posted By choicelady On September 3, 2013 @ 12:50 pm

And all good wishes to you, dear kes, to keep on growing stronger and getting better every day. It does not seem at all fair that your retirement began with surgery. There are lots better ways to get out of doing the dishes.

Have a good fall and stay strong. We send love, prayers, and energies to you.

» Posted By choicelady On September 2, 2013 @ 8:50 pm

‘Tis remarkable what we first take for granted then desperately wish to HAVE when we don’t. Even ground? No one thinks of it. WALLS? Those are good, too. Lights, postbox – all things that don’t seem important until we don’t have them.

We are grateful to you for so much you give us, not least of which is updates on our beloved kes, so the very least we can do is cheer you onward and upward to – well – basic civilization without exhaustion!

May the force be with you! (Women Power of course.)

» Posted By choicelady On September 2, 2013 @ 8:41 pm

It’s a relief to know kes is still healing and has not had a relapse or new problem. Huzzah! Thank you for that! Good news, if far too slow, for your progress, too. I got lucky with a remodeling project – the contractor is a woman, so I had NO problems. I suspect there are few to none in Japan? Can’t see it as a fertile ground for such businesses there. Love my husband and men friends though I do, I suspect you’re up against a huge cultural surge of testosterone we don’t put up with here. The one guy who tried that with me lost the job! But I can see you have scant chance against centuries of tradition. Sigh. Just so it all gets done and done well, I suppose you can endure. Sorry you must! Hang in – this, too, shall pass.

» Posted By choicelady On September 2, 2013 @ 4:52 pm

Oh wow, Kalima – it’s always something, isn’t it? So sorry to hear that nothing is going as planned or well. Moving houses is always stressful, but this makes it so much worse for you! I am so sorry.

I fear I’ve lost the thread with kes – is something new happening? Of course I send best health wishes, but I’m upset I did not know if something has gone awry. I surely hope not! Love to her of course! She is often in my heart and prayers for her recovery.

May it be all as Lucy Van Pelt demanded in “Peanuts”: “Why does life have to have ups and downs? I want ups, ups, and MORE ups!” That’s what kes deserves! That goes just as equally for YOU, too!

» Posted By choicelady On September 2, 2013 @ 11:41 am

Thank you for the story link, but more important, thanks for keeping us posted on your progress back to “normal”. You and only you get to define that!

I long for normal. Mine is being unhassled and not the target of everyone’s demands. For that I need to be retired. I supposedly AM, partly, and now working MORE hours than when I wasn’t.

So if you define “normal” in ways that are positive, and you are achieving that, whooo hoooo! That makes me and all of us happy for you!

Keep on healing – we look forward to the day (or night) when you feel up to being with us more and more often. Love and hugs and all that stuff still coming at you!

» Posted By choicelady On June 22, 2013 @ 12:19 pm

kes! So good to see you here! We all hope you’re healing and regaining strength. Just hearing from you brightens our day. Still sending prayers and energies and thoughts your way!

The KKK? Had not read that – I will try to find the story. I’m seriously NOT paying attention to anything these days. Too much work!!!

Be well, dear friend. Lovely, lovely to see you on PPOV!

» Posted By choicelady On June 21, 2013 @ 7:41 am

kes! So good to hear from you! Hope you’re continuing to mend and feeling much, much better.

Please take care and hurry back but ONLY if you’re really doing OK. We love you and still sending energies, thoughts, prayers your way.

A big, virtual hug <<<<<<<>>>>>>>

» Posted By choicelady On June 9, 2013 @ 12:01 am

A Drama Queen to the end. I want to laugh – very tacky of me, but not as tacky as what he did!

If there is an ‘after’ I hope he’s enjoying the hot weather.

That kind of hate – and he appears to have been an equal opportunity hatemonger – eludes me. Oh getting up a good head of steam at someone in particular, sure. Who hasn’t? But loathing a group in its entirety? Just evidence of a very shallow mind, heart, soul.

So maybe I will laugh – for being free of such corrosive acid that the world does not need.

