I can post to a comment but I can't find the way to post to the primary article. Can you help me find the link to comment on the primary article? Thanks in advance.

aren't accessed by a "reply" button like replies to comments, but are instead found at the bottom of the page under "Post new comment".

I hope your fundraising went well, DK.

It is heart-breaking that people in this country have to rely on the kindness of friends to raise the money for their medical bills. I really hope we can radically fix this one in the foreseeable future.

And oddly, I almost /did/ wind up in Chicago this weekend. A good friend of mine (from campaigning, actually) got a series of political jobs in Eastern Europe that led to producing a film: Trade Routes opened at the Chicago Film festival this weekend.

Against the backdrop of a high-stakes Bulgarian election, this dense political thriller finds an ingenuous, low-level CIA officer and her disgruntled boss trying to strike a dangerous deal with the prime minister’s top political officer, who desperately needs to finance his campaign. In a world where information buys money and money buys power, everyone along the trade routes faces questions of duty and betrayal.

We almost wound up going, but didn't manage to pull the trip together.

If you're in Chicago, the film still has two more dates, on Oct 14 & 15.

those posts! I remember being slammed often for the same thing.

Those posts were long before my Agonist days, but I love the concept.

I wasn't trying to be Miss Manners, I was trying to give myself and any others who wanted a public lifeline.

Ayup.

Old Shakespeare understood the need for comedy; hence the gravedigger's scene in Hammers.

The audience goes numb on a diet of straight tragedy.

For some reason I was thinking about that damned bus as well!

I think a lot of bloggers (at least among those I know) feel more like they are "driven" to write, than that they are making editorial choices about what to write about.

I remember in September and October of 2004, we were all writing around the clock because there were so many damn outrages to write about.

The comraderie and the sense of urgency was fun, to be honest, but I don't know how anyone can sustain that level of outrage over a long term.

Don, I've been hugely impressed with what you do on your farm for a long time (going back to BOP) and I was delighted when it turned out you were around at the Agonist.

Feeding and employing people is not to be underrated, not to mention offering refuge.

I am always interested in what you have to write about solar power, too.

THUNDERCLAP NEWMAN
SOMETHING IN THE AIR - 02/07/1969
3 weeks at #1 - 12 weeks on chart

Call out the instigator
Because there's something in the air
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolutions here
And you know it's right
And you know that it's right
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

Lock up the streets and houses
Because there's something in the air
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolutions here
And you know it's right
And you know that it's right
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

Hand out the arms and ammo
We're gonna blast our way through here
We've got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolutions here
And you know it's right
And you know that it's right
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now

That was nice, a flash back to the days I was learning what it means to face the challenges of liberty and freedom.

thanks Tina!

when "street fighting man" by the stones started to play at the end of "V", i was practically on my feet with my fist in the air.

sometimes i feel i've died the many deaths of the coward during this long strange ride that started for me in 1980 - but it's moments like this that make me proud to be a musician, and here and there to have made noise where i might just as easily may have remained silent.

exliontamer, have you ever seen "Z" by Costas Gavras?

If you're lucky it might be in your local indie video store; if not, I know at least you can get it on Netflicks.

We watch a lot of political movies, but Z is my gold standard for how a movie should leave you feeling. (The story of the making of the film is brilliant in itself, too.) I highly recommend it.

(And I really wish that George Clooney had taken a page out of Costas Gavras's book when he wrote the ending to Good Night, and Good Luck -- it felt like a missed opportunity.)

As soon as I saw the question (earlier today), I figured that if anyone could track down the song/lyrics, it was you. But you've outdone yourself with the Youtube clip. :)

This was one of several songs that came out when I was a Hi Skooler that just hit the bullseye. Made a powerful statement about What Should Be Done, set to relatively chipper music, but dead-on fucking serious.

We did not capitalize.

_{Turn back to the Constitution - and READ it.}

I remember having goosebumps when we walked out of the premier of Fahrenheit 9/11 here in Richmond (Virginia).

I feel like people are starved for a sense of community and belonging, and anything that brings people together and makes them feel part of something larger has huge power (vs feeling isolated and alienated and alone). There's a topic I've ruminated on for a long time and will probably write up eventually.

