"Reverie + Evolution = Revolution" (graffiti on the Sorbonne, France, May 1968). An Ode to C99 and Speaking Louder/Inspired by JtC's Talking Heads-inspired Rant. Scrawl Something!

I just read JtC’s rant and started to compose a comment. At the same time I was called to the floor by my young son to play trucks, and on the way down grabbed this very cool little pamphlet book I picked up last week at Interference Archives, called “Boredom Weeps: Graffiti, Curses and Inscriptions of May 1968.” It inspired me to turn the comment into this off-the-cuff essay.

Taking up on what I gleaned as some of the subtext there, I think it's pretty clear that partisan ideology is on the way out. At least in the real world it is. As for the zombies who watch mainstream news it may take them a little longer acknowledge this, but not much longer. Everyone gets it. Which you find out when you talk to people in person.

Recently I heard Mark Crispin Miller talking about this to Gary Null on WBAI, and Ralph Nader's last book I believe is about this potential coalition forming. Hedges talks about it, Thomas Frank, Greenwald, Jimmy Dore, Tim Black, etc. There's no name for it perhaps, but it's a reflection of the Occupy ethos/mantra of "We Are The 99%."

Maybe all that stuff we envisioned during that glorious uprising in the Fall of 2011 is finally starting to come to fruition. Or it’s there for real this time, waiting to be coalesced. There are outrageously high levels of dissatisfaction with all having to do with government and media after the all-time low of the debacle of Hillary v Donnie (or Criminal vs Criminal) and the ensuing complete bullshit and disconnect from reality.

I'll just say that personally I've been feeling more and more compelled to speak louder whenever I'm out in public. Things really need to be publicly aired, in simple terms, such as, "the banks are ruining our lives" or "corporate monopolies are destroying competition" or "everything we do and say is now being monitored by a omnipresent surveillance state," etc. And you know what? People erupt with relief, and join in. I've had multiple instances of this happening lately (I'd like to find the time to recount them for an essay - as an aside, can we consciously agree to lose the whole DK vernacular of referring to these as a "diary"?), as well as getting many across-the board positive reactions and acknowledgements to confrontational political t-shirts (e.g. "Make Socialism Great Again").

I can feel it coming together in these many one-on-ones/group encounters in which people are saying many of the same things we’re saying here. Another part of this is getting a little bolder with scrawling things too. There's nothing like the power of confronting a stale and dying status quo by writing something on a public space, to remind people that they're not alone in their disgust or to rile up similar sentiment. I'll really have to finish an essay I started about a middle-of-the-day, graffiti-ing of a NYC Corrections Dept bus in front of a fascist pickup truck driver. Heh. Fuck these people.

To me the great malaise, in this Age of Social Media, is that we're not talking to each other, eye to eye, in public anymore. Everyone's burrowed into their cell phones or headphones and been conditioned to think in terms of self-gratification first. It's not natural. We're social animals, with compassion and empathy for others, like to share and care. And people are downright relieved, it appears to me, when someone challenges this zombification. I'm getting to a point where I just don't care anymore what people think; I'm going to keep ranting and saying things that I think are on everyone's mind in public while I'm out (not in a podium grandstanding way, but in a conversational way). I recommend it to everyone here too.

In last night’s EB Joe had the excellent Caitlin Johnstone piece last night called "Whoever Controls The Narrative Controls The World.” It was so good and so redolent of many of the core beliefs I have about what ails us that she was part of an intense and at times frightening but ultimately liberating dream last night. I woke up refreshed and feeling a Sense8 oneness.

As we’ve discussed previously, the only real power in this world is the power to control the public narrative about what is going on. The only reason governments operate the way they operate, the only reason money works the way it works, the only reason power exists where it exists, is that we’ve all agreed to play along with some made-up mental stories about those things and pretend that they are true and real. The only thing stopping the populace from collectively deciding to change the way money works, from deciding that the assholes on Capitol Hill aren’t in charge anymore, or from deciding that every billionaire in America should be butchered like a hog and turned into Slim Jims is the fact that those ideas have not become the dominant narrative. If you can control the stories that the masses tell themselves about what is in their best interests, you control everything.

This is why the alliance between Silicon Valley and US intelligence agencies is becoming more and more brazen. This is why Facebook and the NATO propaganda firm Atlantic Council announced that they’ve formed a partnership weeks after the Atlantic Council published an article explaining why westerners need to be propagandized for their own good. This is why social media corporations are being instructed on the Senate floor that they need to take action to silence sources of rebellion. This is why Julian Assange is being aggressively silenced by the western empire. And it is why Joy Reid still has a job.

The good news about all this is that we know exactly where our shackles are. Our shackles are made of narrative, and the oligarchs’ ability to control it. A populist movement to disrupt establishment narratives and wake people up to what’s going on is all it will take to break our rulers’ ability to control the way the citizens of the world think and vote. From there we can make our own narratives and create a world which benefits us all and not just a few ruling elites. Right now there is a mad rush by those same elites to scale back our ability to network and share information via new media, so one of the most revolutionary things we can do at this time is prevent them from doing so and outpace them in that race.

It isn’t the west versus Russia. It isn’t left versus right. At this time the real conflict in our society is a few ruling elites and their cronies versus humanity’s natural impulse to act in a way that is beneficial to humanity. All we need to do is help that impulse flourish, get out of our oligarchy-imposed brain boxes, and build a new world.

This place is a bastion of sanity, edification and hope in a world turned Upside Down lately. We'd do best to stay vigilant in keeping our eyes on the propaganda, continue calling out the bullshit from all sides and sharing ideas for better ways to live than being defeated by the insidious, soul-dead status quo of consumer capitalism, imperialism and corporate and banking economic terrorism.

If I had the property to invite you all for a week, which I don't as a renter of a small, overpriced apartment in NYC, I'd invite you all to spend a week at my place to talk about all this face to face and solidify all the wonderful bonds we've built up. Some time, some way, I still think we need to find a way to make something like that happen.

Wish I could be around here more. But my life is just bound up in this crazy, being a first-time father in his 50’s.

Let's keep it together here, folks. It's the best place online. But I'm thinking a lot lately of how much more it's important to take all this offline into the real word - and then report it back online.

Love.

Boredom Weeps.

Hijack life then rewrite its user’s manual.

Talk to your neighbors.

Patriotism rhymes with Fascism.

More than ever, we need
direct action committees.
Above all, create
direct action committees.
We owe our victory to
direct action committees.
Are you part of a
direct action committee?
If not, create your own
direct action committee.

Power over your life is found inside you.

Unzip your mind as often as your fly.

No replastering, the structure is rotten.

Beware! We’re surrounded by dipshits.
Rather than dwell on the spectacle of
protests let’s concern ourselves with
protesting their spectacle.

Be realistic, demand the impossible.

You’ll all end up dying of comfort.

The right to live isn’t begged for,
it’s taken.

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Mark from Queens's picture

and observations about this, that and the other thing.

As Jack London would sign off in his letters, "Yours for the Revolution."

What Life Means To Me.

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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

mimi's picture

@Mark from Queens
beautiful. I am going back to read the whole essay of Caitlin Johnstone. Very good just the excerpted paragraphs you offered. And I saw you mentioning Hedges piece about Niebuhr. Going back to that as well.

Ahh, thanks again for all you posted here to lead me into further reading. So much appreciated.

