So Excited!

I am not sure I remember the procedures for posting on Low and Left, but here goes. Anjha, I am so excited to see your name and hear of your desire to revisit this Blog. I miss the banter and friendship of people that use to be here too. More later, but I wanted to acknowledge you and your post. Any others?

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I Am Still Alive

And trying to stay that way.

I am older, wiser and far more experienced than I was 7 years ago, which is how long it has been since my last post.

In some ways I do not recognize the person who used to write here. In other ways the person who used to write here was the only real me that existed.

Even though the Internet has grown into a cesspool of aggression, hostility, toxicity and unsafe spaces – I miss this venue. I miss this venue and I miss the connections that I used to have with the people here. I believe, despite the cesspool that the Internet is, that some sanity and actual analysis and high minded discussion is desperately needed. Especially since there is so much pure propaganda and people are so horribly confused. No one, it seems, really knows what to believe. It is evident that misinformation has proved a greater threat than no information. (Wasn’t it quaint when we used to expose the want-to-be authoritarianism of Dubya?)

So, I am going to post this. I am going to see if anyone replies. I am going to see if we can get active again. I am going to see if this benign, un-linked post is attacked by the trolls.

We used to call ourselves the reality based community – let’s bring some reality back to these ones and zeros.

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A Note to the Ideological Purists

This was written as a post in the comments on Alternet.:

I often wonder how many of those who post here are paid operatives of the Corporate Right. All of the concern trolling… ‘oh, I fell for Obama and now I see the light’; ‘both parties are the same’; Obama let us down and proved that he is beholden to corporations, just like dubya and Romney’; ‘I’ll use my vote to send a message to the Democratic Party’ [what message? That you are better than the rest of us? more ideologically pure? more reality based? All of these messages are good – but they are not morally superior, because any kind of morally superior judgment would know that no message will be sent and that every one of your friends, neighbors, family and fellow countrymen & women will be irretrievably fucked when Republicans are installed in office due to your morally superior message sending.]

I have been reading back through publications from early 2009. By April of 2009 many on the Progressive Left had already written off Obama and convinced themselves and others that he was a traitor because he did not live up to every single one of their ideals. I have felt the same way often, and have expressed the same concerns to the WH, my congressional rep, my Senators, my local government, friends, family and anyone else that would listen.

Now, however, during this election, I do not have the luxury of ideological purity. Neither does our country.

Obama said one thing during his acceptance speech that I have seen get no play in the analysis. “As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.”

Catch that? Self-government. Hard and frustrating work of self-government. Not, I’ll send twenty five bucks to Obama, give him my vote and expect him to fix everything that has been fucked in this country for the last 35 years. And, I will give him, alone, 3.5 years to do it.

That is not how it works in self-governance. Not how it works. We must be involved every step of the way. We are the government. We send representatives to DC to represent us. However, we need to do the very hard work of staying on top of them every step of the way and ensuring that they are doing the work that we want done. This requires direct involvement.

I talk to a lot of Progressives and most of them are filled with the same dour frustration of the comments here. Most are rightfully and righteously frustrated with the BS that has not been fixed and the BS that has been continued. I get it. [Many of them also seem to have been only paying attention for the last 4 years and do not get the institutional structure or broken-ness of our congress, elections and campaign finance structure.]

However, to a person, most of them have not been involved. They do not attend party meetings. They are not involved in Progressive groups. They do not attend protests (or start them.) They do not sign petitions or write letters or make phone calls to their reps. They do not do, and have not done, anything to move the course of decision making in the right direction or the direction they want it moved. If we are not actively involved and do not continually use our voices and our power, then we lose our power and the moneyed interests are the ones who are heard. We need to be loud and louder. Our elected representatives need us involved. They need to be pushed by us.

I do not understand those, who have not pushed over the last four years, thinking that withholding their vote or voting third party will all of a sudden be the needed push. In self-governance you have a lot more responsibility than voting once every four years – yet many do not even do that. Your vote is powerful, but it is not your only responsibility.

The corporate masters are counting on you getting discouraged. They are counting on you thinking that ‘both parties are the same.’ They are counting on you sitting this one out or voting third party. They want this and need this. Michael Moore is right, they know that they cannot win if more people vote and so they are taking away the vote from whoever they can get away with taking it away from. We need to vote just to make up for the millions disenfranchised.

It is high past time for those of us who feel powerless to exercise our power where ever we can. Sitting out the election is not exercising power. Voting Green is not exercising this power. Not now. There is way too much at stake.

I am not a Democratic apologist. I am just as pissed about many, many things that have been done or not done. When I look at the Party Platforms, though, it is the Democratic Party that is closest to my beliefs. When I look at the demographics, it is the Democratic Party that most resembles true representation. When I look at the last 80 years of law making in this country it is the Democrats who have supported Women, Unions, Civil Rights, Peace and the Social Safety Net. It is the Democratic Party that says that We are All in This Together [The Right would have us jumping from windows of a burning factory because we are all just means to an end for the factory owner – not actual people, actual people all created equally.]

We are at a major fucking turning point. We do not have the luxury of waiting for the candidate who believes in everything that we believe in. We need to ensure that Obama is reelected and do everything that we can to get him a congress that will not block his every move. Then we need to be involved to push our representatives to enact laws for the people, undo the damage done over the last 35 years, enact laws that remove the power of the financial elite, restore our Rights and Civil Liberties and prosecute those who have screwed us. We need to elect them, then we need to push them.

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The Republicans continue to deny that there is a War on Women, but when people like Romney praise Walker for being bold and courageous, then their denial is a lie.

Scott Walker is going for broke before his recall.

A Wisconsin law that made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court was repealed on Thursday, after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly signed the bill.

The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act was meant to deter employers from discriminating against certain groups by giving workers more avenues via which to press charges. Among other provisions, it allows individuals to plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system, rather than just in federal court.

In November, the state Senate approved SB 202, which rolled back this provision. On February, the Assembly did the same. Both were party-line votes in Republican-controlled chambers.

(From HuffingtonPost)

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One Question

How many men die each year due to pregnancy related risks?

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Personhood Amendment

Goddammit.

Perhaps it is time that we introduce a new Personhood Amendment? Something to the effect that “Women are full human beings, with full rights over their bodies and complete freedom to make decisions respecting their bodies, health and futures.”

All of this new controversy over requiring that health insurance plans, regardless of where they are offered, cover birth control without copay, is absolutely absurd.

I have heard enough from Newt & Rick & Mitt & Ron Paul about ‘religious freedom’ and what an attack on the Catholic Church that this has been. Well, for thousands of years the Catholic Church, and other male dominated power structures, have been attacking women and our autonomy and it is about fucking time for a little push back.

This is not about abortion. This is not about birth control. This is not about the group of cells that may or may not be duplicating in someone’s uterus.

This is about Women.



This whole bullshit argument is about whether or not women can be trusted to think and decide for themselves what is best for themselves and their body and their future - or whether they need the state, or a man, telling them what they can or cannot do.

Women understand how our bodies work. We understand, and can comprehend, the multitude of issues that arise from our reproductive health and, thankfully, there are [still] organizations that can assist us in getting the care that we need.

Despite all of the arguments to the contrary, women are capable of making these decisions ourselves.

It is very simple: either I have control over my body or someone else does.

These arguments have always been about controlling women and limiting their abilities to control their own lives. Take away a woman’s choice about her own fertility and you limit every choice that that woman will ever be able to make for the rest of her life.

When, in this country, will we finally decide that women are full persons with all of the rights of a full person? Oh, that’s right, we have been trying to get a women’s ‘personhood amendment’ passed for 89 years and counting.

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More Uncovered Protests

In addition to the uncovered protests on Saturday to protect worker’s rights, corporate media also blacked-out coverage of nationwide protests against the banks.

Interesting the crap that the corporate media wants us to know vs what they don’t want us to know about.

The Right Wing strategy is clear.

Thom Hartmann
told a joke this morning (see, it’s funny ‘cause it’s true…)

A Big Business man, a Tea Partier and a Laborer are sitting around a table with a plate of 12 cookies on it. The Big Business guy takes 11 of the cookies and gobbles them up. There is one cookie left. Big business looks at the Tea Partier and says, “Watch out, that Union guy wants part of your cookie.”

I wonder when the Dems will figure out that ‘bipartisanship’ is not the solution?

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