On Hiatus

The blog is on hiatus for a while.

Haven't had the inspiration to keep posting. Please check out the blog roll, 'cause that's where I'll be for the next few weeks.

I haven't decided to change the template, change the tone or just bag the whole thing and call it good. I got lots to say but this venue wasn't doing what I wanted it to.

Until then, we'll see ya when I see ya!

So Mote it be,
David A.

Disaster comes in all shapes and sizes

Just when you start to get comfortable and life begins to mellow out, a tsunami of reality washes over your unsuspecting butt and takes you out to sea.



Last week, I suffered a hard drive crash. Now, most responsible folks would have made sure that all important files were backed up and I, being very responsible did so. But, the Gods of Karma weren't going to let that stop them. I backed up records, photos and documents but not settings, favorites, and etc. Also, it had been a couple of months since the last backup so everything from that point is gone too.

A friend of mine told me that regardless of how prepared one is, a HD crash is devastating. He's obsessive about his backup and re-images his OS every month. He still lost valuable documents when his crash happened.

So... here's the goods... I am going forward from this point. I'm not going to fret about what was lost or where I can find my shit. If I need it, I'll look for it. If I never need it again, then it's good that its gone.

Still... It sucks big.

Update: Apparently, as I was reconfiguring my Windows Mail, unbeknownst to me, my security protocols were taken down (Gee, thanks Microsoft!) So, I guess I caught an email bug that sent out a bunch of links in my name. If you received an email from me between May 1st through 20th, delete it. My apologies for this inconvenience. I hope these spams didn't lead to a virus or such. Hopefully, now I have all my securities in place and can better control my outbox.

God, I hate this shit!

So Mote It Be,
David A.

From every rooftop, from every street corner... shout!

I listened to this today. I went back and read the transcript as well. He's been there for us since 1989 with his movie "Roger & Me" about the heartbreak of GM closing his hometown's auto plant and moving it to Mexico. He's fat, loud and not very good looking but he's one of the most beautiful Americans there are.

Here's what he had to say in Madison on Saturday, March 5th.

Watch live streaming video from theuptake at livestream.com

There is nothing more important than this message. This should be on the lips of every American worker. This isn't Fox News propaganda or Teabagger bullshit - this is real. We either give in to our Corporate Overlords or we fight back.

America is NOT broke. We blinked and let them steal our future, now we take it back!

So Mote It Be!
David A.

Posted without comment...

So Mote It Be,
David A.

What goes around...

On Wisconsin!

I can't emphasize enough how important it is for the Democrats in Madison to hold their ground. This is the long haul, folks. The Repugs are playing their big hand and they are all in. Il Duce Walker won't budge. He can't. He's standing on the edge of his career and is trying not to fall into the abyss. He has to hold the line as long as possible and then some. Every Repug governor is watching him and taking notes. Daniels in Indiana, Kasich in Ohio and Christie in New Jersey are loading their guns as I write this. The Oligarchy starts now.

The new crop of Repugs, the Teabaggers, and Wall Street all want blood. There's no room for civility here. They are greedy, liberal-hating assholes and are damned proud of it. They have mouthpieces like Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck stir up the base. Frank Luntz, Breibart, and Fox News keep the message pure and the Koch Bros. pump the necessary funds into the entire process. The ignorant base of the GOP laps this shit up like feeding time at the fish hatchery.

And why not? That's what they've been trained to do. Years of manipulation by the Right Wing have produced a huge element of ignorant, scared and angry people. When Carter took office, it gave the Right Wing Machine, the perfect opportunity to lay down the foundation of this movement. Carter's liberalism stoked the emotions enough to give seed to it. The fertilizer was Ronald Reagan and that's no metaphor.

Lee Atwater's spawn Karl Rove, Luntz, Limbaugh, and a host of others have spent the last 20 years crafting this movement toward a set of goals: the whole sale dismantling of the Democratic Party, rescind and reverse every progressive statute on the books and concentrating power in the hands of a few conservative corporate managers (ie: overlords) Just look at the what they've been up to lately:

1. they've voted to defund Planned Parenthood (defunding is a chickenshit way of destroying a law without actually voting it down. Take away its funding and it can't be enforced)
2. they've begun efforts to defund the health care law.
3. they're trying to defund NPR.
4. they're trying to defund financial reform. Let the bastards on Wall St. have our cake and eat it too.
5. They're trying to defund the EPA. It's anti-business to force corporations to produce safe and non-toxic products. Let the market decide who lives and dies.

There are many more. Basically, every progressive cause of the last 40 years is targeted. They want it all. NO discussion, NO compromise, NO stepping back. NO negotiation unless its to cede your position. Take a good long look at this and tell me it isn't the beginning of the end. I see the seeds of fascism scattered here and some of them are starting to sprout.