There is a huge garden here where I live right now. It is the house my parents bought in 1954. It doesn't belong to me, so I have no decision power over it for now. But when I one day may have that, you are all invited to meet in person face to face to have a good time talking eye to eye about the "sublime madness in our souls", which I know is somewhere in there.

The house was built in 1936 and the previous owner my parents bought it from, was a lady who has housed many refugees and returning German POWs during and after wwII. Her garden was a huge sea of vegetable plants and fruit trees. Over the years my mother got rid of the fruit trees and the vegetable garden. Apparently the thought that one has to be able to feed oneself on the harvest of his own land disappeared in her mind because... I dunno ... may be my father made enough to forget that such bad times would return. She made a park out of the garden, nowadays unique and beautiful.

Now, them all gone, I am the last one of the family still physically strong enough to do garden work and having a completely different experience of life due to me being in the US for so long and some parts of Africa for short periods, I start to plant fruit trees and vegetable garden again. In my mind I reverse the house to a place that can take in foreign refugees and asylum seekers. It's a shame to leave a huge house so under-occupied. So many people need to live somewhere and eat something. Darn it.

My son knowing how it feels to be a day-laborer is pissed off that nobody on this side of the Atlantic (Germany that is) knows what it means to have no territory to stomp your feet on and declare it as your righteous living territory. There we go again. It all comes back. Like a boomerang.

Just babbling away here. But many comments here and the links provided help to get inspired to 'just continue to speak up louder', something that always will be used by those who have the weapons and the money power to manipulate your speech into something subversive.

Lord have mercy, because we never know what we are doing, right or wrong.

Thanks Mark. Need a nap now. I scanned the Interference Archive a bit and am so triggered to read on there. BTW my baby took 20 years of my time and I admire your strength to play truck with your boys and read what you read and write something great 'off the cuff'.
You give me hope, isn't that something? Smile

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Raggedy Ann's picture

inspire me. You inspire me to be a better person. You inspire me to stop and think about both sides, because there are always two sides. You inspire me to stay active - to look to make a difference, no matter the size. Most of all you inspire me to continue to speak up and out - to have that difficult conversation, and the easy ones, too.

You make a good point about getting together as a group. I wish we had met last summer, because in-person conversations are the start of finding common ground, debating our differences, and healing our wounds. So, I’m with you, maybe we, as a larger group, can make something happen in a year or so. I’m willing to travel. Who knows.

I know those boys are lucky to have you - and you, them. Thanks for your most excellent comment essay.
Drinks Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Raggedy Ann

You inspire me to stop and think about both sides, because there are always two sides.

"Sometimes, there is only one side."
-- August Ferdinand Möbius (1790 - 1868)

/snark

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Raggedy Ann's picture

@thanatokephaloides
there’s his side, there’s her side, and there’s the truth somewhere in the middle. I almost went there so here ya go.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Raggedy Ann

A co-worker says there’s his side, there’s her side, and there’s the truth somewhere in the middle. I almost went there so here ya go.

You do know I was agreeing with you, right? In "standard, three-dimensional Euclidean space", i.e., the "real world" in which we all live and move and have our being, there is only one thing that has only one side. And that one thing was discovered by August Ferdinand Möbius, and named after him: the Möbius strip! Everything else has at least two sides and two edges. The Möbius strip has only one edge, too.

Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip? Why, to get to the same side, of course! Smile

Möbius strips are cheap and easy to make and fun to play with. Just take an ordinary strip of paper, twist one end exactly one-half turn, and splice (cellophane tape works great). You can then trace the one edge or the one side by marking it with a pen or a marker.

Theoretically, if you bond two Möbius strips at their edges, you will end up with a 3-dimensional oddity known as a "Klein bottle", which has no internals. (only one surface) But that degree of topological high weirdness requires entheogenic hallucinogens to even imagine, much less build!

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Raggedy Ann's picture

@thanatokephaloides
we're agreeing with me, which is why I replied thusly. Give rose

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Mark from Queens's picture

@Raggedy Ann
There's really a warm mutual admiration and respect within the community here at C99. We're truth-seekers, rebels and dissenters in common. I think we're also here to inspire each other.

In PhillyBluesFan wonderful OT yesterday I followed a link to the Chris Hedges show "On Contact" about a book mentioned. The whole show was edifying and inspiring.

Hedges quoted from his piece called "A Time For Sublime Madness" about Reinhold Neibuhr:

“a sublime madness in the soul.” Niebuhr wrote that “nothing but madness will do battle with malignant power and ‘spiritual wickedness in high places.’ ”

This sublime madness, as Niebuhr understood, is dangerous, but it is vital. Without it, “truth is obscured.” And Niebuhr also knew that traditional liberalism was a useless force in moments of extremity.

Liberalism, Niebuhr said, “lacks the spirit of enthusiasm, not to say fanaticism, which is so necessary to move the world out of its beaten tracks. It is too intellectual and too little emotional to be an efficient force in history.”

This criticism is often made about ideological purists who pontificate, say, Marxist dialectic (read Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier" about how Left intellectuals often miss the mark), which is too rigid and cold for the working class citizen who is just too tired from the daily struggle trying to just stay afloat, and finds the intellectual parsing off-putting.

That's not to say said person doesn't understand how he's being screwed over. It's just to say there is a very fundamental appeal lost when we speak indirectly or encumbered. We'd be better served when we speak with passion about the fundamental struggles of the average person living in the shadow of being foreclosed upon by a medical emergency, college debt, rising housing costs, the police state, corporate monopoly, collection agencies etc.

And yes, RA. Next time you're this way send me a message again and we'll try to connect in person.

(How's the garden coming along this year?)

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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

@Mark from Queens that one of the reasons fascism took such a hold(and maybe continues to. Strike the "maybe" if you prefer) is that the liberals countered its claims with logic while the fascists played directly to the emotions.

You can't logic people out of something they weren't logiced into.

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They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Johnny Q Now the liberals are speaking from emotion too. Product of the Age of Obama. How dreadful.

A liberal denuded of reason is a terrible thing to behold!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Raggedy Ann's picture

@Mark from Queens
Do others realize this? I actually feel most are in denial because it’s scary. Life in these United States is scary.

IMHO, we all need to remain as flexible as possible because we are all in a giant tumbler and Herr Drumpf is turning the crank (no pun intended). This means flexibility of thought - as you suggest - read as much as possible. Get informed and stay open to the possibility that your opinion can change due to circumstances. Life is dynamic.

Kind words more than deserved. I look forward to and enjoy reading your essays. You convey so much and give me something to think about and/or read. Teaching comes naturally to you.

This is why I’m here. I learn. Arguing is not learning.

The garlic is coming along. A month to the harvest. I miss your recipes. Give those boys a big hug for me.
Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

gulfgal98's picture

@Raggedy Ann

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Raggedy Ann's picture

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

very similar response to treating people As Being There in the moment: the guy that makes your sandwich, the lady that rings your gas, the couple you bump into in the aisle.all times to See and Acknowledge someone's existence. Letting them know you have questions with the way things are run seems to bring people to the Front with their Own questions.
As for jtc's meta; people get pissy sometimes, whatchogonnado? No echoes, no shutdown. Lone voice in the wild? Most definitely. Ride on, ride on.

Stop These Fucking Wars

peace

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

WaterLily's picture

@Tall Bald and Ugly All of this.

I have been making much more of an effort to see people (in real life) for who they are, and acknowledging them where they are. Because I want the same in return. It feels as though we, as a species, used to know how to do this, but have lost our way. Social media has a lot to do with that.