You know, one of my favourite movie scenes is the "I am Spartacus!" scene at the end of Spartacus. I realize that, at a practical level, America is no where near a radical change: people are too comfortable, for the moment, and not enough people feel threatened to reach critical mass. But at an emotional level, I feel like people are waiting for someone else to stand up and say "I am Spartacus." It's the same phenonemon as when the audience collectively pauses and waits for the first person to stand up to start the standing ovation.

Now, if you're orchestrating a social movement, you choose that person very carefully, so you wind up with a Rosa Parks being the first person to "officially" refuse to go to the back of the bus (vs a pregnant teenager). And when things happen organically, you may get a few false starts before the "right" person stands up who can give a story legs. But it still feels like we're close.

More song lyrics, from the finale of Jesus Christ Superstar (yes, I have a high capicity for cheese):

If you'd come today
You could have reached a whole nation
Isreal in 4 BC
Had no mass communication

When these things happen organically, they can gain momentum fast.... I do wonder sometimes if the movement conservatives didn't start infiltrating evangelical churches not just to fracture off African American and Hispanic votes, and repurpose American Christianity, but also to help quell any liberation theology style tendancies and keep the "spartacus moment" from happening with the people and places that hosted the civil rights movement.

And dk? You go on and add all you want. Keep the good news coming. :)

Bill, your comment just cut to heart of the matter. I was born in 1952 and some sort of war was always going on the U.S. The under the desk drills, due to the Ruskies dropping the big one, the Cold War with the Cuban Missile Crisis thrown in for good measure. Then Viet Nam, when it became a requirement to resist and question those elected white guys in power, who just loved to send young guys into the Jungles of South East Asia (if you were a brown or black person you for sure were going to be in the jungles). Oh, the killing of Kennedy, just added to the big lie, then lots more killings of popular figureheads. All of this crap just pissed anyone off who was paying attention. At the tail end of the Viet Nam lie, the Arabs became the new guys to hate with all that oil, white guys can’t stand to see rag heads with all those pretty women in fast cars in Britton for a night out on the town. Then cometh the Iranians who were pissed at the U.S. for messing with their country, and took a few people hostage, the freaks wanted to glass over Iran, but the oil guys said it might mess up future oil production, once the boys in Foggy Bottom figured out how to overthrow the current bunch of religious zealots running Iran. During the Iran Hostage crisis, I was working up on the Over Thrust Belt in Wyoming; the most popular shooting target sold in the gun shops at the time was a target of the Ayatollah printed on it with the words “Bomb Iran” printed underneath silhouette. Then cometh Regan, starts by breaking the Flight Controllers Union for wanting safer skies for all of us to travel in, this is when wages stopped growing and the price of housing just kept going up. Oh the commies were in our back yard under Regan and the CIA just had to start a crack war on the streets of America to pay for their dirty little privatized war down south. Then comes a few years of relative calm while the heart of America was shipped out to be manufactured somewhere else and Unionized became a dirty word. Oh a little NAFTA never hurt anyone. Oh a little surplus showed up on the books of the U.S. treasury at the end of the 1990s, and the Republicans were so pissed that there might be some money spent on important things like education, good roads, and other civic activities, the GOP had to steal the White House and grab that cash. Now we are in another Phony Long War, instead of dealing with the threat realistically, with the real possibility that we and our heirs will see another Great Depression. Those same white guys and gals (condi oiltanker rice, counts as one of them) keep lying, getting rich, and now have private brown shirt machine gun toting goons to guard their houses, that would just love to shoot me and you, then brag over a cold one at the end of the day how cool their new fully automatic shotgun is.

Looking back on over time, I have been exposed to some sort of perpetual war. As Rodney King said “can’t we all just get along”

Today I am going to a Stop Balckwater in San Diego County Rally to protest the goons coming to west coast to set up camp.

"There are two types of folk music:
quiet folk music and loud folk music.
I play both."

Dave Alvin

How did it go?

I hope you'll check back in and give us an update.

Bill, I think the work you are doing is hugely important. I wish more people would get involved with primaries (and at the local level, too! Not just presidentials.)

But ultimately, it is going to be Republicans who stand up to reclaim their hijacked party. More power to you.

I also strongly agree with what Don wrote a while back, about how Ron Paul is changing the terms of the Republican debate.

I had forgotten that Thanksgiving was coming up at home -- happy T-day to the Canadians on the site!

Hang on tight to the right to count those paper ballots.

So, if someone else (in Ontario) wants to become a poll clerk, what do they need to do to get started?

