My train wreck. On uniting anger with love, truth with hope

JackRiddler

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Mon Feb-23-04 04:34 PM
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My train wreck. On uniting anger with love, truth with hope

Edited on Mon Feb-23-04 04:52 PM by JackRiddler

This is prompted but is not a direct response to a thread William Pitt started today, in which he joked that those arguing the many Dean-Kerry-Nader angles need to have a train wreck as a reality check. Perhaps his wish came true, since I have been involved in those arguments (just like you, Bill, all the way...), and as it happens, I really had a train wreck (an emotional one, in the real world) yesterday.

It reminded me one can spend too much time at places like DU - constantly trying to prove oneself right about this question or that. So I agree as to the possible salutory effects of train wrecks.

I think the Dean-Kerry-Nader discussion is important, and I refuse to forget what has happened or to simply "move on." But by now everyone here has made their points, and there are bigger fish to fry than just what happens at DU.

DU has and will continue to serve its purpose of helping to vitalize and cause ferment. But everyone committed to DU who is not by now out there, in the streets and workplaces and meeting rooms, organizing real-world activities to challenge and change the system, whether these activities are driven by specific issues (my preference) or by an election campaign, just hasn't got the message.

I hope to see a unity of anger with love, and of truth with hope. The conflicts here often boil down to that.

There are those who value truth unvarnished - truth as they see it, of course - and who are often on the attack, often angry. They are outraged by a world of lies, they can hurt feelings, and they can go on jeremiads. I am among them. We can be essential in removing illusions that hold back and deceive people into making false choices. We can wear people down by arguing that a given solution is false. What's your alternative, damn it? is what we often hear. We may not have the solution, but they try to define the problem. But we may discover we don't even believe a solution is possible.

There are others, those who simply hope to see things get better and who want to fight for that, period. Who refuse to believe it may not be possible (it may be). Who are ready to compromise with what's called the pragmatic view (it isn't always). Who often push the desire for unity towards a requirement of uniformity. They want a solution, even if it doesn't fit the problem, and they do enormous work in reaching out and building for solutions. They have the can-do attitude and they want simple lines to be drawn and off we go. As contradictory and great as the people of this nation at their best.

One small testimony to the difficulties in reconciling the two views is in the complex of rules and procedures on this site - which at their worst can tend to a progressive totalism, with proposals for yet more rules like, "Should Nader supporters be banned? Should undecideds be banned? Should nonvoters be banned? Should everyone we should want to actually reach and influence be banned, leaving this as an echo chamber?"

The MODS are great people and I admire their work, fortitude and patience. I don't know who could have done a better job, they are the only mods we have and I thank them. They have always had to react to what the members do, to the problems that arise, and are forced to develop varieties of modus vivendi. They have found some solutions that I like and others that I don't, as one might expect.

I'm trying to define a problem here. I want to see the anger united with love, and truth with hope. I give no solution, I am just hoping myself for a reconciliation between these contradictions on a higher level, something better than the lowest common denominator or let's ban this-that-them until DU is reduced to a purely organizational entity, a way of passing memos.

This will be my last debate post here for a while... I hope it leaves a good seed, not a bad one, and I invite you to give your thoughts on this problem. For me there's plenty to do in my chosen part of the whole: the struggle for 9/11 Truth disclosure which may or may not be the skeleton key to a different future.

For all of you, I hope there is plenty to do in your political path than just posting here or unfreeping polls. If you haen't already (and I suspect many of you haven't) get out to your neighbors. Make copies of the articles you like and distribute them. Start and get involved with reading groups and network among groups, then get on into larger actions. We are ourselves, our society has become, and we fight a Beast, all at once. The transformation back to civilization is perilous. Its necessity translates into personal and political revolution, a word I hope no one here misinterprets. Be prepared to be wrong, be prepared to reach out to people you never thought you would, be prepared for experiences diametrically opposite to the normality of the last 50 years in America, irreversible things, things completely unknown to any of us. Know who you trust, keep preparing to make your stand, and do your best to keep reaching. We the People may be lost after all - the beast will not surrender or go away, and we ourselves will not stop being Beast, simply because we vote it so, though vote we should. We may be heading for our Tiananmen Square, whatever form it takes. And when that time comes, we must want to make sure the soldiers aren't shooting, but joining. We are all the people, or we are nothing.