Anyway, @MfQ, I love the idea of a real-life "caucus." Maybe we could invite this guy as a special guest.

He recently played at the Burlington Discover Jazz Fest; although I missed the show, he apparently offered some wonderful insights about moving beyond tribalism into a place where we see each other. Timely, huh?

Thanks for this excellent essay and the conversation it has sparked.

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Mark from Queens's picture

@Tall Bald and Ugly
Good to hear.

There's a lot to be gained by putting yourself out and forward. Almost invariably I find people are eager to have such conversations. It sure as hell beats talking about the weather.

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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

snoopydawg's picture

@Tall Bald and Ugly

I noticed how he always thanked someone for serving him a burger or whatever even when they were not very nice. When I asked him why he thanked one very cranky lady he said that maybe she had just served some asshole who gave her a bad time and if he thanked her anyway it'd cheer her up.

There's always that one person who everyone thinks is uppity or mean or never smiles in our lives. I go out of my way to say hello to them and more often than not they start beating me to it.

Anyway it doesn't cost us anything to be kind to others.

IMG_2219.JPG

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

snoopydawg's picture

This is so true ....

The only reason governments operate the way they operate, the only reason money works the way it works, the only reason power exists where it exists, is that we’ve all agreed to play along with some made-up mental stories about those things and pretend that they are true and real. The only thing stopping the populace from collectively deciding to change the way money works, from deciding that the assholes on Capitol Hill aren’t in charge anymore, or from deciding that every billionaire in America should be butchered like a hog and turned into Slim Jims is the fact that those ideas have not become the dominant narrative. If you can control the stories that the masses tell themselves about what is in their best interests, you control everything.

Joe and I debated whether those billionaires would taste like chicken or pork when BBQ'd.

She then goes on to talk about Joy Reid and why she hasn't been fired yet after she made up excuses for her homophobic rants from a decade ago. It's because she plays the game of spouting the PTB's propaganda. so well.

I see her as an angry and ugly person who gets away with saying negative things about people that the establishment doesn't want to let their ideas get traction. The things she said about Bernie during the primary were downright ugly and rude. Here's an example of what she said and got away with saying it.

IMG_2209_0.JPG

Thanks, Mark. Caitlin's essay needs to be discussed.

Let's remember why we are here and who we fighting.

IMG_2212.JPG

Them not us. This is why we are here.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@snoopydawg

deciding that every billionaire in America should be butchered like a hog and turned into Slim Jims

Cat deliver us from such evil!

(I like Slim Jims and occasionally eat them!)

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Mark from Queens's picture

@snoopydawg
There's only so much mileage the MSM can get out of dredging up one manufactured distraction after another or beating the dead horse in the 24/7 horse race political sports commentary. I think people are scratching their heads realizing their own lives' predicaments never get an airing on mainstream news networks. You know, the real stuff people talk about with one another that's worrying them.

It's great comeuppance to read of Dem polling finding that voters don't care about the ad nauseum Russia stuff. They want to know why they don't have universal fucking healthcare and are being ripped off by insurance companies, with the backing of both parties.

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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

@snoopydawg

...Joe and I debated whether those billionaires would taste like chicken or pork when BBQ'd. ...

they call 'em 'long pig'.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Ellen North

...Joe and I debated whether those billionaires would taste like chicken or pork when BBQ'd. ...

they call 'em 'long pig'.

I think it's poors who taste just like chicken!

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides

who'v been devouring the poor about the taste... long past time to turn the tables and check out the 'long pig'!

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

JekyllnHyde's picture

@snoopydawg


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A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

mimi's picture

@JekyllnHyde @JekyllnHyde
lol. May be I should familiarize with that guy's thoughts a bit. But then there is those Churchill and Truman books my father left behind and I still didn't touch.

So many thoughts, so little time to think them through.

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mimi's picture

all of you write, so any comment might come only with one to two days delay. I always like to read your essays or comments. Thanks for being here.

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LeChienHarry's picture

becomes obsolete or inappropriate to a new reality, the first thing many feel is discomfort and a longing to find something to hang on to (Angel from Montgomery).

In that transition, which can last for days, weeks, decades, the mush is very difficult terrain to navigate.

I do think it's right that this isn't about right/left; conservative/liberal; republicans/democrats...it's about a vertical imbalance where in social welfare has been slowly structured to benefit only the already powerful and rich and leave the rest to muddle through, become sick, uninformed, distracted, burdened, terribly uncomfortable.

There are prescient writers, thinkers and speakers. Not all have the same solutions. But many and the rest of us waiting and hoping, tossing our ideas into the ring, are hoping for a new structure we can become comfortable with and will work for almost everyone.

We are from a so called "liberal" small town in the west US. At the minimum in a four thousand population town, there are 75 homeless. Which doesn't count couch surfers, doubled up living situations, camper vans and other non attached people. We don't even want to think about those folks, some with truly challenging addiction or mental health issues.

Now let's look at a town we are members of with a population of 3500, give or take. There are 7 homeless. Every empty house and apartment has been inventoried. All the homeless were given an opportunity or more than once offered a place to live. All but two, who have actively chosen not to live in a residence, now have true shelter. All are known well in the community and for the two living rough, they are helped in many small ways. That is Community.

I want to think that same spirit moves us here even if we don't have the comfort of a way forward yet. And I agree with others: it won't be just one thing, or one path.

I am learning about the way we can live differently. I do see the Americanization of France as Macron tries to kill unions, privatize everything like a Bull Terrier on speed. (Apologies to Bull Terriers).

The people here live well, on less, and have simpler lives. However, their comfort is leading to a type of complacency. We try to communicate why we think strikes can be good even if the create discomfort for us personally. They remind us what may go away: the nations rail system being auctioned off? It's already beginning.

If you ever get a chance to ride a TGV (Trans Grande Vitesse) at 280k/hr you'll know you've been somewhere wonderful. If you ever get a chance to see a specialist for $120 and get 80% of that reimbursed with no paperwork (taxpayer funding), you'll know that the concept of "etat" or the people speak (and tax themselves) can work. Taxpayers also pay to have the nation keep the churches in good repair. The state owns the buildings, but the people use the religious edifice for worship. Keeps masons and other artisans working for generations.

There are no equivalents of most of this in the US. When we are asked why we moved almost four years ago, and began building towards the move in 2010, it is difficult to grasp that one health care problem can bankrupt a family. There is no equivalent here. It. does. not. happen.

We often get asked "well when you are at the bottom, that's when your social safety net kicks in, right?" We have a small litany now, because we do get the same questions and confusion on a weekly basis.

I could go on, but this is a start and for me a circle back to the first of my comment. In a period of uncertainty and lack of structure, there is discomfort, fraying and jumpiness.

People here are secure and happy for the most part. Oh and many won't go to the US for vacation anymore, because they tell us they don't know who has guns. Really sad. It's a beautiful country, with many nice people. The exchanges could be valuable.

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You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce

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mimi's picture

@LeChienHarry
I find so much in what you say, having come back to my home country of birth, Germany, one and a half years ago. I left Germany for good in 1980. I was safe in the US until I retired and my former husband died in 2015/2016. Many aspects of the American social and educational life I learned just through my son's experiences and through reading dailykos and C99p. And a bit through my work as an archivist/research assistant in a German TV studio, a German news wire service and a German conservative foundation, all offices located in Washington DC. (Little office mouse everywhere I went. I actually am educated as a chemist and worked as such before I left Germany in 1980). All by-gone and a wasted education.