» Posted By choicelady On May 23, 2013 @ 5:06 pm

My goodness, kes – how could they ignore such a good suggestion? I believe it shows a lack of imagination on their part.

The most important thing, however, is that you’re healing, growing stronger, and getting OUT of there! I suspect you’re spending at least a bit of your time silently critiquing the ‘service’ you are getting!

Buswoman’s holiday that. Go home! Get well! Come back as often as you can to be with us!

» Posted By choicelady On May 22, 2013 @ 11:30 pm

Kalima – I was struck by the astonishing irony of Venner’s suicide in Notre Dame. Suicide is, according to the church, a mortal sin. Being gay? Not so much. so what in the world did he think he was accomplishing? Now we shall see how much the church stands as a moral force abiding by its own laws or a political one abiding by symbolism. If they provide a funeral and sacred ground to Venner? Purely political.

Do people never think these about these things before they do them?

» Posted By choicelady On May 22, 2013 @ 11:27 pm

Oh darling kes – it’s marvelous to hear from you – and to see you be funny, too!

We are SO glad you have the strength and interest in writing. Do what you can – we are always glad for whatever you feel up to sharing.

Love flows out to you from us all. We hope you’re well and truly healing. Can hardly wait til you’re up to full speed once again.

Be well- all thoughts, energies, prayers headed at you daily! A big virtual <<<<<<<>>>>>>>> from us all!

» Posted By choicelady On May 22, 2013 @ 7:07 pm

food! I’m a Chicago person, too! I purely love that city, politics and all. I remember the Prudential – it suddenly transformed the city into something special. We used to go to the top to the Stauffer’s restaurant as a special lunch treat. What a view! Chicago always was a leader in architecture, and the postwar buildings were, in their way, fit companions to the classic works around the area.

I think Chicago was the first Great Lakes city to keep its entire waterfront open for public enjoyment. Nothing better than a drive along Lake Shore Drive – spectacular no matter which direction you were traveling.

I love going back to visit. It never lets me down. Sweet home, Chicago!

» Posted By choicelady On May 15, 2013 @ 8:52 pm

I’m so sorry Kalima. You must miss him terribly. I hope there is an “after” – it is lovely to think of him smiling on you!

Keep the sweet memories. I hope they help get you through today’s heart pain.

» Posted By choicelady On December 28, 2012 @ 12:54 pm

John McCain Demands Investigation of His Own Sanity

Uhhh AdLib? I’m scared you could actually write this. Do you need a vacation from all this perhaps…?

Seriously this IS what is going on. I cannot wrap MY mind around McCain leaving the CIA hearing to demand a CIA hearing. That’s just nuts.

» Posted By choicelady On November 16, 2012 @ 1:14 pm

What the GOP Would Have Said if They Helmed the Titanic

Wonderful stuff as always, AdLib! I think you’ve caught the GOP meme perfectly: whatever went wrong, it’s not our fault. Ever.

Election night when Karl was whirling back and forth, my very first thought was that he’d been promise flipped votes by the OH Sec’y of State and could NOT believe they had not been delivered. That, I truly believe, was what he was looking for.

When it turned out Romney had been told all along he was winning – a fact utterly belied by Rove’s daily tally – it was because his entire staff had been forced to lie to him. Later that night right after his concession speech, he cancelled ALL the campaign credit cards – people couldn’t get cabs, pay for their rooms, food, anything. When he told us “I like to fire people who provide me with services” the STAFF knew that was true. They could not tell him the truth about his failures because heads would have rolled.

The GOP has nothing to offer us or even one another but lies. When it all comes crashing down, when their cruise ship sinks, they are in utter disbelief. Their life preserver was thwarted by the DoJ and through them the federal courts. They simply cannot believe a Black man is better than they, beat them again, and took away all their dreams of restoring a white aristocracy once again. The finger pointing will go on forever. All we can do is sit back in our sea-worthy ships and smile.

» Posted By choicelady On November 9, 2012 @ 7:04 pm

The GOP Attempt to Resurface…As The Tea Party Pulls Them Down

I think it’s clear that many people don’t know where their benefits come from. The “keep the government out of my Medicare” woman is one.

