Phillip Bunker
And why the emphasis on the T-party? (does it repel you?) First reason is tit-for-tat warfare, which politics is no exception to ever since Reagan (or ever since ever? just in different forms - slowly shifting, sometimes punctuated equilibrium like the laws that govern evolution). If they pull out the zombie horde, so must we. Their zombie horde might push the Repub.s even further to the right - sanity has already left them.
Right and Left Party? Ambidextrous Party?
Second reason is they're owning some power, no matter how much we want to laugh at it. The power they are owning is a departure from reason, complete and whole.
Now, we don't want to jump off the same cliff (yes I think they're doomed, but bad ideas can take hold strong in the world as history shows). But, there is power in this unreason, and we can let the Philosophy descend the rung of abstraction a couple notches, wind up with the same theoretical power advantages, and still maintain our reason.
As logical beings, the left is sometimes guilty of being pragmatic to a fault, and also being singular to a fault. Anecdotal evidence from my own life would be all the times I stubbornly refused to listen to other peoples' take on things because I knew a logical informed person needed to find their own answers. As a math student, I recognize the divinity and intuition that fuels the personal enlightenment process - not only 'I think therefore I am' but, 'this is how carefully, cautiously and gradually I think' therefore I am learning a growing wiser as I go on. On their side, the T- side (the side of the T junction that only sees right or left, and is so unaware of the middle way that they consider going straight tantamount to suicide - or at least getting stopped in the tracks of moving.
On that T-side, they don't care if politicians are human - they should be perfect. We wash away some expectations - they're human, they get to fuck up once in a while; what I'm seeing is that this and other things may weaken our stance.
More importantly, I'm beginning to see that we can no longer afford to assume we can be logical, purely reasonable, and have a big free-for-all tent on the left side, and still hope to stand any chance against the Establishment which is careening us RIGHT off a cliff (do peaceful, fun-loving folk try to win the cold war by out-borrowing the USSR to spend money on military, or is it the neo-cons who do that? Sorry my Republican friends, but unless you're trying to change your party like 120 or more degrees - and I know some of you are - you're definitely not on the correct side of politics for the last - oh, forty years or so. Meanwhile I know that Clinton signed NAFTA and that Obama is still my #1 hope but has let the left down on health care - whether it was his fault or not remains to be seen in the coming months and years).
So, to make sure we can take the power enough to stop the Establishment, we're going to need a few things: (this is what I'm trying to address here in all these posts - where do we go now to make some positive steps to this goal):
- we're going to have to make some doctrine, standards of practice, compulsions, and...almost hate to say it...religious seeming things to win this battle - not zombies, something more like Obamatons, but loyal to an uncorruptable ideal - we'll stand for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, and all as we define it with no room for compromise.
- we're going to have to pull no punches. This means softies have to become hardies. A hard-line left - robbed of reason and left with nothing but pure passion (probably more hyperbole here than I intended, but these things just come out as I type.)
- we're going to have to play favorites, fight dirty, declare war on things, and call even the moderates traitors (which, they are now pretty much, so no harm no foul).
- we're going to have to take vows of poverty, oaths to toil, calls for abstinence from modern media and other time-wasting devices. These are the things that we have to give up to protect the ability of everyone else to continue to have luxury time.
- we're going to have to do homework to learn the lessons of all the Reformations to figure out how to do it right, and actually improve on the technique of uniting ourselves so that it will become even easier two generations down the road (though it is already getting easier and easier for free people to communicate in common cause - even before the internet there were Bulletin Boards via modems, and even before computers there were free papers and universities all across this United State. Dissent is allowed - hence me and my three founding members haven't been arrested or even watch-listed - why would the government care about political nobody's like us?)
- we're going to have to move to places where we aren't accepted to teach tolerance to those who despise us; write books that are laughed at so we get into the Library of Congress (probably lots of these already - we'll have to have a heady discussion as to prior literature that backs our common cause - the cause of the commons); we'll need to create a handshake and a dance and a slightly different form of music (I'm thinking folk with a DJ - folk-hop like Ani has tried - personally I think to no avail so far, but just my opinion); we'll probably start dressing differently at some point because otherwise we'll vote with money at the wrong stores, and making our own clothes would be sooo keen (again, just my opinion).
The Homesewn Party?
Right and Left Party? Ambidextrous Party?
Second reason is they're owning some power, no matter how much we want to laugh at it. The power they are owning is a departure from reason, complete and whole.
Now, we don't want to jump off the same cliff (yes I think they're doomed, but bad ideas can take hold strong in the world as history shows). But, there is power in this unreason, and we can let the Philosophy descend the rung of abstraction a couple notches, wind up with the same theoretical power advantages, and still maintain our reason.
As logical beings, the left is sometimes guilty of being pragmatic to a fault, and also being singular to a fault. Anecdotal evidence from my own life would be all the times I stubbornly refused to listen to other peoples' take on things because I knew a logical informed person needed to find their own answers. As a math student, I recognize the divinity and intuition that fuels the personal enlightenment process - not only 'I think therefore I am' but, 'this is how carefully, cautiously and gradually I think' therefore I am learning a growing wiser as I go on. On their side, the T- side (the side of the T junction that only sees right or left, and is so unaware of the middle way that they consider going straight tantamount to suicide - or at least getting stopped in the tracks of moving.
On that T-side, they don't care if politicians are human - they should be perfect. We wash away some expectations - they're human, they get to fuck up once in a while; what I'm seeing is that this and other things may weaken our stance.
More importantly, I'm beginning to see that we can no longer afford to assume we can be logical, purely reasonable, and have a big free-for-all tent on the left side, and still hope to stand any chance against the Establishment which is careening us RIGHT off a cliff (do peaceful, fun-loving folk try to win the cold war by out-borrowing the USSR to spend money on military, or is it the neo-cons who do that? Sorry my Republican friends, but unless you're trying to change your party like 120 or more degrees - and I know some of you are - you're definitely not on the correct side of politics for the last - oh, forty years or so. Meanwhile I know that Clinton signed NAFTA and that Obama is still my #1 hope but has let the left down on health care - whether it was his fault or not remains to be seen in the coming months and years).
So, to make sure we can take the power enough to stop the Establishment, we're going to need a few things: (this is what I'm trying to address here in all these posts - where do we go now to make some positive steps to this goal):
- we're going to have to make some doctrine, standards of practice, compulsions, and...almost hate to say it...religious seeming things to win this battle - not zombies, something more like Obamatons, but loyal to an uncorruptable ideal - we'll stand for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, and all as we define it with no room for compromise.
- we're going to have to pull no punches. This means softies have to become hardies. A hard-line left - robbed of reason and left with nothing but pure passion (probably more hyperbole here than I intended, but these things just come out as I type.)
- we're going to have to play favorites, fight dirty, declare war on things, and call even the moderates traitors (which, they are now pretty much, so no harm no foul).
- we're going to have to take vows of poverty, oaths to toil, calls for abstinence from modern media and other time-wasting devices. These are the things that we have to give up to protect the ability of everyone else to continue to have luxury time.
- we're going to have to do homework to learn the lessons of all the Reformations to figure out how to do it right, and actually improve on the technique of uniting ourselves so that it will become even easier two generations down the road (though it is already getting easier and easier for free people to communicate in common cause - even before the internet there were Bulletin Boards via modems, and even before computers there were free papers and universities all across this United State. Dissent is allowed - hence me and my three founding members haven't been arrested or even watch-listed - why would the government care about political nobody's like us?)
- we're going to have to move to places where we aren't accepted to teach tolerance to those who despise us; write books that are laughed at so we get into the Library of Congress (probably lots of these already - we'll have to have a heady discussion as to prior literature that backs our common cause - the cause of the commons); we'll need to create a handshake and a dance and a slightly different form of music (I'm thinking folk with a DJ - folk-hop like Ani has tried - personally I think to no avail so far, but just my opinion); we'll probably start dressing differently at some point because otherwise we'll vote with money at the wrong stores, and making our own clothes would be sooo keen (again, just my opinion).
The Homesewn Party?
6 hours ago ·
Phillip Bunker
And by Religion or religion-like, I mean something different than the typical examples. A political movement (more than a party) is composed of a unique set of moralities. Even if I wanted to say the Second Coming is alive and well, on tour as seen in Religulous, or that Star Trek episodes are the new video bible - stories, parables, archetypes, morality, juxtaposition, twists of fate, and powers like gods. No one would go gaga over it, and suddenly Harry Potter is the new messiah - that's what they're afraid of, so we have to show that their fears are unfounded - become what they're fearing and setting up as the expectation, but do it our way:
only drive cars on Sundays~
only eat things that we grow~
learn to make our own things~
stay off the golden ladder in search of a bigger house~
keep our hands in the social soil doing good works~
getting Jefferson and Franklin smart~
inventing like Edison and teaching like Feinman~
not a vow of poverty per se, more a homespun oath~
supporting local businesses, buying local food~
climbing a golden ladder of fair trade and anti-conglomerate-corporatism~
in short all the good things they get at with bibles and other such texts, yet with contemporary story telling of some kind (this is why we fight) that admits we can focus on the past fifty years instead of thousands ago to become informed moral practical and successful citizens~
only eat crab with lemon~
drink your own homegrown tea~
eliminate lawns in favor of grains and dog chow (if nothing else more useful)~
I'd love to see Oregon's Willamette Valley go from the I-5 exhaust corridor and grass seed factory that it is, and become the worlds most advanced agricultural utopia~
I believe in that last one like maybe some people believe in heaven~
So no, we're nothing like the others way over there, but we can push the middle to the left just as hard as they push the middle to the right. We're really lucky that they're using the transparent tactics and blatant advertising that they are since it's mostly old people, and where it's not, it's differing versions, with more likelihood to see our wholesome folk remedies over here and either rename themselves or join up with us, or form a coalition of belief in the goodness and ability to take moral actions that these United States were made for, Constituted to do, and even though we never had a Bill of Lefts, we do still have rights.