It was enough to get the picture so to speak. I agree with much of what you say:

it's about a vertical imbalance where in social welfare has been slowly structured to benefit only the already powerful and rich and leave the rest to muddle through, become sick, uninformed, distracted, burdened, terribly uncomfortable.

checked

I am learning about the way we can live differently. I do see the Americanization of France as Macron tries to kill unions, privatize everything like a Bull Terrier on speed. (Apologies to Bull Terriers).

checked, I think it happened in Germany as well since years and without the population being aware of it. Germans have still no clue, how much more burdened they could be, if they accepted the US social welfare system uninformed and arrogantly. Nobody I know in my German family or friend environment (not many are still there) had any imagination about the social misery of those in the US who are left alone muddying through whatever is thrown at them. On the other end, potential in-law Americans and friends just have no clue, what's wrong with their great country and can't understand what has been or is so different in the European social welfare system.

I sometimes think of it like an invisible wall going across the Atlantic on the ocean floor, separating US and Europe like a mysterious way of God-made superstitions.

All the homeless were given an opportunity or more than once offered a place to live. All but two, who have actively chosen not to live in a residence, now have true shelter. All are known well in the community and for the two living rough, they are helped in many small ways. That is Community.

checked, and you have to be able to know your neighborhood in person. That's not happening online and not happening in bigger towns and cities, especially for folks who have constantly to move to keep a job and minimal income. That is especially bad in the US, but equally a problem in Europe and bigger German cities. I am in a German town of 20-35 thousand growing from the 1960ies to 2018. A lot of older folks, a lot of very well off folks, working in near-by Hamburg. Arrogant, rude and complacent and rich. No homeless, but a huge amount of foreigners, who came from Eastern Europe, Russia, Middle East and Northern and West-Africa (first after the collapse of the Soviet Union, after Germany's reunification, then after the 9/11 debacle and resulting US military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and then Libya.

Germany seemed to have carried the social welfare burdens resulting out of all those changes in their population's composition since 1989 so far pretty gracefully, probably up to, I guess, 2012 to 2015.

Now it is another ball game. The EU has gotten another meaning, not really understood on both side across the Atlantic, I assume. What some might see as a way to defend and protect against overstepping US influence on sovereign countries in Europe (and world wide), others (and the US mostly) see the EU as using abusive methods of austerity measures in between EU membership countries of the Northern part and the Southern part of EU membership countries.

Sometimes I wonder if even that is skillfully managed and manipulated by the US. Sorry for that. I have gotten so distrusting these days.

I see some things that were not there in the late 1960ies. Working incoming foreigners from everywhere, integrating themselves and living with shelter. Only apparently lately (since may be 15 5o 20 years) we have clashes again of the ideological, racially-based open kind in public and even now religious-based ones. We have the situation that our very conservative Christian Democrats Union party (CDU) (and their sister Party in Bavaria (CSU) have now to position themselves against the newer AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), some racial/cultural/religious-based Nazi-like groups. The CDU had never to do something like it before. They themselves were considered positioning them exactly there, where the AdD has positioned itself today. It's mind-boggling for me to watch that. (the AfD folks too already learn the newer softer language to cover up what they stand for). The younger ones and seniors might fall for it. That's what I fear.

I am very confused, disappointed and worried about what I observe here and realize I had lived with a complete illusion about what my home country has been for a long time, living myself overseas as an expat so to speak. Germany is not the country of the sixties anymore.

There are no equivalents of most of this in the US. When we are asked why we moved almost four years ago, and began building towards the move in 2010, it is difficult to grasp that one health care problem can bankrupt a family. There is no equivalent here. It. does. not. happen.

checked, it doesn't happen in Germany either, no American can understand that they wouldn't have that problem if they lived in France or Germany. It's a pity. I wished they could imagine and believe it, especially if they needed it. I wished they may find ways to try it out.

Oh and many won't go to the US for vacation anymore, because they tell us they don't know who has guns.

checked, as my son and his girlfriend's jobs are dependent for the most part on US tourism to the most beautiful islands the US has to offer (Hawaii), I tried to explain to my son's girlfriend that may be the tourists won't come anymore in those huge numbers and many small companies will close shop and go bankrupt (which they already do quite a bit). Neither my son did believe in it (at least still two years ago he did not) and no American among his friends and girlfriends family can understand such an argument. Their eyes glaze over, they are afraid to think in ways that would acknowledge that something is wrong with their own social welfare system and that the genuine belief in the attitudes like the ones, that hard work and good deal making would cut it. No, that just won't cut it anymore. But they were raised and grown up with such an unimaginable mind manipulation in the US that one can't get that out of their genetic fabric anymore. At least it seems to me like that. Given the US history, it is even understandable that it is that way. Otherwise their immigrant ancestors would never have survived their own fate back then, they had to exploit and enslave to secure their own survival at least at the 99 percent level.

It is so sad. Really. I never gave up on many Americans' spirit. Many writers here and also some at dailykos (I don't remember many, just in general) show me that they have the right stuff in their hearts and are not to be underestimated. They are generous friends and very welcoming to foreigners and very polite. But that politeness is often understood as being dishonest by foreigners from Germany. There you have it. Can't help it. It's just the way it is. Nice words are nice, but don't cut it.

And that is proven in the way I have been welcomed and accepted here on C99p. Even if you might not stand me, you never tell it in ways that are uncomfortable to me. And ...
I LIKE THAT.

Good folks, let's work together.

PS, I still haven't read what Mark wrote. Shame on me. But I will get there, one line at a time.
Smile

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@mimi which includes observations about "they don't get it"

I have a comment below on a new column by Bruno Latour about how everything has changed

And the small changes that fill people's minds won't go on forever

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LeChienHarry's picture

@mimi Geneva; five hours to Genoa. Good transportation options for aging folks and discount fares. Good food, locally grown much of it organic (bio). Stars are much brighter than even our previous rural location in the states. Lots of small towns have an after 10pm turn out the lights program, which allows us to see stars with wonderful clarity.

More wiidlife here than we ever expected; more woodlands and forests too. This years lots of wildflowers on the street banks and in pastures. Marvelous.

Thanks for your responses.

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You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce

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Mark from Queens's picture

@LeChienHarry
your observations on the cultural differences toward politics and of making the transition from here to there.

Seems to me the difference could be having an agency in the decision making. I've been to local board meeting here in Queens and it's like a 16th century Italian fiefdom or something. I watched once as a majority of people who packed into a ballroom to hear a presentation and comments on a proposed pedestrian plaza of which they were in favor, and which the NYC DOT who made the presentation and were in favor of also, get shut down by the board head goon running the thing (whose mic was turned up louder than everybody else's). The local board was totally in the pocket of the local businesses and real estate.

We've been so beaten down here to just accept this is the way things are. And with the calcified bureaucracy cemented by legal teams in the employ of the Big Money who own the politicians there just seems no recourse in getting hardly anything done in the people's interest.

I envy you. Even if I had the means I don't know if I could make the complete move, as much as I fantasize about it.

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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

LeChienHarry's picture

@Mark from Queens was easier than we thought it would be. France is quite accepting of retirees. Yeah, let's have those US pensions (Soc Sec) and residual incomes. Spent right here.