And I hope the sailing and birthday celebrations go well. (I'm looking forward to your picture.)

paid at the same time, all they do is call their local riding and find out the location of application forms. When the federal election is announced, I'll do the same thing and now having experience under my belt, expect I'll also serve for that election (expecting it to take place in late November/early December.)

I highly doubt Canada will cease to use paper ballots especially after hearing the trouble the United States experienced using electronic means. Canada's population would strongly resist using electronic machines in place of a strong paper audit trail.

Don't know if you know it, but there's also a referendum to change the way Ontario elects its representatives. The referendum is about proportional representation rather than first-past-the-post. Young people increasingly fail to exercise their mandate and proportional voting may encourage more young voters to be part of the democratic process. Many young voters after they've cast their ballot and the person they voted for doesn't get any voice, feel disappointed and that the time they took to cast their ballot was wasted. I.e. in my riding at the previous federal election, there were less than 100 votes separating the winner and the party that I voted for, but second gets no say under the traditional first-past-the-post method. Proportional solves that dilemma for voters and adopted by many countries.

Election Day for me starts at 0800 and finishes after the ballots have been counted. Polls don't close 'til 9 p.m.--so earliest my day will end, approximately 10-11 p.m. I'll be taking my food with me. I don't dare take liquids or they'll make me take too many trips to the washroom. Old bladders don't perform as well they used to. L0L

I went sailing, but forgot to take my camera so won't get a picture until later today.

you may have put your finger on something. let us know how it works out.

I'm with you, polymander. And actually, one of the first blog posts I ever wrote was about the importance of voting with your wallet. (I should probably update and repost that one here at the Agonist some time.)

I have to admit, it sticks on my craw that so much of what I read about the "voluntary simplicity" movement boils down to anecdotes that start like "hubby and I cashed in our trust funds/stock options/early retirement and now, after raping and pillaging for decades, we're going to feel good about living simply and guilt the rest of you for not doing the same." It overlooks the fact the poor folks have been living simply by default before it became chic, and that conscientious folks do it without a safety net of daddy's money.

I don't have the physical health for CSA work, so I really, really applaud you for what you do. (We do buy local and organic as much as we can, through our fabulous, locally-owned, neighborhood health food store, Ellwood Thompson.)

Bolo, depending on where your heart lies, you can always check in with your state party and local Democratic committee to find out what they've got going on, or sign up for email alerts from MoveOn for house parties.

Actually, one of the reasons I started this thread was the hopes of finding out from people /how/ they get wired in to what they do. So folks: how do you find out what's going on in your own communities?

Your MS program, and your project ideas, sound absolutely brilliant. My fingers are crossed for you that good news is in your mail box soon.

What a great story. I'm delighted for you that you've managed to hook up with your "mom," and I hope you have a great visit this week.

Person-to-person connections are incredibly important. It is much harder to demonize and depersonalize -- and by extension, oppress or make war on or torture or nuke -- real live people whom you've met in person and in whose prosperity you have a personal, emotional stake.

I'm a big proponent of sister city relationships, studying abroad, and school exchanges for those reasons.

I think one of the best things Trudeau did for Canada was setting up the Open House Canada grants and Official Language Monitor programs -- which moved young people all over the country, and helped break down petty regionalisms. I'd love to see something similar instituted in the US to get kids, before their brains have totally calcified, to experience different regions of the country.

I am grateful for your commitment to tracking down and slogging through primary sources, Dave. You're always an asset to the conversation here.

And I'm glad to hear that, from an informed position, you find grounds for hope.

My health has been a problem for years, so donating my time isn't all that practical, but we're finally in a position to donate money, too.

I suspect you know already, but giving money early makes a bigger impact. (That's why Emily's List takes their name from the old fundraising saying, "Early Money Is Like Yeast; it makes the dough rise.")

Depending on what your personal rolodex looks like, you might also want to consider hooking up with a good fundraiser on a campaign you strongly support, and instead of making a cash donation, invest that money into hosting a fundraising event to multiply your investment (and your costs then also show up as in-kind contributions).