(from the World Dictionary...)

Fascism:
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation
with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by
compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-
based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy
but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons
democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and
without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing
and external expansion." [Robert O. Paxton, "The Anatomy of
Fascism," 2004]

Perhaps this is a new form of fascism, one that adds to the Italian model but in American clothes. Either way, this is not a time to sit and watch. President Obama and the rest of the Democrats have to abandon this folly of trying to negotiate and compromise with the Repugs. We have to be just as hard nosed and resolved as they. We have the issues, we have the facts. This isn't about 'win - win', it's about survival. The only reason Walker is doing this now is because he's sure he can get away with it. He's betting his career on the marshmallow spine of the Democrats and expects to win big. Daniels, Christie, and Kasich are also pushing their bets into the pot.

Do we have it? Is it going to be another blow, another shot to the gut all in the name of 'compromise'? Are unions going to be sacrificed in order for Obama to keep the Repugs from getting mad at him?

I'm clueless on how this is going to turn out. I'm the last one to place a bet on anything. My track record on such things is horrible. But the stakes are high, damn high, so high that every progressive voice in this country needs to be shouting at the top of their lungs at it. Failure here will bring failure elsewhere.

The line in the sand happens now, not next month or next year but right fucking now.

On Wisconsin!

So Mote it Be,
David A.

Egypt, the Middle East, and YOU!

Things are getting very interesting out in Egypt. Well, for that matter all across the Middle East. Seems we are witness to a great bit of human history here and I, for one, don't want to miss any of it.

Truth be told, I hope it catches on everywhere... especially here!

Human beings have a genetic need to be free. We are a natural conundrum. Solitary creatures who crave the company of our own kind. That said, we are lazy bastards. We allow the loudest amongst us determine what direction we turn. Thankfully, the smartest ones have prevailed and we haven't gone extinct - but not for the want of trying. How many times has humanity taken itself to the brink of extinction only to back away at the last minute? Too many to count, I'm afraid.

I guess we are also lucky bastards.

Here in America, we face a threat quite similar to the one in Egypt. But, where are the protests? Why aren't millions of Americans crowding the streets of Washington or New York calling for the heads of those who pound at the nails of our coffins? What will be the trigger that will set off the American people to take to the streets?

I'm old enough to remember the protests of the 60's and 70's. I remember the tears shed for the four students killed at Kent State in 1970. I lived in a rural town that wasn't completely cut off from the events unfolding in the bigger cities. At my school (Catholic parochial) there were VISTA volunteers, young college students, who wept for those in Ohio. The discussion that followed and the Christian teachings of the nuns had a profound effect on me. I learned how to see through the rhetoric and embrace the humanity of the moment. I also remember the cold, heartless people who, when hearing about Kent State, cheered and said that was a 'good start'. It was my first exposure to the hate-filled mind of the conservative.

We've come full circle. We see the Egyptians experience their own Kent State. It could be their Valley Forge too.

It's a damn shame it's only happening in the Middle East. Because of eight years of the corrupt policies of a Republican president and corporatist Congress, America has nothing to say. Our words ring hollow in the ears of the Egyptian people. We sit next to Mubarak on his precipice. Lessons of our struggles against oppression, our history in defense of liberty and justice go unlearned because of the cozy partnership our government had with a cruel and hated Mubarak. President Obama can make the most inspiring and patriotic call for democracy and liberty for the Egyptian people and no one will listen. All they see is the hand of our government on the shoulder of Hosni Mubarak as he stands on the throat of his own people.

After living through the last 30 years, I'm embarrassed to say that we have nothing to teach those who seek freedom.

In nature, all things change. If the environment gets too toxic, you adapt. Either you learn to live with the toxicity or you filter it out and make the environment healthy again. Or you die. It's that simple. Evolve or die. No one is immune to this, whether you believe in it or not. The choice is unavoidable.

Heads or Tails?

So Mote It Be,
David A.

This has to end now...

I'm partly responsible. I'm no Glenn Beck nor am I Bill O'Reilly but I have made some comments recently that suggest giving right wingers some of what they've been giving us. I have suggested, even if only as metaphor or as conditional of something else, that we strike back at these purveyors of hate and ignorance in ways that could be seen as violent. That is wrong. I know this, the belief that violence is wrong is part of me and yet, I let the toxin of hate and anger seep in to take control of who I am and what I say. I could never act on an angry comment or do violence to someone who just has an opposing view but I have allowed such thoughts to enter my mind. That too is wrong. But I'm not going to remove or sanitize my site of all references to such things or make believe that I am not the person who made those comments. I am the same person, I wrote them and I take any blame and/or credit for them. No need to Google cache anything I said.