Our tax rate, first to the US is only Federal as we no longer have a residence in the US. No local taxes. This is taken into account by the various tax authorities here. $101 for 2017. We will know in September what our 2017 taxes were and what we pay for our health cards. Our top up is 100 euros/month. Also automatically tied to our Carte Vitale: no paperwork, just a little deposit into our bank account either from the Tresor Francais or the Assurance Complementaire (private gap insurance for the 20% not covered).

If you would like some questions answered, I could post a collection of requests and gather them up in a single essay.

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You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce

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smiley7's picture

@LeChienHarry
hook-ups to express trains to other countries, the Alps nearby as well as the Med. Please do share more of your daily experiences when you've the time, vicariously thinking and memories flowing in reading this post.

Cheers!

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@mimi

no American can understand that they wouldn't have that problem if they lived in France or Germany.

This American not only understands it, but, if he had a dollar bill for every time he's made that point, he could afford the healthcare he needs!

And it isn't just Europe, either. Bhutan, one of the poorest nations on Earth, provides its citizens with healthcare under a public single-payer system. So do Cuba, Bolivia, and many other countries.

The only nation my quick research revealed was still under private, fee-for-service healthcare was Nepal; and Nepalese healthcare is recognized as an unmitigated disaster both inside Nepal and outside of it.

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

mimi's picture

@thanatokephaloides @thanatokephaloides
observations as a kind of "Americans don't get it" way of judgment. That was certainly unfair and needs to be corrected. I just suffer sometimes over the many signs that those few Americans I got in contact with in real life, had such a hard time to follow my shyly expressed concerns, that I basically just don't talk much anymore in real life conversations.

Which is a lonely place to be in and I observe so many people, who just want to be left alone, people, who feel isolated and give up all their life plans they had in mind to engage in. So, I can be on both sides of the fence, giving up on voting for all the right reasons, and voting nevertheless, even if it looks like they have to do it against all the wrong reasons.

I think the one thing that stays important for me is that nobody needs to know what you voted for or if you voted at all. In my mind the whole need to register yourself as something to vote at all is already a power tool to manipulate the population. I don't understand why it is necessary to register as something to be allowed to vote. In Germany you have the duty to register your mailing address with your city government. They send you the ballots (of course you can pick up a ballot too at the place you cast your vote) and you do what you want without it being 'registered' in ways that relate to your person. It's enough trouble to think about what to do, it's even more trouble to talk about it and it is unacceptable to have your voting record somewhere registered in ways that may cause repercussions on your personal life.

People are scared for a reason. At least you have to be able to trust in the secrecy of your voting decision and trust that no vote can be tampered with. All that trust seems to be by-gone in the US - at least some people feel that way. To me it looks like the way you organize the actual voting procedure and the way candidates have to finance their campaigns are the most broken parts of the electoral college you have. But what do I know. I can't stand how you have to vote and campaign in the US and it makes me sad. It's such a great country with so many courageous people. Sniff.

PS So and to be totally illogic in everything I said, I tell you that I didn't vote in Germany, because I can't figure out, who is for what and trusting in all the 'good words'.
But I have more trust in Germany that if I voted or not that it would stay a 'private decision' and not be registered in a file somewhere related to my personal ID than I would have in the US, where I am not allowed to vote.

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@mimi

And regarding this essential area which you covered and I've quoted from below - referring to a system which also restricts the ability of Americans to freely vote in nominations for the two 'allowable' (privately owned)'Trade-Off' parties, so that pre-selected candidates for public office can more easily be privately appointed to suit the most power-hungry willing to pay top dollar for direct control of public policy, no matter which candidate wins:

...I think the one thing that stays important for me is that nobody needs to know what you voted for or if you voted at all. In my mind the whole need to register yourself as something to vote at all is already a power tool to manipulate the population. I don't understand why it is necessary to register as something to be allowed to vote. In Germany you have the duty to register your mailing address with your city government. They send you the ballots (of course you can pick up a ballot too at the place you cast your vote) and you do what you want without it being 'registered' in ways that relate to your person. It's enough trouble to think about what to do, it's even more trouble to talk about it and it is unacceptable to have your voting record somewhere registered in ways that may cause repercussions on your personal life. ...

Yes, of course, you're painfully right, all of this is nuts! Can't have a secret ballot when you have to advertise which party you're voting for in the first place! Can't have democracy when the system itself, from the officially permissible Two Corporate-Party Trade-Off political 'choices' to voting machines, is owned by the wealthiest - and greediest - of the population!

And this is also a means to misrepresent the right of the public to form self-government as being something permitted and controlled by 'their betters', with voting rights often taken away from the most vulnerable groups likely to vote in their own/the public's self-interest, both by such as 'disenfranchising' by law the most-harassed-and-falsely-arrested Black Americans and blatantly, in despite of still-existing law, because TPTB can 'make electoral 'mistakes'/'accidentally do so' and get away with it, by abuse of power and a so-far public-accepted refusal to 'fix the mistakes' until 'next time' - a fix that never comes, every 'next time' - in a democracy where the powers of the people are only delegated to public offices (not as a personal gift to whoever happens to be holding that public office) in order that they may be used for the public good.

If voting did not matter, TPTB wouldn't go to such trouble to try to control/manipulate/alter/discard/prevent voting and votes potentially supporting a move toward any increase in/protection of the public good.

'Incrementalism', too long unrecognized as the creeping fascist hazard it's been implementing, has now accumulated effects and progressed toward disaster to the actual boiling point; many are realizing that it's time for the American public to get off the pot before their meat falls off their bones. And more have been beginning to hop to it, one way or another; I only hope they can muster the movement to save the whole mess from boiling dry and scorching the bottom out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGPx-ekqZEo&list=RDAGPx-ekqZEo&start_rad...

Stevie Ray Vaughan Tin Pan Alley (with Johnny Copeland)

We're there already; there's still an avoidable worse to come. Let's just not go there.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

mimi's picture

@Ellen North
thank you for this meaningful and haunting comment and thanks for the music video.

I think the point of no return has come and people will fight to save themselves and the planet. Somehow everyone feels that it can't go on. I am so inundated with reports about the way the planet, oceans, and humans are destroyed into a piles of garbage. Can't be accepted.
Must fight it. The whole world is not suicidal. The corporate overlords will have to understand it and they will be forced to change course.

Thanks, Ellen North. Don't give up. We are down, but not out.

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@mimi

You're certainly on an outstanding roll of outstanding commentary, so perhaps you're especially tuned to the universe and can feel the thud as the people of Earth jump out of that boiling-pot in hordes and prepare to join together in overturning it?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

mimi's picture

@Ellen North
housewife... Smile

I am just in a mood ...

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@mimi

We're all kinda desperate and there's a lot of depression going around... you're one of those helping some of us cope.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

WaterLily's picture

@thanatokephaloides Bhutan isn't the utopia it may appear to those who don't live there.

(Offered in the spirit of robust, and nuanced, conversation).

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gulfgal98's picture

You have such a wonderful way with words that give a strong voice to what so many people are thinking but cannot quite articulate. While I had been moving that way, Occupy helped to distill within me that the political scene that governs our lives was just theater. It was no clearer to me than when during one of our local Occupy rallies, a leader of the local Democratic party stood up and spoke to the crowd using Occupy language but plugging it into her narrative. A young student standing next to me asked who that woman was and I explained that the woman was with the local Democratic party. Immediately the student shook her head in disgust and said, "she does not get it."

Learning to talk and interact with others on human terms goes a long way towards bridging the artificial gulfs that the powers that be create between us. I have long said here and elsewhere that our commonality with each other is far greater than our differences. During the years I spent with the local Peace vigil, I learned just how true this was. Most of the people who stopped to speak with us were self described conservatives and yet we found that we had much common ground upon which to build alliances. I think many other people are figuring this out too.

When asked where I stand on issues, I have begun to describe myself as a humanist rather than a Democrat or a liberal or even a progressive. Those terms are far easier to co-op than saying we care about our fellow human beings.

Thank you for this wonderful essay.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Mark from Queens's picture

@gulfgal98
As you say people get it. And they can smell a rat, and that this system, girded by constant bullshit from a venal corporate media, is rotten to the core.

We'll keep fighting and hoping to enlighten more people. I think our chosen tact could help open up some passages for people to breath a little deeper and relax into the idea that they're being relentlessly lied to but have more comrades/allies than they've been lead to believe.

Always good to see you.

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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

ggersh's picture

Here is slimeball Matthews getting the narrative wrong
about RFK....the 60's when amerika lost it's heart.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/06/04/distorting-the-life-of-bobby-kennedy/

MSMBC and all of its cohorts are worse than Fox News
now that's an undertaking that took moving a mountain
to accomplish.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Mark from Queens's picture

@ggersh
the assassinations of 1968 being all CIA operations.

But here's one I never heard: Thomas Merton.

Man, that knocked me for a loop for a moment. Then I thought, "ah, yeah..."

At the time of his freak death from electrocution he was in SE Asia, had developed relationships with Buddhist monks and a reverence for their religion, and had become more and more critical of American racism, empire and war.

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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

Lookout's picture

When I was bitching about my voting options, someone asked me why I didn't just move. One of the reasons is that here in Mayberry people do still talk with each other. Caity is right the MSM has these people (mostly Trumpeteers) blind and ill-informed, but they also recognize that things are not right. The collapse of the empire is upon us and the scent of the impending fall is in the air. Almost to a person people agree the wars are insane and we should use those resources for good here and around the world.

I could host a confab if there is a real interest. If enough people were interested and able to attend, I would be willing to rent one of our 20 local camps. It would need to be in spring or fall before or after the camp season. The issue is I'm 2 hours from Atlanta or Birmingham, an hour from Chattanooga, 3 plus hours from Nashville...so it would be expensive for people just to get here, but maybe that's the case no matter where we might gather. At any rate, my offer stands to host such an event.

I appreciate your essay and ideas. All the best to you and your family.

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

@Lookout to save some pennies for that. Can we have some music?

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Lookout's picture

@randtntx

Tha Blakes live nearby and would play for us if they aren't making real money playing elsewhere.

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

Mark from Queens's picture

@Lookout
I can say from reading your descriptions of your place for two years now I've been enchanted with it and the surrounding area.

I wonder if folks would entertain making the trip? I'd consider it for sure. Is it within driving range of Jacksonville, FL/what would be the best scenario from NYC?

Bet we could round up a band too. Drummer here (though I don't think I'd be bringing a kit down with me). But getting to the point also in which I can almost passably strum a handful or so classic rock joints on the acoustic guitar for some late night campfire action. I'd also volunteer to help with the cooking.

This actually sounds wonderful.

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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

Lookout's picture

@Mark from Queens

...and we have several facilities to choose from depending on how many folks would like to come. It is a long drive from Jacksonville, 8 hours I would estimate.

Amtrack runs to Atlanta and Birmingham with a stop in Anniston (where they burnt the freedom riders bus). It is only an hour or so away, but the train is so expensive especially if you brought the family...which I hope you could do.

If there is real interest perhaps we could set up some sort of grant program for travel. I would be willing to donate the camp rental...so no lodging costs. As a retired teachers we couldn't handle the transportation for folks.

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

Mark from Queens's picture

@Lookout
I will PM you when I have some time to talk about it.

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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

In my "real world" there are already too many people, the system is in overshoot and keeps going, no one changes their behavior much because it is "their right" to do whatever they want in the world. Go on, every one just wants to feel good and I am a grouch, an ecological grouch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Catton_Jr.

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change

Overshoot was started during Catton’s three years in New Zealand, and completed after he returned to the US in 1973 to become Professor of Sociology at Washington State University. Overshoot was not published until 1980. During this period Catton, in collaboration with fellow scholar, Riley Dunlap, produced a series of influential articles on ecological issues.[3]

Overshoot continues to be a source of conceptual insight and existential inspiration regarding the ecological basis of human societies, especially to those who see a threat posed by peak oil, climate change, and other ecological pressures Catton either identified or anticipated. Years ahead of its time because of the clarity of formulation of a fully ecological paradigm, the book supplies scientific analysis.[citation needed]

existential inspiration? lol no, existential nihilism is more like me. heh

peace

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Mark from Queens's picture

@eyo
"I can do as I damn well please." Myopic, self-centered egotists who hide behind false and twisted notions of Liberty.

We've sold our souls for convenience. Conditioned to be soft, endlessly entertained, obedient somnambulants, sleepwalking on the consumer treadmill.

You made me hear "Too Many People" by Paul McCartney.

"Crisis, What Crisis?"

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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

Pluto's Republic's picture

...about paradigm shifts and big trends and collective thought. The sense that many people are feeling the same way inside, forming the same ideas. When that happens, people can be very creative and ideas can take on a life of their own. I lean intuitive, so I'm always watching out for that. I believe big change is close. Something with a lot of gravity has entered the collective space.

I truly believe it was really important that we stood together s c these false flags and the Russian Hoax and never faltered. We brought acceptable reality to a higher frequency, and influenced it, as well. I also agree that real community is vitally important right now and every effort should be made to establish bonds.

Speaking out and influencing others is mandatory for those living considered lives. That's what you're here for. A few years ago, I decided not to comment at all, unless I was willing to go all in on them, making them as worthwhile and insightful as I could — or at the very least, funny. Quite a few people here do the very same thing. It's enriching and very generous of everyone involved.

There is one perception I noticed that could be a fork in the road ahead. For some folks, a page was turned, or door was shut, politically — and that chapter of their political life was over for good. They saw what they saw, and it changed everything. They have moved forward and are trying to adapt to a new reality. Folks on the other side have been stoking the home fires. They know the political systems and believe they can regroup and influence change. They see their political aspirations within reach on the only established path to power.

These sides have an ideology in common, but their methodologies are incompatible.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Mark from Queens's picture

@Pluto's Republic
Could listen to you expound with such observations all night.

Thanks friend.

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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

snoopydawg's picture

@Pluto's Republic

"A few years ago, I decided not to comment at all, unless I was willing to go all in on them, making them as worthwhile and insightful as I could"

Your comments are always insightful and informative. I've learned a lot from your comments about things and issues. The CFR and other groups, but the one I liked the most was learning that it was Wilson who took propaganda to a whole new level. Most people thought it was Goering who made it up during WWII, but he said that he learned it from Wilson.

IMG_0842_1.JPG

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@snoopydawg

Those are kind words, but you set the bar around here. Many of your comments could be essays on their own. You enrich the essays where they are found.

As an aside, that CFR research pretty much changed everything for me. I'm still at it, and some of it is heartbreaking in the context of worthy protests or sincere political trust among the American people. None of it is a secret. It's not a theory, conspiracy or otherwise. That the key members of the CFR are the owners of the nation's media has simply allowed our defining reality to be overlooked and allowed the people making our most important decision to be unmentioned for 90 years.

Change in the US has always been a trivial pursuit. I don't have a place to put that.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
mimi's picture

@snoopydawg
I just saw on German TV. thought would be 'telling' something to many folks here about the complexity of how good and evil was dealt with inside the Goering family.

Albert Goering, brother of Hermann Goering

I heard about Albert Goering through this documentary for the first time and watched pretty much with jaws dropped and in silence. I can't find the original link for that German documentary I saw, online, and apparently there was another documentary about it as well. In any case at least the video in above link explains it a little and might interest you.

Gavin Esler investigates the story of Hermann Göring's lesser known brother Albert, who claimed he saved the lives of those threatened by Nazi persecution.

"He was always the antithesis of myself. He was not politically or militarily motivated; I was. He was melancholic and pessimistic, and I am an optimist. But he's not a bad fellow, Albert."

Hermann Göring was the most prominent Nazi to face prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials. He had been Hitler's successor and the second most powerful man in the Third Reich. Yet there was another Göring held by the Allies after the war, who in contrast was a complete mystery to his interrogators - Albert Göring, Hermann's younger brother.

Albert made some extraordinary claims. He said he had always been opposed to his brother's Nazi Party and, to the utter astonishment of his interrogators, stated he had saved the lives of countless people threatened by the regime, including Jews, sometimes with the help of Hermann himself.

Could it really be that Albert was the "Good Göring" he painted, or was he just another Nazi liar trying to evade judgement at Nuremberg?

Gavin Esler re-examines Albert's story to find out. Following the paper trail of historical documents which remain about him and through witness testimony, Gavin pieces together the life of this all-but forgotten Göring, and discovers more about the complex relationship he had with his brother Hermann.

Gavin travels to Germany where Albert Göring remains unknown to this day. He discovers Albert's story does not sit easily within the history of the period, challenging our sometimes simplistic definitions of good and evil.

A Kati Whitaker production for BBC Radio 4.

It makes sense to drag yourself through the Albert Goering Wikipedia Page If you have the nerves... to me it was worth learning about this 'family history' of the Goering brothers.

Just saying...
PS just about the existing documentaries made about it from the Wikipedia page:

Documentaries

Göring had become subject to a couple of film documentaries.
The first and most extensive one being The Real Albert Goering which produced by 3BM TV and broadcast in UK in 1998.

Roughly a decade later William Hastings Burke produced a documentary based on his book and in 2014 Véronique Lhorme's Le Dossier Albert Göring was broadcast on French TV.

In January 2016 the German TV channel Das Erste broadcast the docudrama Der gute Göring (The Good Göring) with Barnaby Metschurat as Albert Göring and Francis Fulton-Smith as his brother Hermann.[15]

A BBC Radio 4 documentary entitled "The Good Goering", also broadcast in January 2016, featured an investigation of the life of Albert Göring by journalist Gavin Esler.[16]

I think what I saw recently on German TV was a re-broadcast of the documentary broadcasted by ARD German TV in 2016, but I am not 100 percent sure. It just passed through my mind like an unforeseen thunderstorm and then I forgot afterwards, how the storm had started.

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@QMS ....I'm on a carolyn wonderland tear (binge)....but it fits.

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I agree about the diary thing. This place is more like a college class, where the instructor never showed up and the class decided to meet anyway. Or an editorial page, with talented feature writers, an editor that writes few editorials and an interactive letters to the editor section. Not diary.

I think we've been corralled. By this I mean like the old story about catching sheep. You start out by setting out a pile of food. The sheep get used to coming for food. You put up a section of fence. The sheep are a little spooked but they get used to it. You put up another section of fence. They get used to it too. Hey, free food. You put up a 3rd section of fence but the sheep can come and go,and food! Finally you put up the last section of fence with a gate, and keep the gate open and still put out the food until the sheep are accustomed to the set up. And one day, when the sheep are eating, you shut the gate. The propaganda keeps telling you there is no gate, and we can't think our way out of it.

We have been accustomed to a life where things we have taken for granted, banking, jobs, politics, government, safety net, education, health care have been things that have had 1, 2, 3 sections of fence around them. Lately the gatekeepers have been trying or succeeding in closing the gates. I have been coming to the conclusion that American capitalism is recognition of, and acting on, opportunities. The bad part is that todays capitalism feeds on seizing most of it's citizens opportunities.

So, from what you have written, I think most of the stuff we're being fed is just propaganda and advertising. But....some of it we believe. The myth part of America, the good parts that if they're not true, they ought to be. I feel you're right about the parties too. It's in the air, but we can't seem to make the leap out of it.

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@Snode can you feel (or recognize) the development of ideas transpiring? It is not only within but without,
as well. Near as I can tell. It matters.

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@QMS right. Like establishing the National Parks.....another name for commons. Of course we are always trying to dismantle the good things we built. We did get it right for a moment though. If more would recognize that, it would help. I have nothing against myths....if they're worth striving towards.

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@QMS

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@randtntx soul screaming righteousness. That's what I'm talking about (slang in the south).

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gulfgal98's picture

@randtntx I am going to check out more Carolyn Wonderland.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@gulfgal98 she puts on a good show, plays a mean guitar (and a surprising assortment of other instruments), and has an awesome voice.

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@QMS trying to become. Right now it feels like a meal that looked great but tasted like cardboard. And for the future, that's all there is to eat.

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@Snode thanks for the music.

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@Snode no cure for the appetite. Wink

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@Snode for me was the extent of the propaganda. Your description of it is nice. I remember when I would dutifully watch the McNeil-Lehrer report night after night with the intention of being an "informed" citizen. Inevitably, in every newscast, I would be astonished at the ineffectual, inept, and weak argument by the "liberal" spokesperson. It never occurred to me that that was intentional. Stupid on my part.
That was in the '80's.
Here we are 2018, and I thank Bernie, his opposition, MSNBC, and the rest of the media, for inadvertently showing me what a farce it all is.
I hope everyone doesn't take as long as I did because the planet will be zapped by then.
The one thing I know in my (osteoporotic) bones is that the propaganda is all encompassing, it blankets everything. Its like we're all submerged in a swamp of propaganda.
In flyover country the propaganda may be more difficult for people to see through than in NYC. There is a different culture. I'm not sure. I do think its the biggest obstacle to improving our situation.

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@randtntx I remember "The Weekly Reader" for kids, and it's topical propaganda (when we weren't ducking and covering), and how our system was the bestest, truest and goodest there was. We are infused with so much "truth" we almost don't know to question it.. I'm a little optimistic, because if not us, it'll be the kids that will confront the total dissociation of propaganda with reality. Hopefully they'll be smarter than us.

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@Snode @Snode into kids who are much smarter than I was at their age. A good number of them seem to know what's up. That makes me a bit more optimistic as well.

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Mark from Queens's picture

@Snode
We've been corralled for sure. By relentless propaganda and the false promise of mortgaging our happiness to a future date when we're in possession of x, y and z.

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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

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Mark from Queens I tend to experience the propaganda as a blitzkrieg rather than a corral. I'm always trying to find a bomb shelter.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Raggedy Ann's picture

@Snode
I often say we are in a prison with no bars. We are closing our borders to keep "others" out. What we, the people, are missing, IMHO, is that closing the borders can keep us in. That might be the goal. I have to believe the people will revolt before it's too late. I have placed confidence in the millennials. I plan to participate, should it come to that.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

who are raising young kids are often just plain exhausted. So hats off to you for putting together this fantastic essay. Once again, I'm reminded how glad I am this place is here.