If the first step is replacing congress, don't forget that the prequel step is building a farm team, so that we have good candidates to bring up from state and local government offices, too.

political consultant?
damn, I should have known
lol
it's still a good idea, even if it is used to sell me a brand new dish soap. thanks for the heads up, nominay.

hope as a commodity.

the man from Hope? it's always about hope isn't it? and I mean everything, not just politics. but I don't know if where we are as a nation has a political solution at this point. I mean, could you trust any politician now? maybe later, but not in the current set up.
and nothing against Shaula, hell , I give people clogged arteries for a living.
I do find it ironic that the solution would come from part of the problem, in a reversal of slogan kind of way. I am however partial to this politician:
http://agonist.org/dk/20060303/co_opting_the_radical_instinct_a_warning

back when you first posted it. Thanks for refreshing my memory.

It should be noted that the radicals...idealists...pragmatists...opportunists division (and methods for dealing with them) apply exactly to the underclass...lower-middle class...middle class...rich spectrum, too. Keep the lower-middle class deathly afraid of becoming the underclass, let them succeed every once in awhile and the engine churns along smoothly.

And the real, actual, hopeful news is that Bush forgot this lesson (I'm sure they taught it at Yale). He has portrayed majority opinions in this country (the war, healthcare) as lunatic fringe positions (thus pushing idealists in with radicals), and blatantly lied about his corruption and lawlessness (pushing pragmatists and even many opportunists over next to the idealists).
Similarly, he has made it very clear that anyone not rich might as well be underclass.

The stupidest move an elitist can make.

I have long hoped the Bush may backhandedly be the best thing that ever happened to progressive politics in this country.

I was once in a relationship with a control freak; he'd been cheated on (by his account) in previous relationships, and he would freak out if I so much as exchanged greetings to a guy in front of him. Being constantly damned as a jezebel when I wasn't...provided a strong disincentive to behave (I was catching hell no matter what I did). I was lucky: rather than live down to his expectations, I chose to get out of the relationship (later rather than sooner, but I did get out).

My point: if Bush is lumping everyone in the same boat, I expect you are exactly right and that people who used to consider themselved comforatably apolitical will find it easy and natural to radicalize (and live down to Bush's expectations).

actually, if you want trust it's gonna take more than a moment, but you already know that. I think you made your appearance here during my time in the "wilderness", away from the agonist; so forgive me for not recognizing your previous contributions and position. but please allow me to ask you a few questions.
did you read Hayden's speech linked above? if not please do, it pertains to the following questions. ( ah fuck it, you're cuckold boyfriend anecdote may provide the best example)

why do you want to stay in a relationship w/ a govermental system that no longer trusts you and never really did?. We've been fortunate to have a system that allows for change and progress, but we've now been shown how easy it is to corrupt and control the levers of checks and balances to distort and destroy the Constitution. Absolute power has been achieved. (man, I wish artappraiser were here to convince me otherwise) and before you say "direct democracy" let me remind you of all the west coast Prop (pick a number, any number) legislation that's been used to pull the wool over people's eyes.

I gotta go back to bed, but I awoke w/ a thought, only to find you had provided the perfect example of why it's time to tear down the system. but like you, I find the neocons have done a better job of doing it. subverted from within, perhaps? maybe the 60's gave us more than free love and great music ;>

1) "we've been shown how easy...". Yeah, a little complacency goes a long way towards getting the generally good-hearted but apolitical majority to allow the shits to get away with it. That is just politics. In normal times - a handful of activists vs a ship-load of greedy opportunists and everybody else just lives their lives. The human species is not real good at eternal vigilance - after all, it's basically indistinguishable from paranoia, and most of us aren't greedy shits, so it's hard to believe that our elected representatives (mostly) are. Especially if we got conned into voting for them - then we really don't want to believe it.

2) Absolute power is far from achieved. Despite the craven cowering of Congressional Dems, it's slipping away. E Germany knew more about holding absolute power than any other modern western state. Stasi employed 2% of the population as informers. To do that in this country would require more than our national budget, just for informers.

3) If you can find an example of "tearing down the system" that actually worked, I'd love to hear about it. Normally all that happens is the least restrained and most ambitious steps into the vacuum. Please don't use the US as an example - basically all the founding fathers were already political leaders, there was no new economic or legal system and the political system was more of a reform than a "revolutionary" change.

but look what it took just to pay your taxes to someone else

"shaula, you want trust?"

Did I ask anyone to trust me?

All I've done here is ask out of genuine interest, and gratitude, what folks here are up to. I should also add that I appreciate and am really enjoying all the responses.

"why do you want to stay in a relationship w/ a govermental system that no longer trusts you and never really did?"

I'm not aware that I said that.

I think you might be confusing me with another poster/commenter.