Where do we go from here? The climate is calm because the shock is still reverberating across the country. A well liked, Democratic congresswoman, her aide and many others were shot in Tucson yesterday. Six people, as of this entry, have died from their wounds, among them a nine year old girl. A child who just stopped by because she had never met a congressperson before and her dad thought it would be cool. The gunman may have had an accomplice but they're not sure. They are looking for a 'person of interest'. That too is problematic because until the facts are out, we don't know who this guy is or what he was doing. He could just be an innocent bystander that happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time. Sucks to be him. His life is over. If he is innocent, the media will hound him until he gives one of them an exclusive interview that will totally wreck his life. That's the way it works now in this country. To hell with your rights. To hell with your motives. If you are news, you are toast.

I would like to place all the blame on the media for this but I can't do that. The media is the drug dealer, we are the addicts. They deliver the goods that we crave and keep it coming night and day. We can't say no because we don't want to. We are hooked as bad as any junkie. If it's not Beck's ranting or O'Reilly's sanctimonious screeches, it's the whole of Fox News. But it is also MSNBC and CNN. It's also NPR and the New York Times. It's Time Magazine and Newsweek, the National Enquirer and Weekly World News. And it is also Channel 5 in Seattle or Channel 6 in Spokane. It's the Fox affiliates and others. And I haven't even gotten to Rush Limbaugh and his radio ilk. It's frustrating to see our media rally around those who 'shoot' off their mouths but never condemn nor allow others to condemn those remarks. They consider it quaint or harmless or something small and easily dismissed. Apparently, it's not.

Let the false equivalencies begin.

The talking heads are already out denouncing the attack with calls for 'both the right and the left' to give up their vitriol of hate and fearmongering. Bullshit! The amount of hatred and vitriol aimed squarely at the President and Democrats has been off the charts since the election of 2008. The Tea Party was created by Fox News corporate interests to deliver that hatred to town halls, gun shows and the ballot box. They bring on every right wing mouth breather to condemn Obama's latest adventure but never seem to have time to hear from the other side. But when tragedy strikes they're quick to bring liberals into the same vile sewer as the wingers in their condemnation.

Bring it. Show me where a liberal or a progressive has made comments as incendiary as Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. So you point at Keith Olbermann? He's loud and obnoxious but hardly vitriolic. He's come out against the hate and the ignorance and has allowed his own anger to shape his words but he is hardly in the same league as Limbaugh and Beck. Olbermann has a special comment today citing some of his own rhetoric as harmful and apologized. Where is Glenn Beck's apology and when is the media going to ask for it? The reality is that any apology from Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh will be coming just two weeks short of never. They're too busy scrubbing their sites of anything that could be used to incriminate them.

I hesitate to suggest this so soon after the attack. It reeks of taking advantage of a tragedy that should be solemn and treated with the utmost respect and consolation. But in light of the rash of attacks that have happened in the past few years, we no longer have that time. It is in memory of those who died and were injured in Tucson that I call for every Democrat or Progressive that appears on any media to repudiate violence and those who foster it... by calling out Fox News by name.

Condemn the attacks and bring the focus back to Fox. Remind viewers of past attacks then bring it back to Fox. Mention the Tea Party and their 'Second Amendment Solutions' then tell folks where all that started - Fox News. This isn't an attempt to destroy Fox. They would surely survive this but it might turn the tide back to real reporting. Fox News drives the tone of broadcast journalism today. They have no right to. They tap into the ignorance and fear of the populace and exploit it for profit. Other news outlets have noticed this and emulate the narrative so they can enjoy some of that profit too.

True journalism dies as Fox News dances on its grave. If the Democrats and liberal pundits brought the fight directly to Fox News, the other stations would see an opening and take advantage. Fox News will become the national symbol of violent rhetoric and hate speech which, in turn, could drive some of the more reasonable of their audience to seek alternate places to get their news. Other news outlets will see the shifting sands and offer something different to bring that audience to them. We could conceivably bring an end to the climate of fear by shaming those who profit from it. But do we have the courage? Do our pundits and leaders have the intestinal fortitude to take on the Goliath Fox News. Do we have a David among the sheep?

My thoughts and prayers go out to those who lost loved ones yesterday. To the parents of the young lady, Christina-Taylor Green, who showed so much promise and energy in her too short life and to the family of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was recently reelected by her district because of her dedication to her constituents and her country. May she and the other injured people recover completely and may the Goddess guide and protect the souls of those who died as they journey to that which lies ahead.

If we don't stop this now, we will be back here again saying the same things about other good people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I've said in the past that my heart weeps for my country and what hatred has done to her. Now my tears have names.

So Mote It Be,
David A.