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Mark from Queens's picture

@randtntx
Truth be told, I've been burning out with exhaustion for months now. The interrupted sleep, chronic tiredness and sheer exhaustion of juggling so many things to day all day for two babies is, as naive as it may sound, more than I imagined. Just these past few days I've begun to feel a little more relaxed and clearer-headed about it all. But that still doesn't make up for the chronic sleeplessness.

I'll simply say that it's good to be among you all again.

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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

@Mark from Queens @Mark from Queens I and many others know exactly what your'e talking about. Caring for two little ones is tough. Funny thing about it though, even with all the sleep deprivation and stress, it turns out to be a time that becomes some of the most cherished memories.

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That phrase is in the title of the Le Monde article by Bruno Latour, a French polymath.

Even though I have read 10 books by him on many subjects, I had to think about that phrase. "land deprived of people"

In the article it has the sentence about how the land is looking for people to care for it. In other words, the land deprived of people...

The article is about the spirit of revolution in 1968 but with the influx of immigrants all over the planet the sovereign state no longer can be a solution. And globalization is not a solution because there is no earth that can support it.

There is no common land, no common ground, for humans and non humans to negotiate.

The conservative solution of a flight back to an earlier time is not only impossible, but it is a disaster happening as we speak.

People without a land looking for land deprived of people

Thankfully, the month of May has come to an end, and with it any illusion that
May ’68 could be reenacted in period costumes. French production studios are
very clumsy when it comes to historical reconstructions, as the producers of TV
series know very well. The settings are too perfect, the collars too starched, the
voices too contemporary and the anachronisms so numerous that disbelief
cannot be suspended for a moment. So, what might be true for the screen is even
more so in politics, when people are looking for a replay of the wonderful times of
May ’68 while in the midst of the tragic situation today. Everything went wrong
in this 2018 remake of May: the ‘struggles’ didn’t ‘converge’ and there was no
‘revolutionary spirit’.

What happened, between then and now, is that the meaning of revolution
changed. What was driving students and workers fifty years ago, propelling them
towards the future, also drives those who, around the world today, imagine they
can return to an ethnically identified nation state. There is a revolutionary spirit,
yes indeed, but it is conservative revolution on an unprecedented scale, without
limits. The insolence of yesteryear is now on the extreme right!

To continue to celebrate ‘the spirit of ‘68’ with festivals and colloquia is to
repeat the mistake made in the thirties of battling against a known enemy while
there was another, much more serious, movement threatening to destroy
everything.

One way of summarizing the situation today is to say that on the one hand
there are people furious at being deprived of their land, and on the other a land
sadly deprived of people.

Journalists and commentators talk of ‘populism’ in order to describe this mad
scramble back to the protection of the Nation State. We see it happening in one
election after another: in Italy, Germany, even in France, and most notably in
Britain and the United States. The more a nation has profited from globalization,
the more it breaks violently from it—England and America leading the rest of the
world in this massive historical about-face. Of course, the word ‘people’ is in
‘populism’. As much as it might come as a surprise to those who still want to
celebrate the ‘spirit of May’, today’s problem is one of coming to terms with these
two toxic words, too often associated with reactionary thought: ‘people’ and
‘land’.

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mimi's picture

@DonMidwest
Latour and just wanted to say that it was worth doing so for me to better understand what he meant. So I encourage all to read it to the end. I post the rest of it and highlight what stuck out to me and what I can identify with. The article was by Peter Latour in "le Monde" from 6th of June 2018. Translated by Stephen Muecke. (Heh don't blame me for that translation from French into English)
Here is the rest...

Progressives accuse populists of wanting to go back to land conceived of as an identity that protects and comforts. Yet the great paradox is that the progressives have as little ground to walk on as the populists. There are all literally without earth.
What’s worse is that they are dimly aware of this, and that makes them even more irate.

Progressives know very well that the indefinite horizon of globalization will now come up against ‘planetary limits’, as we are happy to call them. So progress has nowhere to go to. As for the populists, how could they believe for a moment longer in the viability of these newly recreated Nation States, the tail-ends of gone ancient history: the British Empire? Padania? France in the fifties? ‘Great Again’ America? The Austro-Hungarian Empire?
Really? They know very well that these shelters against the storm will not guarantee survival.

Just like the progressives, the populists are all anxious about not finding a solid
base for their projects.
These are the people deprived of ground. Neither is able to come up with a political vision that is the slightest bit realistic. This is the reason the public sphere has become so crude, slipping into what has naively been calleded ‘post-truth’. Without a material world underfoot, how can any program be developed, and how can it be given a firm empirical base.

What is strange about the current political situation is that everyone is aware that the pervasive question is one of finding a ground to live on with other migrants coming from all over. It is as if besides these peoples without land, there exists a land waiting for people that are able to inhabit it and look after it. It’s easy to understand populists are right to demand a protective base, but that they are wrong to look for it in national identity. And it’s easy to understand that progressives are right to want access to the whole wide world, but that they are wrong to confuse the world with the globe of globalization. It’s all happening as if a new wicked universality had replaced the former: humans migrating everywhere are impatiently stamping their feet as they wait for a livable ground.

There is a return to questions of land, terroir, territory, zones to be defended, peoples, and even quite material questions to do with food, transport, construction and denergy. There is also research into different property laws, without forgetting the new struggles of ‘autochthonous’ peoples, or the extraordinary proliferation of books on the inventiveness of trees, plants, mushrooms, germs or wolves: all this diverse wave of interest is surely a sign of the embedding of the terrestrial, well and truly, in the common consciousness.

Yes, but the thing is,this terrestrial idea is not a representation shared by all. It is not a common ground where peoples can recognise themselves politic ally as such.

It is not as attractive as the figure of the Nation State towards which those
with their doubts about globalization are fleeing in despair. So we can now see
that the issue is not to replay May ’68 as a bearer of ideals that are arguable, dated
and ambiguous, but rather to deploy the same energy, fifty years later, in order to
deflect the conservative revolution from the tragedy it is preparing for us.

May be for too many their territory they try to live on is not their territory they can identify with as their home. May be one would need to understand the meaning of having a home, a homeland and why these days those are not identity based entities anymore that offer a cultural uniform group an emotional shelter as belonging to a group of people with their own identity markers.

Gosh I don't have the vocabulary. I hope you still understand what I am trying to say. To have the feeling one has a home - what is that home exactly? We suffer, if we don't have it, but we don't have the land where we could find it. Ok, I am getting into spaghetti-style confusion and have to shut up.

Thanks for the article, DonMidwest.

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Anja Geitz's picture

that directly relates to your essay, I could only do it justice face to face. But alas, my plans to go back to New York to visit won't be any time soon, but when I do, I will definitely PM you.

In the meantime, I've been thinking of putting together some essays that speak to this. Regardless if my ideas relate to an obviously conventional political theme, I believe our communal well being is political in nature in a very socially conscious way.

Those that try and control us may have a stranglehold on the official narrative, but as long as we keep writing, as long as we keep advocating for what is right, as long as we personally connect and build communities, in our real lives as well as our virtual lives (this dual relationship is KEY) I believe the sheer numbers on our side will be our weapons of defense.

Thank you so much for your thoughts and encouragement on this!

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Anja Geitz So right, zoe.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

mhagle's picture

end of the comments. All wonderful and thought-provoking. Thanks to you all.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo