John Denver was speaking when we were still
beginning to understand some of the threats.
I dare say he'd be a bit more urgent today.

Light exercise and a high-fibre diet are excellent things
when you are seeking to maintain or improve your health.
When the car is headed for a precipice, though,
more effective measures are called for.

You're quite right, Zapp, that a general strike
will be ineffectual unless lots of folks are involved.
I guess I was hoping that lots of folks WOULD be.
But if even Blunderfolk won't leave their comfort zones
I may as well go back to serving the system
and taking care of number one.

You gotta be careful with them bumper stickers-
someone might be offended.
Heck, someone might actually offer you a rude gesture!
Or scratch your paint, OMG!

Go back to sleep, sir.
If others pay the price
and manage to turn things around
you can wear your green rebel t-shirt
and tell your grandkids how you won the war.

As you said so eloquently,
"You ask me for a contribution,
Well, you know, we're all doing what we can."


Thanks, all, for the hospitality.
The mistake was mine.

Shas

One of the things that irritates me most about Sarah Palin is that she has her talking points, and when someone else says something substantive, she doesn't listen to them (or can't understand what they're saying?), but just goes back to that talking point on the little 3x5 card.

First off, you don't know me or what I do or what any one else on these boards does. And as I don't have any human children, I don't plan on having any grandkids. The world's too crowded and screwed up as it is to be bringing more into it. Just my opinion there.

As for "comfort zones", a lot of folks here and in general are maybe a couple of paychecks or a crisis away from loosing everything they've worked their lives for. I know a guy who is doing a lot of what you've suggested. He has a few college degrees but has gotten so enveloped in politics, social issues and living an alternative lifestyle that he has lost his family, has no job, no permanent residence (pretty close to being homeless, actually) and is paranoid about everything from imagined (or possibly real) government conspiracies to eating snow. So, no. I don't see too many folks here who would put it all on the line because of what you've had to say. You did say "realistic" ways of effecting a change, didn't you?

And, finally, if put into a different context, your methods of persuasion (with a "more-self-righteous-than-thou" air about it) are not much different than the guy in another thread that was trying to get everybody on board with Jesus and getting Arlo to shave his head. I'm sure that his intentions were, in his mind, correct but he didn't seem to have much room for any one else's way of doing things but his own. You seem to be coming from a laterally similar point of view (Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you). But your way ain't the only way and neither is any one else's. Offering suggestions that don't sound like outrageous demands might work.

Interesting comment! where you gonna go? it is still the same planet! what tables are you gonna turn over?

just one comment.
THere is no us or them! It is just us!

I think the point is that insulting people is not the best approach to persuasion! I don't think it is about a comfort zone, it is about being effective!

As I read through this argument flashbacks to hippie days abound... all night talks and big arguments about how to live without buying in.... drop out or work from inside??... peaceful or civil disobedience??... vietnam or canada?... how committed are you???... what are you willing to sacrifice???...

so it went and now it goes again perhaps because we are up against the wall again....

Shas when you arrived here I had a feeling that you are one of those who left the mainstream to live in this country without depending on it... finding your own way with those of like mind... and if that is so, from me you have my respect... that kind of lifestyle takes a lot of sacrifice and is hard work... there is a part of me that is sad that I didn't take that path... because, back "then" I thought it was the best way to go... but couldn't make the commitment... and I still feel that way...

and that is no criticism of anyone else here... we make our choices and we live with them, change when we want to, if we can, live our lives with the priorities that make the most sense to us... and if we're lucky get to follow the inner guidance that takes us to the best place for ourselves...

i don't know what anyone here does or doesn't do for our world... except what you share... and no doubt i will continue my PITA approach to getting folks to think leading to act with links,stories etc... because that's some of what I do... (with the great fortune of having long lost the concern about who does or doesn't like me or what i do)...

I agree with what you say KJ!

However, at the risk of being a heretic I suppose, I suggest that many of these so called 60's tactics didn’t work! The Vietnam War was different by the fact that you could be forced to go there or prison whether you liked it or not! This mobilized an anti-war (pro-peace) force largely organized around campuses where small organized and driven groups could instigate mass emotional out pouring. There are a lot of things that a lot of people should take pride in for taking a stand. It was about as immorally incomprehensible a situation as ever existed on the planet. Yet, I can’t help but feel that in the end, despite all those tapes of emotional encounters in the White House between Nixon and his Aides, that the whole affair was masterfully crafted into a propaganda war that continues to haunt the so called “liberals” to this very day. The “loss” in Vietnam and the Nixon Embarrassment” mattered little to those who would ultimately elect Reagen and the Bushes and create the lasting image of the backstabbing unpatriotic and immoral malcontents of the 60’s era. Complete with Brady Bunch style made for TV movies with CSNY soundtracks that paint the rebellious youth of the time as victims of manipulators in an emotional passion play that led to America losing its will to “win” at the pivotal moment in history!

I mean lets face it, by 1976, any momentum to change the world was sputtering to an end and the so called defenders of America, the religious right and the corporate pirates, where in the position to rewrite history and dictate the future and make America the kind of place that could reelect GW (a feat that I still can’t comprehend after 4 years) and possibly a McCain even after one of the arguably most incompetent Presidencies the US has ever known! I mean the American People should have been demanding in 1980 that we pursue honest initiatives in energy policies that would have us on our way to being off the oil by now (as Carter proposed). Well, the Reagen/Bush leadership taught the world how to maintain the oil dependence for another 35 years or so (making Saudi Arabia what it is and Osama Bin Laden what he is). This goes for pollution controls as well. America could have been the leader in the Green Revolution! Instead, we are being pulled along screaming and kicking?

So excuse me if I don’t want emotional frenzy as much as I want real change. I want controls on religious lobbies that have a tax exempt political pulpit and spend most of their time confusing people with the fear of God and the threats of humanity. I want a rational approach to the issues of the environment and health care and world peace. I personally don’t have a problem with capitalism but I do believe it has been poisoned with greed. I have always thought America’s potential is stigmatized by greed. I believe are economic might has been squandered on attempts to maintain instead of grow. We have thrown too much money away on trying to be the America of the 50’s instead of the America of the future. The America in control of the future instead of the America discovering the future. I mean, what are the things that give us hope? America’s efforts to land on the moon gave us the computer age. America’s contributions in the efforts to end disease have given us a new age in biology and medicine. Yet, still, to this day, America’s number one investment in the future is in the area of WAR! The MILITARY! The new WEAPONS!

Whatever happened in the 60’s and 70’s, good or bad, it didn’t change that path!

It was a grand and glorious time and shaped many of our lives--mine, certainly--but from this perspective, I see that we were just kids who never could get black enough--first we co-opted their music and then their means of protest. Even African clothes--I still have my dashiki from that time. Were we right about the war, and then in the 70s, about the environment? Hell, yes. Were we effective? Not immediately--we had no real tactics and no clue. We didn't end the war or stop Nixon; the Pentagon Papers and Watergate were much more effective. But a lot of our then-radical culture is now mainstream. It's as though our effect was mostly accomplished through long-term osmosis. We always seem to be right but not able to win over enough people in time.

The Internet offers more effective avenues for change than anything we had then. But that means a lot of people doing a lot of reading and writing--that awful talking, as it were. It leads to local action and it gets people together. The other side of that coin is that while in the 60s and early 70s, 'they' had to waste a lot of manpower to infiltrate our groups and follow us around with cameras, now we sign online petitions and send e-letters to our representatives--these probably are more effective than protest marches that the press doesn't cover, but it's also much easier for 'them' to find out who we are and keep tabs on us.

So yeah, I'm in my comfort zone here, freely giving my contact information and my political opinions to those who want to know them and who might wish to do me harm, while I do what I think is effective (and some things that aren't effective but feel good) locally as well. We've attended every local public protest of the Iraq War, which all got zippo media coverage, so out of the millions of people who live in our area, we got our message out to the several-hundred people who passed by in cars. If there's another, I'll be there. I've had a peace (back by popular demand) bumper sticker on my car since March 2002, when I WAS scared to have it there. At least I don't have to worry about losing my job--I lost my job of 29 years this summer. When the company 'reorganized,' I was no. 1 on the list to go, and I know that in part it was because of my inability to keep my mouth shut about injustices there. So you don't have to ask me to strike--they struck me.

No, PSB, you're not a heretic, you're a realist. But then, more often than not, those are synonyms.

I still have my old dashiki from back then. It's too small to fit now so I got me 2 more over the yrs so I could have one that would fit...

ah, PS, a heretic... that makes my day!!.... who would've guessed you'd be one?.... actually i count on it...!!!...
And Shelley...my sister traveller who so well knows the glories and the sorrows of those days....i count on that, too...

You may well be right, PS, but I don't think about impact so much anymore...mostly cause how do you know what has impact and doesn't???... someone can say something to me and 5 years later it hits home.... who knows???...so the road may be to do what you feel/know is your thing and who cares about impact...

even though the Vietnam War is so much the center of memories of the hippie days.... we knew alot of the stuff that's happening now back then...Rachel Carson had written "The Silent Spring" in the 50's so there was global climate change... and the military -industrial complex was a hot topic.... Che and Mao were onto something... though it didn't turn out so well for them either.... but the ingredients for this morning and this week were all there and we could see them....

so the arguments about how to live your life were tough... there was a term back then when hippies bailed(left communes and farms) and got married (legally!!) or raised kids in the house in the suburbs (gasp!!).... "golden handcuffs".... tied to the money... the values change some times.... and you've got new decisions to make because you're in a different place... what do you for your world??...

my wish is that we never stop caring talking arguing and then doing.... whatever...

thanks for articulating in detail some things i didn't say so well.

I have always thought of the future. I chose a path based on what I could contribute to the future and back in the day thought of changing the world to green energy when just a kid!

Momentary impact, well, that was not what the Falwells and the Bushes were thinking. They created a lasting legacy of platform politics built around those so called "right wing conservative" ideals. As Ceashel says, eventually the appeal to reason filters through the crowd but it is often too little too late!