But progressives have sneered at blue collar, rural, and religious people for SO long, they have no reason to trust us because WE represent all they think they hate.

When someone like Murph takes the time to slowly help get a man and his family some health care – that makes change.

I’m not saying each of us need to adopt a trailer park resident (and I will at some point tell you a VERY funny story about how that kind of “adoption” of Black families by white ones backfired) but we do need to stop, think, understand not every one is exactly like us, and respect people where they are. No one who is not rich and privileged got where they are by accident. We all pretty much got shoved – good ways or bad ways – into where we are today.

The EmoProgrs are the ones I DO blame because they can influence policies if only by pouting and not voting. If they did not think they were goddess’s gift to the world, we MIGHT have made a bit more progress because we would have done it together with people who needed our help – NOT our superiority!

It’s how we need to go forward. Together.

» Posted By choicelady On November 14, 2012 @ 7:01 pm

Except for the obvious racial incompatibility, I keep thinking the GOP/Romney campaign theme was the song from “The Wiz”:

“Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News.”

» Posted By choicelady On November 14, 2012 @ 8:01 am

Here is my dilemma – living around low-info voters some years ago, I discovered how desperate they are. Yes – they blame ALL their troubles on minorities, on liberals, etc., but in fact they have so few opportunities, are never going to get out of the cabins and trailer parks, never going to get ahead, and they are panicked all the time. They WILL be helped by a Black man – they will get health care and probably free since they’re pretty damned poor. But they have little work, many bills, and their lives are falling apart.

They once would have had opportunities. These are the folks of “The Deer Hunter” who were steelworkers, foundry operators, railroad people, etc. whose wives and mothers worked in offices related to businesses that thrived on industry – and sometimes in the industries, too. This is all gone in too many areas.

They are religious – church is a haven of cleanliness and peace. They are hunters – it’s how they get protein in their diets. They are angry – they have been thrown away by us all. And they are scared.

Why do they glom onto the GOP? Because until Obama not one damn thing was done for these folks. They are the people Thomas Franks wrote about in “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”

We have to care about the white ethnics, too. We have to include less well educated people in our future because they do matter. And since corporations don’t want to care about them, we need to find alternatives for them, and a lot of that is based on our tax policies – we already pick winners and losers, and we can reverese that trend. Today’s winners are shuttered Bain-style plants. We can reward operation and employment in the US rather than those going out of business and overseas.

Dems have to make this distinction and then make the distinction clear. It has to be the Dems who care about the family in the trailer park and its health, well being, and rights. And it can’t bash them for being conservative socially and wedded to guns which are life sustaining for them. We have to be where they are – and help them survive where they are. If Dem policies respect them, they will begin to stop distrusting the party, the policies, and us. I think we don’t have any other choice.

» Posted By choicelady On November 14, 2012 @ 7:18 am

OK Scary turn of events. Rand Paul is suggesting total normalization of status for ALL immigrants. Not an easy road to citizenship but a road for ALL of them. This is inclined to attract the Latino voters in 2014 and on.

But – and here’s the rub – this is like the Twilight Zone story about aliens and their book “To Serve Man”. Turns out it’s a cookbook. The REASON a libertarian who hates government would do this is to explode the pool of low wage labor and force wages DOWN. He wishes -and Marx and Engles got this right – to beef up the ‘reserve army of the proletariat” who will work for shit wages.

His anti-war position, just like his father’s, is to get government OUT of war and corporate private armies INTO the business. That does away with Constitutional restrictions, human rights concerns, international conventions limiting our incursions, and concer for our vets – and makes it possible for their now to be feudal fiefdoms waging war with impunity.

Beware of the man who promises waaaay too much when his over-arching concern is private property and not an ounce about human beings. There is sure to be a sneaky motive there – and ripping off American working people as cheap labor and cannon fodder would be the motives.

Do not let this man get strong in the Senate or in American politics. He is NOT a nutjob. Well, he IS, but he’s not a nutjob about these ideas – they are the lasso he is tossing to reel in the people who will make these ideas work for him.

» Posted By choicelady On November 13, 2012 @ 8:15 pm

America and Democracy Are Not For Sale Boys

The largest “religious movement” in America is walkaways. They largely don’t come to us, though if they have been booted out over a gay or lesbian child, they may. But people are SO harmed by the religious right they don’t see ANY faith organization as safe.

We are growing oddly enough. It’s masked by major splits – so if the whole Episcopalian Diocese of San Joaquin divides with the anti-GLBT folks going Anglican, then it overshadows the rush BACK to the very same churches of people who were hurt by the hate and are now coming back. That Diocese is the fastest growing area of religious entities in America – but everyone measures it as LESS populated since about half departed to ally with the Anglican church of Argentina (and good luck to ’em with all that cultural uneasiness!) Same with the splits in the Lutherans and Presbyterians – those returning are not even noticed, only the ones who left.

We probably won’t be around as denominations in a century – but we WILL be around as a spiritual center. It may be churches without walls or large ones of mixed backgrounds, but we WILL be here. I hope it will be to offer total love and complete acceptance – the world needs that. However we do it, we WILL do it. And the world will be kinder for it.

» Posted By choicelady On November 8, 2012 @ 4:03 pm

Remember what Murph posted last night – the Lysistrata Ladies of Missouri not only voted for Claire McCaskill BUT GOT THEIR HUSBANDS TO VOTE FOR HER TOO!

Not every husband is a boor nor every wife a saint (OK maybe MOST wives…) We have evidence from Murph that the Lysistrata Ladies did something amazing. Murph was very kind – he never asked about their presidential vote, and maybe they DID go Romney. But they made a HUGE step forward by rejecting Akin. Every step toward sanity is a step toward a better society.

The poor woman whose husband berates her has a man in her life who is an abuser on many levels I suspect. And my advice to her would be to cease telling him what she thinks and does! Or leave. him if he’s dangerous. Depends on his overall behavior.

That is sad – but only she can figure out if he’s worth it. Our nation will go on. The very personal is up to her. The national is up to us all.

» Posted By choicelady On November 7, 2012 @ 6:18 pm

Wonderful post, Girlfriend! I think you remember that well over a year ago I was thumping the drum for ‘Get out there! Register voters! Drive them to get ID! PAY for it if you have to! Then drive ’em to the polls!” And that is EXACTLY what happened.

I was watching Leo Gerard, President of the United Steelworkers, who put his folks out walking precincts. I spent my weekend on phone banks in the Sac Labor Council. I had door hangers when I got home from candidates AND on issues. The people phoning were everybody – white, Black, Latino, old, young, male, female. It was so cool! They are my fave folks – and this is RIGHT in the middle of a strike at a supermarket, too. But they never stopped. Worked right up to 6 pm yesterday. GREAT people!

We went back to basics. We have not got billions in money – but we have millions of PEOPLE. And we had to know that what works is – WORK. And we did it. And we won.

Now I suspect the RW plutocrats will take away this message – WE LOST! THAT MEANS WE DID NOT SPEND ENOUGH!!! OUR MESSAGES WEREN’T MEAN ENOUGH!!!

Well, I love what a Black preacher taught me once: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you always got.”

They failed. They will fail again. We won – so we will win again. You cannot get where you want to be by doing what did not work the first time. Even progressives think you can win by doing the losing thing BIGGER.We know we win by doing the right thing all of the time.

You have real people standing up for themselves. You have real candidates hearing that and responding. That is what wins.

For forty years too many of the progressives have sat on their butts and wanted an Imperial president to save them. And they let a lot of what occurred happen. We, the REAL people, have been out doing what needs doing, and we cannot stop, we cannot sit back, we cannot let the passivity of the left and the power hunger of the right become the mainstream again.

We can keep the power if we want to. But it will take eternal vigilance. Now and always. Democracy is a right, but it’s also a gift, and it needs tender and eternal care. No slacking off!

» Posted By choicelady On November 7, 2012 @ 6:12 pm