Just venting the way one tends to do when one is living under a fascist dictatorship.
One never knows when the plug on the 'net could be pulled.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread. Ahnuld does weigh heavily on my mind since he affects my life. Sorry 'bout that. I'll try to stay on topic. (Don't hold your breath...I constantly drift )
Poodle may have gone along with Chimpy on the war but he's still Labor and not "officially" a Conservative. Iraq was strictly bidness.
I don't know that we'll get out from under fascism in my lifetime...that's all that was about, three coups in four years.

And that's great that Sky is so optimistic....I am too some days.
For example, the judiciary committee the other day made me happy.
Chimpy's plummeting poll numbers...that makes me happy.
Unfortunately, the news from the Middle East is NOT good and I have two draftable sons.
I was around for Vietnam. I remember.
A Democrat in the White House and I'd be overjoyed.
No "fixed" voting machines and I'd be deliriously happy.
Freedom of speech and a free press and I'd be chuffed beyond belief.

Yeah, optimism is a lovely thing.

Been there, done that! Sometimes you need to vent.

And sometimes paranoia gets the best of all of us. None of us are immune.

Catherine's right, sometimes it helps to "lose yourself" in something you enjoy to make the stark reality go away for just a little while.

High 5 Cat! You are an inspiration!

Panda.
Let the fact of your inspiration never be in doubt.
But let me try to explain....

Pessimism won't accomplish anything. Pessimism is for saving what you have from further loss. In other words, you accept defeat and put your efforts into slowing that down.

Optimism isn't an option!
Not if you want to succeed!
Not if you want to help structure change!


Those people in America who occupy the center of the political spectrum out number those on the left and the right combined!
I don't believe telling them how terrible things are, or scaring the holy shit out of them is going to convince them they should vote Liberal in 2006. Not when the other side has invited them to a feel good about your Red state values party!

I want to offer them another, better option! I want to give them a warm and sincere smile. I want them to honestly feel welcomed by the progressive liberals! Like one of the family! I want to say to them, Yeah, I understand why you didn't Vote for Kerry, and I can't really blame you! This is what we are working on today! Wanna help?

The more someone hammers me and tells me I did a bad bad thing, the more I tend to rebel. Playing the guilt card will never work. Neither will telling them they are idiots for Voting for Bush. (even if they are!) The negative pessimistic aproach to repugs, (even that term has to end) will only serve to make the centrists defensive and lock their heels in refusing to give an inch. They will fight simply cause you brought the fight to them! When accused, I defend myself even if I was wrong! And the more you accuse, the more I refuse to admit i was wrong!

Just stop it!

We are NOT them!
We are the opposite of the neocon!
And we really need to start walking our very loud talk!
Every one of us needs to lead our by own every day example!

I am a Progressive Liberal.
And when they laugh at me, I smile.
When they say I hate America, I remind them that I am an American Patriot!
When they accuse me of supporting terrorism, I laugh and tell them how lame that is.
When they yell their views, I ignore it.
If they continue without allowing me my views, I walk away!

Think of the image that is presented to the observer to any of this!!!
One is a loud mouth controling sombitch, the other is cool, aware and with it!
Even smiling a sincere smile!

Where I work I call myself the Token Liberal.
The warehouse is mostly yer beer drinkin sexist homophobes. (including the women.)
On the morning of 9/11 I was accused of being a liberal that allowed this to happen cause I supported people like Clinton! (I had to leave the lunch room for fear of violence)

What I know is this. I'm not going to educate anyone that doesn't wish to be educated! Those who wish to be eduated, I don't need too!

My approach is to give a progressive option. To offer a warm friendly and welcoming place where others who wish to share my view can join me, if they choose too. Those who don't, my attempts to educate them will fall on deaf ears so I won't try. Those who choose to join, are real. No one told them, they decided for them selves.

And that's what I want the DNC to offer the people of America!
A better choice! One the centrist will choose because they optimisticaly want too!
When they are tired of all the shit, I want to offer a garden to plant in it!


Anyway, that's my opinion.
And this is me talking the talk that I walk.
Making the effort to lead by example,
even when I have pessimistic times.