One of those rights is to assemble. To assemble everyone in that land of the Goddess Columbia, would be frankly an organizational nightmare. But what if ten million average joes and janes skyped the doors down at the White House - what if Congress had a third body - all Tri-Cameral and shit. What if people like chefs and teachers and cops, who all have to be benevolent dictators and work themselves hard since they do selfless work (well okay chefs aren't all that selfless really, but you know...they're so pathetically and permanently in a hands dirty economic class - not as many rich chefs as there are other things...I digress quite selfishly), what if all those people who work for the PUBLIC and so end up with a sense of STEWARDSHIP for our COMMONS, what if they all got behind Kucinich and Sanders no matter how not-Arnold Schwartz-ula they are, to say SCHOOL FUNDS NOT FEDERAL GUNS, COPS NEED CLINICS TO MAKE WELL THE INDIGENT THEY ALSO NEED BENEFITS SINCE THEY HAVE A LIFE TO GIVE, TOO BIG TO FAIL MAKES U.S. A SNAIL, THIRTY PER CLASS IS NO WAY TO TEACH, COMMODITIES FROM FEDS - FOOD BETTER OFF DEAD, MY RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE WILL DEFEAT YOUR DISSEMBLE, OUR CHOICE IS UNITED, OUR MINDS ARE OF STATE, OUR PICKETS ARE WAITING BY THE DOOR, WE SAID WE WANT CHANGE.
I'm still not sure who to believe in, but we're starting somewhere, and there's bound to be light along the way.
only drive cars on Sundays~
only eat things that we grow~
learn to make our own things~
stay off the golden ladder in search of a bigger house~
keep our hands in the social soil doing good works~
getting Jefferson and Franklin smart~
inventing like Edison and teaching like Feinman~
not a vow of poverty per se, more a homespun oath~
supporting local businesses, buying local food~
climbing a golden ladder of fair trade and anti-conglomerate-corporat
in short all the good things they get at with bibles and other such texts, yet with contemporary story telling of some kind (this is why we fight) that admits we can focus on the past fifty years instead of thousands ago to become informed moral practical and successful citizens~
only eat crab with lemon~
drink your own homegrown tea~
eliminate lawns in favor of grains and dog chow (if nothing else more useful)~
I'd love to see Oregon's Willamette Valley go from the I-5 exhaust corridor and grass seed factory that it is, and become the worlds most advanced agricultural utopia~
I believe in that last one like maybe some people believe in heaven~
So no, we're nothing like the others way over there, but we can push the middle to the left just as hard as they push the middle to the right. We're really lucky that they're using the transparent tactics and blatant advertising that they are since it's mostly old people, and where it's not, it's differing versions, with more likelihood to see our wholesome folk remedies over here and either rename themselves or join up with us, or form a coalition of belief in the goodness and ability to take moral actions that these United States were made for, Constituted to do, and even though we never had a Bill of Lefts, we do still have rights.
One of those rights is to assemble. To assemble everyone in that land of the Goddess Columbia, would be frankly an organizational nightmare. But what if ten million average joes and janes skyped the doors down at the White House - what if Congress had a third body - all Tri-Cameral and shit. What if people like chefs and teachers and cops, who all have to be benevolent dictators and work themselves hard since they do selfless work (well okay chefs aren't all that selfless really, but you know...they're so pathetically and permanently in a hands dirty economic class - not as many rich chefs as there are other things...I digress quite selfishly), what if all those people who work for the PUBLIC and so end up with a sense of STEWARDSHIP for our COMMONS, what if they all got behind Kucinich and Sanders no matter how not-Arnold Schwartz-ula they are, to say SCHOOL FUNDS NOT FEDERAL GUNS, COPS NEED CLINICS TO MAKE WELL THE INDIGENT THEY ALSO NEED BENEFITS SINCE THEY HAVE A LIFE TO GIVE, TOO BIG TO FAIL MAKES U.S. A SNAIL, THIRTY PER CLASS IS NO WAY TO TEACH, COMMODITIES FROM FEDS - FOOD BETTER OFF DEAD, MY RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE WILL DEFEAT YOUR DISSEMBLE, OUR CHOICE IS UNITED, OUR MINDS ARE OF STATE, OUR PICKETS ARE WAITING BY THE DOOR, WE SAID WE WANT CHANGE.
I'm still not sure who to believe in, but we're starting somewhere, and there's bound to be light along the way.
4 minutes ago ·
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