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Remarks deleted due to educational progress
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Take my neighbour if you must,
but please don't notice me....

I'll get my gun! Oh, wait! I don't have one! Oh, wait again! I just remembered that I have several. One shoots rubber bands and the others light up and make phaser/disruptor type noises but don't much do anything else. Think a non-functional Type II Phaser would be an effective tool in a civilian coup?

Guns?
Oh, I hope not!
It;s both too soon AND too late for that.
And, besides, I don't think violence will solve the problem.
A genuine general strike might, though.
Like, from today until Bush is behind bars...

I've begun already-
I won't travel without genuine cause,
I won't earn a dollar,
I won't buy anything except genuine essentials,
won't use long-distance telephone, nuthin'.
I refuse to contribute another dime
or another erg of energy
to the military/capitalist machine
until it becomes responsive to the people
and until we once again have a legal and legitimate government.

Ralph Stanley's Radio Ad

http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=16402

Well, if you haven't figured out that I was being a little "tongue-in-cheeky", then you're scarin' me! But ya have to be specific when ya say it's time to strike. Do ya mean like labor strike or baseball strike (as in three and you're out!) or strike a chord or like the 60s militant groups strike? Lest you spur a gun totin', militant left-wing extremist to "strike", don'tchya know? There's a lot of crazies out there. I mean, just look at the Republican Prez & VP candidates! Heck! Just look at the present administration!!!!!

And, no offense, but it sounds like you're either wealthy, in a position where you don't have to spend a lot to get by or being supported by some body. If most of us did what you're suggesting then we'd loose our homes, jobs, families, etc. and maybe even be imprisoned. We'd be able to do a lot of good under those circumstances, wouldn't we (There goes that tongue-in-cheek thingy, again!)?

Hi, Cap'n Zapp

I did realize that your reference to rubber band guns
was not a reference to firearms.
Honest, I did.
I just wanted to make MY position clear.

The "general strike" of which I spoke
is the strike I then described:
no work, no purchases, etc.
I thought I had been fairly clear
that I don't advocate violence at all.

And, no, I'm a long, long way from wealthy.
We feed..
well, a lot more folks than you might guess
on a smaller income than you might believe.
And I am quite prepared to be hungry,
to go to prison if I must,
to stand against tyranny.


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Section deleted due to increased education
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There is nothing, absolutely nothing
more precious than freedom.
Nothing.

And, no offense, but I never dreamed that Arlonet
was only about talking.

No offense? Really?

Would anyone in their right mind do more than talk in generalities on a bulletin board open to the world? I am quite sure I don't know everything about what people here do in their 3-d lives, and I hope it stays that way. "Think globally, act locally" is a good philosophy in more than one way.

No, really.
I thought it would be a community of folks
who would be committed to finding
real, workable, effective answers
to our urgent and critical problems.

I'm feeling pretty foolish at the moment,
if you care to know it.
Let me blame it on the stroke, hey?
I must have seemed like an off-the-wall lunatic to y'all.


*sidles off stage*

Yeah, I wondered if that's what it was. I figured ya'll might be interested in that channel...

I'm sorry; I shouldn't have popped off like that. More properly, I should have said it's not about talking--it's about singing "REAL LOUD." But yeah, this is largely a place about talking. What it isn't is a place where people gather around one political goal; we don't even all agree about what our urgent and critical problems are, and even when we do, our take on how to fix them is always widely divergent. I'm sure every person who frequents this joint has a different take on what it is and why we come here, but I think many might agree that one of the reasons we call ourselves Blunderites is that we're a community of folks thrilled to have found each others' hands as we Blunder our way onward through the fog.

I often think lack of effective communication is a big contributor to the problems of the world! In fact, the thing I hate the most and have talked about the most on Arlonet is the conformity of thought that leads to conformity in communication. When asked what she believed, Cheryl said, "what Jerry Falwell and George Bush say?" That is like saying "my agenda is that of the Christian Church (or Jewish or Islamic)" or "my agenda is that of the Nazi party (or Republican or Democratic)". It is the creation of terms like ProLife or Patriotic to be (brain) cookie cutters instead meaningful adjectives. I believe Cheryl is generally surprised to find that you can be Prolife and Prochoice at the same time and patriotic and pro-peace at the same time. Afterall, that is what Jerry Falwell and George Bush told her! I may be patriotic but that does not mean I will blindly follow the state (or party) and I will tell you why! My patriotism is not to conformity but to the ideals of freedom and equality, they may seem utopian but I am allowed to dream and I am not going to be pigeon holed by a religious or party agenda!

SO you say you want a revolution, well what are we revolting against?

I am revolting against stupidity...where do you go to do that? Well, it seemed to me Arlo was always against stupidity (or is that pro-intelligence), I will look over there! Sure enough, there are a bunch of people who seem to be dealing with stupidity in there own ways!

I don't know why but it just seemed appropriate to put this thing from July here!

Just a little request here... I don't always get to read entire threads, so when I finally arrive here and find "section deleted due to increased education," I can't follow the discussion. Maybe it's only me... maybe not.

My take is that most of us are not in a position where we can just drop everything to go on a "general strike". Most of us have responsibilities that would preclude that, like families to support and raise, people and such who depend on us and who we depend on or even jobs that contribute to other people or communities.

Unless you can get a whole lot of people behind it, a general strike just ain't gonna work and nobody, especially politicians, are gonna take much notice. Yep, sounds like a noble thing to do but realistically, it just isn't going to be effective until the time is right .... i.e. lots of really pissed off people taking to the streets, "...singin' songs and carryin' signs ... mostly say, 'Hooray for our side!' "

A long time ago, a friend of mine refused to pay his income tax because he didn't want to contribute to the "military-industrial complex". Well, he eventually was given the choice of having his paycheck attached or going to prison. Nobody took notice of it. Nobody said, "Damn good idea! I think I'll do that, too!" He wound up getting a much smaller paycheck for awhile but not before he sent a letter off to Yoko Ono asking her to help pay off his delinquent taxes (Don't ask me why Yoko Ono but, yep, that's what he did.).

In an interview, the late, great John Denver said that folks were always coming up to him and asking him what he thought that they could do to help the environment and "save the planet", him being a supporter of environmentalist stuff and such. Well, he said that what you do doesn't have to be any great sacrifice. You can do a little something that will make the environment a little better. You can do what you do best. And then, maybe another person will do something else, something other than what you're doing. And then another, and another. And maybe, just maybe, all of these people doing different things, both great and small, will add up and things will change for the better.

Ringo Starr said it a bit more simplistically, "You can't feed all the birds in the world but you can feed the ones in your yard." Same as what Shelly said, "Think globally, act locally."

Shas, you said it yourself: "I thought it would be a community of folks
who would be committed to finding real, workable, effective answers
to our urgent and critical problems." What might be (or seem) "workable" to you might not be for other folks. And a lot of us are doing things whether it be writing our elected politicos, attending peace vigils, singing songs or even slappin' a bumper sticker on your car. And voting!

The above mentioned friend once told me that he thought that, unless it was done to effect positive social change, music was pretty useless and irrelevant. It was his opinion but I kept on singin' and playin' "irrelevant" music. I did, now and then, and still do throw in a few that he would deem "relevant". Just throwing a little feed to the birds in my yard like most of us here, I reckon.