They'll go broke before PNAC can ever be realized so I'm not too worried about that. What I am worried about is a second depression caused by a hollow dollar and massive national debt. I have no doubt that once that happens people will go "How the hell'd that happen?" I also have no doubt that they'll realize it was the republicans who put them there. In fact I see it happening just like in 1984. The government will release propaganda to the public, the kids will jump for joy for their government and those of us who remember a better time and a better place will be shaking our heads in disgust. Hell it's already happening. What I worry about is not whether or not we'll see brighter days, that I'm sure of, I'm worried about the damage and suffering which will be caused in the mean time.

So pardon me if I do not wish to sit back and wait for the better days, I have to live in this cess pool now, and the stink sucks.

Consider this proof, that what is happening today is nothing new!
We have survived it before,
we will survive it now!


That which does not kill me
can only serve to make me stronger!





People, I'm one tough, strong sombitch!
And I Vote!

I Invite the Centrists of America,
Come stand with the best of America!!!!

And what of the children who will die tomorrow of starvation? Or the children born with mental defects from mercury poisoning? Or the young men and women dying on foreign soil, not for freedom or defense, but for our politicians' personal gain? Yes it has happend before, and that's what makes it all the worse. Our future generations will look back on us and wonder how the hell we could let that happen again. When they ask you why you didn't help what're you going to tell them? "Sorry honey, I knew we'd see better days again so I just waited for them to destroy themselves. Yeah, it sucks that you have an IQ below a hundred, asthma, and diabetes but you'll see better days! Yeah!" Hell what about those who will lose someone close to them now when it could've been avoided? What're you going to tell them? "Sorry about your son ma'am, but I didn't want to get depressed thinking about him!"

I'm glad you're so happy to face that day. Personally, I don't know if I'll be able to look any of them in the face.

Tzu,

Face them tomorrow you will, and you will face them with pride because you fought to improve their world, and they'll know it!


What other choice do you have? Roll over and go back to sleep because the future is just to horrible to contemplate?
At the moment I am unable to have the president and all his men (and women) arrested! So then, what will I do?

Shall I wring my hands and loudly complain about how shitty things are?
Or do I wake up every morning posative I will do my fucking best to fight the bastards even if the only thing I can do is to walk my fucking talk!!!!!

Even if the only ting I can do is to go to work every single say, pay my bills every single week, be informed and share my opinions in a happy welcoming manner. Because you see, I WILL allow those who don't agree with me to have their opinion, even if without question they are completely and demonstrably wrong! Because this is AMERICA and allowing them to have their fucked up opinion is WALKING MY TALK! Instead, I will do my very best to not force the issue except when I have no other reasonable option, and I will do my best to make it possible for anyone that wants to, to listen too me and hear what I have to say!

I can not teach anyone who doesn't wish to learn! As long as they know all the answers, and defensively defend their positions, they will never listen to me, or anyone! My leading by example means I open the door and let THEM choose to step through it! My leading by example is to make what is beyond that open door look attractive, interesting and welcoming!

Tzu,

I am nearly 50. Not old yet, but certainly not a kid. I have seen all this before, and I've only been on this planet 50 years!!! I fear it happens constantly, and I fear we as a human species have not yet evolved past it. I choose to believe that someday we will, but today we are still cavemen with advanced technology.

The children of tomorrow. Tsu, I have a 15 year old son. I have a boy that is nearly of age facing the neocons desire for his mind and body to waste. He is my only child and when I look at him I see the one pure thing in my life that wasn't a mistake! Do not talk to me about understanding the cost to the future. Of this I do not need to be educated!

My son is ultimately why I am here to preach what my signature says.
My son is why I am talking today about the importance of optimism!

He needs us to understand this, to save his future!
He needs us to fight knowing we are the good guys, and that without question, we will win! Even when we suffer setbacks, we get back up, dust ourselves off, and fight that wall!

Tsu, the wall?
A short(?) personal story,

About a decade back I lived for 5 years in the middle of nowhere central Montana. I did this because my (ex)wife told me she was moving back home, with our 2 year old son, and I could come too if I wanted! So I quit my job, sold everything I could and packed everything else in and on top of the Escort and headed east down I-90 from Seattle to the middle of redneckville.

Nowhere Montana is a few miles from Butte. I have to say it's some of the most beautiful country in the world, with an unemployment rate about 30%!!!!! The entire 5 years I was there I was drawing on Unimployment insurance, and at times I had 3 jobs!!!! (Bottom line was at best I made slightly less than 11k, including unimployment that I had to pay tax on! How stupid is that?? I have NO JOB, but I still have to pay tax on the state money they give me, while billion dollar corps pay ZERO!!!!!)

Anyway, as a means of becoming part of my new community I started going to the bi-monthly city/county commission meetings. At this time the Feds were starting to crack down on small municipalities and their "landfills." I grew up in a community that had paper drives all summer long for boyscouts. I had parents that had always composted, and preached waste reduction as a means of saving money! (Turn off that light when you leave the room, Close that door, you weren't born in a barn) This early life experience and my time in Seattle brought to Montana meant that I knew and possessed leading edge technology! And because of that I was accused of being a big city outsider come here to screw with the yokels. (I grew up in a town of 6500 people. The closest big city to me was Portland Or, 20 miles away) Many times I bonked heads with these cowboys. The senior commission member once said, "Hell, lets just leave the dump open and conduct business as we always have. What can the feds do to us anyway?" I paraphrase cause he said this like, 12 years ago, but he did say that. I stood up and said to him and the commission, "The feds are not known for being terribly caring or forgiving. What can they do? They can fine this city county thousands a day, every day that dump stays open past the deadline. That's what the feds can do! Now, do you want to talk about a plan, or do you want to drop a new tax on the 10,000 people in this county because you wanted to defy the feds?"

I did battle in similer fashion the whole time I was there. My Leading edge experience got me a job (one of my three, school bus driver and Wal*Mart plus county) a job at $5 an hour, 20 hours a week. I was the county's new solid waste coordinator.

This is the point to this whole story......

I was feeling pretty hopeless constantly doing battle with these hicks. I wasn't asking for miracles. I only asked for what was clearly possible and was constantly being shut down. One evening from out of the blue my mother calls me. I have no idea how you mothers do it, but from three states away she knew I needed to talk to her! We talked on her dime for over an hour. During all that I explained what I have just explained here and much more. Eventually she said this....

You know, banging your head on the wall all the time, all yer gettin is a sore head!!!
Instead, just lean on it. A slow persistant pressure and gradually it will crack, and then fall. The dandelion can grow in a crack in the cement, eventually that whole widewalk will be covered! PATIENCE AND PERSISTANCE! And above all, smile and enjoy it!

Tsu,
I been there, done that, got a POAC T-shirt, and I ain't goin' home 'til I'm done!
The things happening today truely are terrible, and I am especially glad those of us on the White Rose are aware and willing to fight. At the same time I accept the reality that sometimes we will lose a battle. Some times we have to, in order to win the war!

I will continue with patience and persistance.
I will cry for the children, I find that I do that a lot. (literally)
I will continue to try to win converts NOT with my words, clearly words are cheap!
But by walking my talk
and leading by example!


By the way,
I succeeded in Montana.
We opend a new limited use landfill, (basicially what used to be called "good clean fill material") and on my first day at the site I mapped out where the recycle area would be. I had contacts in Butte who would pick up for free. And where to lay out the county's first ever municipal windrow compost site! (I remember one old guy dropping off a pick up load of grass asked what I was gonna do with all that yard debris. And watched him just stand there and stare at me when I said, "Turn it into dirt")

A few months after the site was all set up, the full councel toured "my" site. The weekly paper reported on their visit. In that article the senior councilman, the head cowboy stated how THEY had set all this up and how well it was working, and how everybody ought to take advantage of this service. My name was never mentioned.

The city county executive, (lady in charge) told me I took a big gamble. If they didn't like it they could have told me to take it apart, and oh by the way, yer fired!
I said to her, if I'd have asked, they would have said no! She was pleased with me!

Ten plus years later and all those things are still in place there in nowhere Montana!
Every year I drive to Montana to pick up the kid for his summer with dad and I drive past the class III landfill site. I see the sign I had built. I see the tires lining the road. I see the office I built. I see the recycle collection site and the windrow compost I put into place, and I know I beat the bastards!

Tsu,
The progressives will also win,

With patience and persistance
By walking the talk
and leading by example!