I Don't Need No Steeenking Content!
Just kidding.
Here's my manifesto.
IF YOU ARE NOT FOCUSING ON THE MOST VULNERABLE OF US, YOU'RE GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.
We have been conditioned. It's not just Daily Kos, or Trump supporters or what have you, media, all that. We have ALL been conditioned.
Now I'm not much of a conformist or wannabe leader. So I'm just going to share what I'm doing, for meself, and how the conditioning aspect ties in with the compassion aspect.
If you are missing Daily Kos it isn't because of the "community" there. It's because of the software. There is nothing like it on the innertubes. It is addictive. If you really want to understand Markos, study what the software does to your mind. You can find Markos in that software (for good or ill, I'm not making value judgments). It is much more powerful than threats of banning, trolling, bullying or even inspiration.
Oh if only that power could be used for good!
Just kidding. I have enough of my own work to do to waste time critiquing Markos.
What makes Bernie Sanders so magnetizing to so many of us is his combination of integrity and compassion. One without the other wouldn't work for conditioned sophisticates such as myself who are getting pretty competent at recognizing spin.
For me, Bernie is a master teacher and I am learning things from him that may seem obvious on the facts, but mixed with actualized compassion which never falters, the lesson is vibrant and strengthening to the spirit.
That combination of integrity and compassion is a potent antidote to the kinds of conditioning we all live under in this modern world.
Intellectualizing too much on the one hand, or handwringing ranting on the other doesn't move me forward, I've found. Combining knowledge and emotion, on the other hand, does move me forward. Sometimes it's just an inch or even half an inch, but that is so much better than the endless backwards sprinting I've subjected myself to in the past.
Speaking only for myself, I feel the trauma of last night was caused by trepidation that I won't have Bernie to lead the way in this revolution if he doesn't gain the power that becoming President would endow. So I attach my mind to that conditioning, to that worry, and that is painful. When I come to my senses and let go of all that, I am fine again - the trepidation is still there but I understand it is only a projection from my mind, not reality.
In a long winded fashion, I am trying to communicate that rationality alone isn't going to reveal the full potential of this revolution we are all feeling in our individual ways.
It really is time to think big, it's time to take the leap. Woo hoo.
Comments
Well played, indeed.
Carry a burning candle and share the light.
.
I don't need to make no steeeenking comment!
Beat in the USA.
This is awesome!
It does not have to apply to the election or the other place.
This is great advice for life. You are a rock kitty star!
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
It's a different kind of caucus.
And I for one need a different kind of caucus.
Beat in the USA.
:)
Rationality
Well said! No it will not work alone and ironically that is rationale.
Great essay NPK
Thank you, well said!
Bernie was never leading the way
The way was led by G20 protesters and after that the occupy movement. Bernie is simply surfing the ever growing wave of awareness and anger that the game is rigged. This didn't start with him and it never could have ended with him. The "power" that a single office provides is nowhere near enough to make change on teh scales we need to see change.
In the truly bigger picture we need to fill the oval office, 320 some odd seats in the House and Senate along with turning over a few red seats to populist blue, a few supreme court justices, and lord only knows how many state and local offices not to mention party committee memberships across the country. That's the real scale of this battle and in that scale no single defeat or victory is all that meaningful.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
If you mean, by 'surfing',
he is riding the wave begun earlier by protesters and occupy, I would agree to a certain point. I believe he is doing more than just surfing though, he is also constructing the formation forward.
I certainly didn't mean to imply that he was coasting
I absolutely agree that he has shown us the way forward... that a people powered campaign can win even at the POTUS level (much less the zillion down-ticket races). He's also shown us the roadblocks we must overcome... like the DNC itself and the need to crowd-source a replacement for VAN.
My point was that this movement did not and cannot being and end with one individual.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
I didn't think so
Thank you for making it perfectly clear.
Bernie is providing a voice
to the G20 protesters and Occupy. The constant criticism of Occupy was that it was leaderless. What the public was clamoring for was someone who could speak out on their behalf. Bernie is not surfing that wave because he was always there with these groups. He just had the visibility and the conscience to take up that mantle. He has said from the beginning, that it is not about him, it is about us. That is why it is important he continue his campaign and get the word out about these issues until the last state has voted.
I am of the very firm belief that we cannot get change using the electoral process. Most people have it backwards and think that if we work through the political process we can make change. IMO, that is the least effective way to make change. Most politicians by their very nature are the guardians of the status quo. A good part of that is due to the way our political process operates which the oligarchs seek to maintain the status quo by keeping us divided using race, religion, gender, or other wedge issues. The politicians only react to social change.
So how do we get change? Real change comes from the ground up via social movements. So we must develop a social movement first. There is a vast undercurrent of anger towards the system. The time is ripe for a massive social movement to effect change. The question is what direction will it go?
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
It is not the "content"
rather it is the framework in which that content is accessed.
Every person must and does transcend information in order to reconstruct the world as an act of the mind.
With active participation of reason, or blind acquiescence.
Greetings to you, Nightprowlkitty!
Peace and love to you, reader.
Boy did you hit the nail on the head
with the comment about missing the platform more than the community. You got me off and running. Great read to kick off the day with, thanks.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
So that's what I was smelling
this morning. A stinking good diary.
Progressive to the bone.