What's Our Vehicle, Baby? (Why We Need One)

I have written in the past, via comments, that if we don't start learning how to prevent the co-option of our movement, we are toast. In addition, we must have a reliable way to get that message out: a vehicle if you will.

All you need do is look at history. TPTB, regardless of party affiliation, seem to always learn from their mistakes because they are greedy sociopaths/psychopaths. Their primary need is to be dominant. Whether it is having more money and/or power than 'name your deity' over those they deem to be less than, we must remember it is their prime motivator.

For example, I have been living on the second and attic floors of a house for many years. During this time, there has been an ongoing battle with mice. The first time the Orkin man showed up, he explained that the problem is on the first floor and basement. Unless the entryways into the house are found and sealed, the problem would continue.

Since the current tenants downstairs have failed to deal with the problem and have left food scraps near the foundation of the house, the problem has not abated. For the past couple of years, when the weather got cold, the mice would appear. I would go through my routine of exterminating them and then once the weather got warm, we would have no mice until the cold weather returned.

I have done all I can to eliminate their ways in but they are determined little critters. You see, their primary motivation is to eat because they need to survive. Their perseverance has resulted in my discovery of all the ways that they had been able to get into my apartment. I was able to seal up all but one because that one way is in the kitchen behind the counter. Unless the counter is ripped out and replaced, there is no stopping them entering there so the battle continues.

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TPTB are determined to be rulers over us all. They can't help it because it is their prime motivator. They will do everything they can to succeed; and just like the mice, they are determined critters. This is why they are winning and we are losing. For most people, their prime motivation does not require anything more than a semblance of fulfillment. Many people will settle for less as long as they believe that it's not so bad. Regardless of what we recognize as basic human rights that are for everyone, many settle for less.

TPTB won't settle for less. If we manage to get laws passed that limit them, they will keep gnawing away at them until they create a hole big enough to let them back into America's house. As the Orkin man said, you have to put measures in place to prevent them from getting back in, no matter what. This is America 2017 and I believe there is only a small chance of turning this around.

When there were outlets that allowed for the transmission of information to the public, we had a better chance of informing the populace. Bit by bit, those outlets have all been stripped away and/or coopted except one. The papers are gone. Television news: long gone. Radio: gone. The Internet is the last outlet left and net neutrality is the only thing preventing an inability to reach enough people to make a difference.

TPTB know this very well which is why they are intent on destroying the internet by removing net neutrality. We may very well have no chance once it is gone. With net neutrality gone, the message of alternative media will likely not be heard by enough people because of the implementation of pay-for-play speed restrictions.

Removing net neutrality is Plan A but they do have a Plan B. You are seeing that with the ad revenue defunding on YouTube. One can only hope that Patreon will be more than just a stop gap. Alternative news outlets that refuse to be coopted have been moving to Patreon but the free flow of information will slow to a crawl if the funding can't keep enough of them viable. For TPTB, Plan B is in place in case they are unable to push through Plan A.

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So how can we ensure access to the truth? Some people here may remember Air America Radio (AAR). Whether you loved it or hated it, the results were clear. If enough people are reached, elections can be won. Whether the elected keep their promises is another matter but we can put people we support in office with a large enough turnout.

Sometime after the death of AAR, I wrote about it at TOP where it received, as far as I can remember, a rather tepid response. At the time, I didn’t realize that TOP was fully coopted by TPTB. The main point of my old TOP diary (which I am not able to republish here because I am not willing to subject myself to that place to pull a diary that might not even be that good): when there is a way that everyone can easily get alternative content, a movement will grow. When people are informed, it makes a difference. When they are ignorant; TPTB win.

The only reason we got Obama (even though he turned out to be just another eager tool of TPTB) was because enough people were aware and willing to vote. There was no way to defeat that momentum. Obama's win in 2008 was achieved despite all the voting problems simply because there were too many people voting for the election to be stolen. Side note: according to TOP, election fraud is a myth and nothing happened in 2000, 2004, and the 2016 Dem primary. Right - wanna buy a bridge?

Unfortunately, just like his Dem predecessor "Slick Willie", "No Drama Obama" was only there to grease the wheels. Make no mistake we were screwed but his "cool" helped many accept it. Oh, he had the cool, smooth moves but those moves were but a slick veneer covering up the mountains of crap poured down upon us.

Experience just proves that there is no point looking to a new leader until we realize that without a vehicle to spread the message and a steely focus on what we want, we will continue to be screwed. This is why I believe that we need to have nonnegotiable points. Every potential candidate that wants our vote must support these points.

My feeling is that the following three points could be our focus:

1. The peace movement
2. Medicare for all
3. Net neutrality

There are certainly other points that need to be addressed but I believe these three are the ones that could gain the most traction among all people regardless of their political affiliation. If there are better focus points, I am all in but whatever we finally decide to push must be “make or break”. We can even narrow it to just one as Alligator Ed said in his excellent essay.

If a candidate does not fully support our focus points then they should not be supported by us. We can no longer go halfway with this. TOP and their masters can derisively call it a purity test. I don’t care. We need to go forth with the unadulterated truth and we need to start now!

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Finally, remember this; TPTB did not get where they are by going after everything all at once. They first focused on just one part of one pillar of the New Deal and once they achieved that, they moved on to the next. They did this all while convincing people that their lives would be better for it.

In my opinion, their major successes came with the advent of what I call the "Grand Showman Presidents". The first GSP was Reagan and then Clinton took up the mantle. Next, was Obama and finally Trump. I don't include the Bushes as GSP's because they were just place holders in my opinion. Their purpose was to keep the gains made until the next uber charismatic GSP arrived. Bear in mind that had Her Heinous won then she would have just been a placeholder since she has absolutely no charisma. Some might consider Trump to be a placeholder but only time will tell.

So, what do you all think? And bye the bye, if we lose net neutrality, I believe we will have to go old-school. Pamphlets, flyers, buttons, and t-shirts produced by us may be the only outlet we will have left. If it comes to that, I hope we will find a way to do it.

Ignorance is bliss but once enough people have awakened, a reckoning must occur. Here's to its success.

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Sorry for the long essay but I have been ruminating on this for some time.

I started writing this yesterday afternoon and was amazed when I came back to the site this morning to find three essays dealing with different aspects of the need to get this movement going.

From (please pardon my title abbreviations)

gjohnsit's "saying 'No' will never, ever be enough"
to Big Al's "Antiwar Purity Tests"
to Alligator Ed's "part of the Establishment"

the message is clear. It's time! It will be a long battle but if we don't, who will?

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

Alligator Ed's picture

@Dark UltraValia In fact, it is "just right" in length, as Goldilocks might have said about the porridge.

I love your mousey analogy. So, so true--but WE must become the mice, infiltrating every Democratic and perhaps Republican weak spots. Each of the cumbersome party apparatuses will not be swift enough, nor flexible enough, to close the massive holes in their dominionist positions.

Experience just proves that there is no point looking to a new leader until we realize that without a vehicle to spread the message and a steely focus on what we want, we will continue to be screwed. This is why I believe that we need to have nonnegotiable points. Every potential candidate that wants our vote must support these points.

My feeling is that the following three points could be our focus:

1. The peace movement
2. Medicare for all
3. Net neutrality

I agree with your three choice issues. But just as a needle must have finely sharpened tip before the shaft, we need ONE sharp and strong issue, which currently is healthcare, before extending the needle body to include peace and net neutrality. I think net neutrality should be a second issue because Republicans, Independents, Conservatives live so much of their lives and access so much of their information by the Internet, they will scream. But they are already screaming loudly and clearly about health care.

PS, thanks for the kind words.

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@Alligator Ed Thanks for reading. I hope this time my iPad will post my response in the right place.

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

Lookout's picture

I've sealed several spots with a little piece of hardware cloth bent to fit a hole and then foam (insulation) spray. I bet you could seal your remaining spot.

As to the real topic of your essay...I like your ideas and priorities, but I always end up circling back to the point of the corporate media who lies, distorts, and misleads to promote the corporatocracy. How can we ever overcome the megaphone and really educate people?

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout I literally cannot get back there at all. Both my stove and counter are next to each other against that wall and they come out between the two.

The only good thing is that I can put the poison right there and they never try to travel through the house because there is no access to any of the other rooms for them.

As to the megaphone that is mainstream media, that is why I really believe that if we lose the internet, we have even less hope than we do now.

The internet is how I get my information and I found all of my true alternative progressives here. I don't mean TYT either. I like my alternative media the way I like my vodka, straight! Smile

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

Mark from Queens's picture

The PTB know that is the one issue could help solidify their status quo of continued rapacious and unaccountable plundering of the world. If they can levy an internet tax on or divert traffic away from progressive sites where people are discussing the fundamental issues in-depth, they can keep the manufactured controversy, celebrity gossip and self-interested social media aggrandizement pumping away.

But they also use all manner of paid trolls, algorithms to keep people in a bubble, etc that also succeed just fine in keeping the 99% passive, dazzled and impotent. It's the devious web of deliberate manufacturing of consent and distraction that troubles me most.

Not surprised at all about you finding TOP as not being interested very much in the demise of Air America. Same for the two biggest social movements in generations, Occupy and BlackLivesMatter. Strangely enough, the Neoliberals got from Air America the increasingly embarrassing Rachel Maddow as their mascot and sellout Al Franken. Sam Seder and Jeanine Garafolo were there too (and I think Mike Malloy, who disappointingly showed himself to be full steam ahead for $hills).

They're not progressives at all there. You have to be willing to challenge the preconceptions of yourself/your party, reevaluate your and your party's stance on things, etc. They're incapable of critical thinking and dissent. They're not more than cheerleaders for their own team, heads down in the sand, capable only of rooting for Blue vs. Red, and doing as they're told.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Alligator Ed's picture

@Mark from Queens My thesis however is that there is nothing more immediate than life itself. Not even communication can equal that imperative. This is why Healthcare must be the ONE lead issue. Agreed that net neutrality and peace are important. But our threat to the establishment must be both strong and immediate. Very few people do hold life dearly for themselves and their families.

Back to the mice: patching a few holes saves DUV's domicile temporarily but I'm sure only a small mouse contingent is available to plunder the home. Think about 10,000,000 mice swarming on the Capitol. How could this possibly be overcome? Abrams tanks? Jet fighters? Flame throwers? One inside the toothy mice will start gnawing on the wiring of communication, destroying the ability to propagandize the country or even dispatch troops in an organized fashion. Then imagine if you will another 10,000,000 mice invading Wall Street simultaneously. Large numbers indeed but that still leaves at least 80,000,000 more mice to attack elsewhere. We must be the mice--individually small and powerless but collectively overwhelming.

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@Alligator Ed Smile

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

Rachel Maddow. Wow. Part of me wanted to say, what happened to her but then I remembered the Maya Angelou quote paraphrased, "When they show you who they are, believe them the first time."

As to the others, Mike Malloy has allowed himself to get old. Age does not make you old, stagnated thinking does. I haven't listened to Sam Seder in a long while even though I am subscribed to Ring of Fire.

I think the rest of them really do believe that somehow, if you are Bullwinkle and keep trying to pull the rabbit out of your hat, one day you will succeed.

Sorry 'The Korgis' and Beck but apparently not everyone has to learn.

The Korgis - The original version
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5wkLnpJkL8]

Beck - The cover in the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7AUi3CeI6M]

I can't see these where I am at but will edit later if they don't work. Also, I am trying deleting the automatic @ symbol to see if it will still be a response to the intended person (Mark from Queens). Hopefully, that's how others are doing it.

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

Alligator Ed's picture

@Dark UltraValia It's Rachel Madcow!

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@Alligator Ed corrected. Ok

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

earthling1's picture

Oughta be fairly cheap these days.
Maybe I'll go all capitalistic and buy a dozen, before they go up.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1

I would think printing presses would be cheaper now than they used to be, but that might not last for long.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@Timmethy2.0 if they think it might help us against them. Hmm. You have a point. Wink

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

@earthling1 how to build one? Wink

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

I once had a landlord whose building had a bad roach problem. He refused to deal with it, despite the tenants calling the building inspectors. Finally I got fed up.
I found out that he was going to show the apartment across the hall at 1pm, so at 12 I bought 2 cans - one off Raid and 1 of Black Flag, and went down the hallway, spraying every crack and seam. By 1pm the hallway was 3 inches deep in dead roaches, and in comes the landlord with a prospective tenant.
My landlord was a sleaze, but he was clever. He cancelled his garbage service. soon the building had mice. Lots of mice. And the mice ate the roaches. Then he renewed the garbage service. Now, with no roaches and no garbage to eat the mice moved on. End of problem.

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On to Biden since 1973

@doh1304

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

Specifically issues that cut across the propaganda and labels. Net neutrality is a huge issue that everybody is on the same side about except for a few thousand greedy, soulless parasites. I think everybody is also on the same page about needing more transparent elections and getting money out of politics. Same with universal healthcare and peace. Of course, the issue of global warming won't go away no matter what labels are attached to the people concerned by it. I think I'm missing a number of issues that everybody in this country and the World cares intensely about and that are purposefully ignored. Please, anybody, add to the list.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Strife Delivery's picture

The rot is thorough and unyielding.

The beams are giving way.

However, the rich and connected are tethered to the ceiling, while the poor are standing on the floorboards. If something doesn't happen, the floor will give, and the rich will be content.

Either we cut the rich down to the floors with us and say we are all in this together, or they will watch from up high as the floor cracks and caves away.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@Strife Delivery The rich find themselves crushed along with everyone else.

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@Alligator Ed stupid enough to let it happen!

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

If we manage to get laws passed that limit them, they will keep gnawing away at them until they create a hole big enough to let them back into America's house.

50 years later, and we're still fighting the abortion fight and a whole lot more. I want to drive a stake thru their ugly hearts.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich This essay was written during one of my rare days when the depression isn't crushing me. That's why it is more of a thought excercise for me.

I don't have the energy most of the time and the best I can hope for is that the younger ones can carry the ideas forward.

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

Centaurea's picture

What's one of the Dem establishment's big problems, historically, when it comes to persuading mainstream Americans? From my observation, it's that they've appealed to people's intellects, their left brains. Conversely, the Republicans have been really good at going for the emotions, rather than offering scientific and sociological analyses for why a proposed bill or program is a great thing.

As any halfway good salesperson knows, logic is not what induces people to buy the product or service. Yes, the product may be good for everyone, it may have a million and one great scientifically-proven qualities, but if it doesn't emotionally engage the prospective purchaser, it ain't gonna sell. Ideally, you "get" the purchaser where they already have an emotional attachment, and play to that.

So, let's see ...

"Net neutrality is a huge problem for our democratic way of life, because not having it allows the oligarchy to capture and disperse our power. What is net neutrality? It has to do with varying speeds by which webpages are served to customers who call them up on the Internet."

Is this likely to excite the mainstream 99% enough to get them off their backsides and demand change? Nea I can see people's brains going *tilt* and turning to something else that doesn't require them to understand Internet technology and then follow the chain of logic to its conclusion.

"We really have to deal with climate change before it's too late. It's scientifically proven to exist, and the US military says this is the number one national security issue for the US. The polar ice caps are melting, seas are rising, CO2 levels are rising, temps are rising, weather patterns are changing, and it doesn't look good for the human race."

This may scare people a bit, but right now things look relatively OK, plus people have way too many other things they need to deal with in their daily lives to worry about something that might happen in the future. "If there's a problem with climate change, we still have time later on. And who knows what's really going to happen, anyway? Maybe it won't be that bad." The idea that the human race may go extinct in the near future is just so overwhelming that many folks aren't going to want to really focus on it until forced to. The idea of human extinction is so incredible that most people still don't believe it, deep down. Their brains haven't wrapped around the notion that it could actually happen.

So what is the thing that *IS* grabbing people right now? What is the issue that people are getting emotionally engaged with, that is riling people up across the board, from diverse demographic groups? What issue affects people RIGHT NOW, no matter who they are (except for the 1% and many of the upper 10%)?

Access to affordable health care.

I don't think most people want to engage in an intellectual and philosophical consideration of how the oligarchy functions. Most people don't know what the word "oligarchy" means. But once they're emotionally engaged with an issue, really engaged, then the oligarchy's role in creating that issue becomes important to them. As in "What did she just say? 'Let them eat cake'?!" Diablo

Edited for clarity.

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"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi

"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone

@Centaurea Healthcare is likely the strongest of the points and emotion does work wonders. Smile

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

for reading. Sorry for the delay in response. At home I only have an iPad and it took a while to figure out why my responses weren't registering.

This response ended up in the wrong place but I have it sussed now.

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

earthling1's picture

Internet freedom is the core issue. Once they are able to take that away from us, we will be reduced to word of mouth. We will have been neutralized, completely.
Unless we can put together a system utilizing Citizens Band radio we will have no other means of communicating as a group.
A general strike by the people would invoke a shutdown of the phones and internet.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

mimi's picture

@earthling1
are too old to read their emails, don't have an idea what net neutrality is about, have to get reminded what an oligarch is and live in an environment, where they can function still, because the services like meals on wheels, guaranteed health care services they need and a little town you can live in without a car and can reach the people you need to reach even if you need to do so with a walking aid trolley

Sitting in front of the TV with one of them, it goes like that: "What is net neutrality" (oh, I don't use the internet, why is that necessary?) "Climate Change?" (heh, it's cold here in May and didn't we just see a great documentary how over the millions of years the climate changes in Germany created the Alps and the deserts, who filled up with water from melting glaciers) "Peace Movement?" (oh yeah the flowers in the rifles will do the trick, I know) ... a couple of minutes later...

"Why can't my nephew from the US come visit me, I would like so much to see him again? I answer, ok, you see he has a job that pays so little that he is dependent on a girlfriend and her salary to pay the rent. And a job, which doesn't allow him to have enough days off to make a trip to Europe. There is no paid vacation time, not working, means no money, means losing your job, that means to lose the rental, to lose the rental means sleeping in a pick-up truck and fearing to get arrested by police, no job means to lose health insurance, having an emergency medical need means mama's rescue funds will be depleted in a minute."

That's what I get as a response:
Shok

followed by the words:
"Schweinerei" (swinishness, snafu, rascality ?)

If the points that start the dominoes falling are the following, I would order them in this rank of importance.

1. Healthcare for all independent of employers or employment
2. Job security to maintain housing security, housing assistance for the unemployed and elderly.
3. Net neutrality, yes that too, but ... we can get the points even without education and internet, as my above conversation shows, one that I had with several people and that didn't take long to come to an end and the conclusion: "Schweinerei".

BTW, my father understood the US health care issue very early on in the 1950ies, when an American told him it's just tough luck, if you get sick in America. My entrepreneurial, conservative father just couldn't get that kind of cruel way of thinking and thought "Schweinerei".

But we have to be polite and smile, which makes us first:
Smilefish_360.jpg
and then
A Nation of Walking Deads
Walking_Dead_590.jpg

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@mimi Your second domino addresses a really important issue. Smile

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos