I have lots of ideas for stories, but lack the least bit of motivation just now. Too lazy? Perhaps. I’m home alone with my daughter while my son and wife are off gallivanting around various college campuses as he prepares for the biggest decision in his life up to now: which schools to apply to.
Me? I’m just hoping that in 18 months or so we still have a world worth living in. But that’s me, the eternal pessimist.
After all, perhaps Bush’s Iran attack will be called off on account of no generals wanting to fight it. Maybe Al Gore will have declared his candidacy so I can stop worrying about Hillary getting a free pass to the Democratic nomination. And its possible that I could win the lottery so I can afford sending my wonderful, brilliant kid to the college he deserves and not the community college we can afford. All those could happen.
I’m just not betting on any of them.
So what’s on your pessimistic (or optimistic) mind this afternoon/evening?
I understand where you are coming from and have had similar pessimism about the future for our children.I have seven children four of them grown and gone and I have just returned with two daughters who are graduating next year and looking for colleges like your boy.We went to Northwestern, University of Chicago and University of Michigan before returning home to Indiana after visiting Indiana U.After complaining for years about the tuition and fees for my older children ( My eldest is 31),I was not prepared for the sticker shock at the three Universities we went to.If they do want to go to these schools, it will have to be a combination of scholarship or student loans.
What bothers me though is that even after graduation, the prospects for a solid career appear to be dimming unless the economies of countries like India and China reach a point where the costs of doing business there is within striking distance of our own.
But then, given the Bush administration’s profligate spending, the dollar may well be devalued which will be the equivalent of bringing the Chinese and Indian currencies to near parity with the dollar.That way we can all go the supermarket and pay $100 for a 5 lb.bag of potatoes.
Republicans — the party of the dumbing down of America.
Only a man totally disconnected from the problems and concerns of ordinary citizens could have taken a good country and society like ours and devastated it materially, morally and in every other way as this modern day Nero has done.After having visited our brand of tyranny by proxy around the world we are enjoying the fruits of blowback within our own borders. I dread for the future of our children when the world hates Americans more than any other people.
Bush is the perfect Ugly American to preside over the liquidation of our Empire.
Klatoo, my personal sense about the rise of GWB is that a truly ‘good country and society’ wouldn’t have allowed it. He’d be a poor nobody, spouting his messianic nonsense on a street corner somewhere, if he weren’t already in prison or dead.
Bush is in the position he’s in precisely because his entire family have taken advantage of what’s already corrupt & distorted in us, as a nation & profitted by it. He’s just continuing the tradition.
As soon as we look beyond the ‘problem’ of Bush into our problems — as a nation born in murder, thriving on bloodshed & suffering from the days of Columbus onward — we’ll start getting somewhere. Until then, we’re only waiting for newer, better Bushes to appear & take their mantle (political party aside).
He’s not the source, he’s a symptom.
Very well put, WW. I couldn’t agree more. We do have to address more the root causes rather than putting a metaphorical band aid on the symptom and hoping the wound will go away. The problem, as I see it, is that there needs to be a fundamental shake up of the whole political-economic status quo, which I don’t currently happening short of all out revolution. But then, stranger things have been known to happen…
And that fundamental shake up does have to start with the people and not the politicians. The politicians and their actions are only an outgrowth of either our(as in the general public) lack of interest in what they are really doing or our misguided belief that politicians once elected will do the right thing if they have no input from the public. Even with input from the general public they more often than not do not do the right thing but pander to and sell out to corporate interests and not ‘our’ interests and what is truly good for the well being of everyone in this country.
You write:
“And that fundamental shake up does have to start with the people…”
BUT…those “people” are almost totally informed by Fox News, CNN, and the networks.
Game, set and match until there is MEDIA reform.
BIG time.
AG
Your comment may be the most succinctly insightful thing I think I’ve ever read on any blog, period. Someone will probably flame you for it, LOL.
When I talked about a good country and society, I was talking about the millions of people from all walks of life whose hearts are in the right place and who teach children, attend to the sick and the elderly and provide essential services without regard to the person’s status, national origin, religion etc. In that interpretation I see a way out for all of us.Our people, at least a majority of us, are caring, forgiving people and are appalled by what Bush has done.They are the ones who can rightfully lay claim to what our society represents.
Wilderness Wench, you totally captured what I have been thinking about alot lately – that a political solution, while necessary, will not be sufficient to put us on the right track. And a political solution might not even be possible until we solve other problems. I just know that our whole culture of greed and disconnection from one another is what has given Bushco the opportunity for exploitation – its not something that they created all by themselves.
comprehending where one is. Painful and difficult though it may be, the people of the US must educate themselves and acknowledge and confront these unpleasant truths if they are to modernize and move forward. Merely applying different and more technologically advanced lipsticks to the same pig does not reduce its porcine nature.
YES, wilderness wench!!!
“He’s not the source, he’s a symptom.”
YES!!!
Precisely.
And…we are not GOING to look at ourselves until we take back the media. Until then, we look at a horribly distorted picture.
Too bad.
I think we need a real revolution in order to do this, and it will not happen until the system is so broken that people start to get REALLY hungry.
LOTS of people.
I saw a sign during the Hispanic marches last week.
“We are America’s future.”
SO many resonances there.
Here on this thread people are bemoaning the fact that “our way of life” has been so badly damaged by BushCo.
The words “our way of life”…the AMERICAN way of life…are shorthand for a hologram of something that does not exist anymore. Something that NEVER existed for large proportion of our population.
Father Knows Best America.
Mommy staying home baking while Daddy goes to work and brings home the bacon and the kiddies kavort underneath the spreading mushroom cloud.
WHITE kiddies.
Wif freckles!!!
Nope.
BushCo’s REAL objective. The objective of the entire super-corporate world?
One World.
From Sri Lanka to Syracuse.
ALL working for minimum wage.
All serving…and servicing…the corporate machine.
At the minimum POSSIBLE wage. The one that allows you to eat and reproduce but not have time to rebel.
The way the members of most immigrant groups like Mexicans are now treated here. God FORBID they get an education and the vote!!! KEEP ’em wetbacks.
Thge corporate version of the old “Keep ’em barefoot and pregnant”?
Keep ’em in cheap shoes and broke.
The future of America is Minimum Wage America.
The United States of Semi-Poverty.
And/or…these people, if treated correctly, ARE the future of America.
One day real soon it may dawn on the American people that we have to dial back our expectations and join the rest of the people of the world in some sort of equitable, universal share plan.
And then…then those marchers WILL be ‘”The future of America”.
Until then…the “future” of America is PAST.
SO over.
Later…
AG
the whole system we have seems to be designed to perpetuate what we have now. Can we really educate enough to avoid just a better version of Bush? Unfortunately I have my doubts unless we face some form of cataclysmic disaster such as being nuked (unlikely), having our economy disintegrate, or seeing irrefutabl evidence that one of our elections was rigged.
I’m optimistic that somewhere, someone who cares about the country and the people will emerge and bring us out of this. I have to be optimistic about it. The other choice is not one I care for.
College visits are not that exciting. To me, they paint far too ideal a picture of what the college is actually like. As a current student, it’s much less impressive than I was initially led to believe.
Nevertheless, it’s been a beautiful day in Philadelphia today, and I think I’ve finally gotten over my gastoenteritis (I think that’s what some health experts of dKos identified me as having), so I can finally enjoy some real food again!
After having been trained by my previous children, I was better prepared to get soe insights during this visit.I particularly liked a senior at Northwestern U. who talked realistically to my daughters who were interested in tennis and crosscountry along with academic work in biomedical engineering and medicine.I agree that when you throw in the admission people, it becomes a dry recitation of rosy facts about the school.The seniors, though, did a very good job of connecting with my youngsters.Although I must admit that one of them had all the valley girl lingo and hand gestures combined with relentless gum chewing.
Yeah, there is a lot more of that at college than I had originally thought there would be. Highly discouraging.
or the lack of it. I worry about drought, the number of people watering lawns and filling up swimming pools here in Colorado. I’m concerned about aquifers, crops and my morning shower. I’m wonder where my water will come from when we no longer pump it over the mountains to get to us.
And I’m worried about what choices my daugher will not have and limitations Americans are putting on her future. I’m pissed that Colorado is running a candidate for governor who does not support women’s rights to control their own bodies. And I care even less for those who tell me to vote for him no matter what.
And everything else you just said.
Lack of water and wildfires here in the high desert of Northern New Mexico.
On the otherhand, it IS spring and nature is coming back to life and there are two exquisite bluebirds in the bird bath right now.
If you’re worried about water don’t read any articles on how the craze for bottled water is drying up streams, natural springs and what that is doing to the environment and the ground beneath and around it..pretty scary.
lack of water will lead to wars in our lifetime, but probably not in the US.
Oh yeah, another source of interesting controversy has been MSOC’s newly-found fame. I may be in the minority here (I don’t know), but I have to agree with Meteor Blades over at Daily Kos when he says that she’s being used as a tool.
Of course she is. Anyone with a glimmer of recognition as to how the mainstream media now operates as an integral part of our political process & the interests this ultimately serves, can see this quite clearly.
However, if she’s as astute & thoughtful as she’s given credit for, she understands this & makes her choice accordingly — perhaps with a view to levelling the field all by herself.
Meteor Blades is a community elder & an activist of decades’ standing, whose perceptions I value highly. The elders know, folks.
My thought too. After reading the story my feeling was that the WaPo was trying to paint us all as the angry, crazy left – certainly not worth taking seriously, and potentially one step away from being domestic threats to national security.
If you don’t believe me, go back to the story and read just the quotes of other bloggers that the WaPo cites. Despite the happiness all around earlier today, we’ve NOT been done any favors.
If they wanted to paint us as serious people, they’d have come over here, LOL, or at least selected thoughtful and obscenity-free comments.
The piece did NOT make me want to come out to my family as a liberal blogger, which I thought was rather telling.
Does any blogger really care what the WP says?
Those who blog do so, in large part, because the mainstream media does not speak for them, or to them.
I couldn’t care less what they said, or the blogger response to it. Those who read our blogs don’t care either.
My only concern is that we not be perceived by the public as another “shifty” little group of extremists, like the administration has done with some environmental groups and the Quakers, for example. Marginalize the messengers and the message never gets heard. And they can sweep up the “extremists” when martial law is declared after the terror response that some group will launch after we attack Iran. It’s not hard to foresee where things may well end up… 🙁
And why would we expect the wapo to change anyway? It is part of the corporate mind control media. Forget it.
if anyone understands the mood, it is me. And it seems like getting thru it is the tough part. Hugs to you and your family.
My son and his family left this morning to return to SF and left me to rake the food bits off of the kitchen floor. I had forgotten how much debris small children create while eating. I also did two loads of dishes and an equal number of wash loads to restore our household status quo.
I will admit that I didn’t cry when they left. Six days with a three year old and a one year old were quite enough noise for me. The 3-year-old has hit the age where he repeats everything at least 25 times. For example, at the top of his lungs, “I want appules wit’ peanut budder!” He would continue his repetitive demand even as the food was being prepared before his very eyes just in case I forgot his need, I guess. The one-year-old, being pre-verbal, just cried for an hour or so whenever life was too discomforting.
The house is silent now and I feel a little guilty about liking it that way.
Well, if we’re headed toward the type of national hell we can all see coming, I’m dedicated to living each day in the most meaningful, satisfying way possible.
This does not mean parking myself in front of the tube with a trough of beer & a few pounds of fried, food-like items. This means actual sustenance: intellectual, psychic, spiritual; gathering what I can to take me through what’s in store, be it good or ill.
(Note: yes, I do live in a trailer & am missing a number of teeth, so I’m hereby absolved of all charges of elitism.)
😉
Comments and recomendations would be greatly appreciated.
http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2006/4/15/19580/3495
Have a wonderful Holiday everybody!
Thank you for your diary [great one] and happy holiday to you too.
I called my friend in Illinois and proceeded to complain about one thing or the other about the up and coming war in Iran was my rant today. She finally said to me, stop it you are making yourself sick. What would you do if you could to stop this madness, she asked. I said I would organize a demonstration of a million or so ppl in the mall of DC and once in front of the WH and the pentagon have all ppl turn their backs and chant in unison “for shame, for shame, for shame”. There would not be any posters or banners or anything such as that or any language written on any article of clothing to say anything against this administration. All I could see is that all the news meadia getting this message around the world and we would stand up and do the same, no matter what country we were in. Just to dream this was wonderful..If there were any bad hecklers or anything such as this, we would take care of them ourselves. Can you dream along with me on this one!!!???
If we do such a thing in Iran, I am afraid we wont have to worry about anything but saving our butts, collectively, when the whole worlds come for us. What a disaster!
We will not have to worry about collecting our soc. sec. or medicare or anything like that. What else damning can I say that this beautiful day than this.
Now, I am happy to be alive and doing well. For how long is yet to be determined. If any of you fail to see/hear from me in …..oh lets say about a week or so, I am in either the hosptial, sick or dead or in Getmo! Either way, I am a goner…:o)
Anyhow, happy Easter to each of you…hugs and best wishes…with all my love and admiration to my friends here on Boomantribune.com
IF we do Iran, looks like we’ll be doing that ALONE.
Huffpost links to article in Scotsman
Blair refuses to back Iran strike Let’s just focus this will prove out to be true.
If it doesn’t, with US troops streteched to breaking in Iraq and Afghanistan what army will Rummy deploy after an air attack is the $trillion question. But Andy Berkowitz Truthdig has the answer,
U.S. to Send One Troop to Iran
Oh good heavens, that Andy is a hoot! Thanks for the link. I enjoyed the humor. hugs…and the comments were funny, too…
Well, of course it’s tax weekend, so we all get to comtemplate the unbelievable expenditure on the military and its weaponry, 20% of which expenditure could dramatically change the fabric and function of our entire country (to the detriment of defense contractors, of course, unless such a realignment of expenditures would actually force them to diversify). And there’s too many other items to contemplate without rationing the issues: don’t drive yourself to distraction over more than one horrific problem, per day.
I always dress in black, until someone comes up with something darker.
Please call them what they are: “offence” contractors and highly offensive they are too. Our country does not need anywhere near the amount of expenditure on military hardware etc unless it intends to attack others.
for introducing the word “gallivanate” into my vocabulary, Steven. Share the sentiment on a potential presidential candidate 🙂
BTW, not sure if you caught DiFi’s LA times’ article on Iran. It was diaried on dkos here. But another with some action thoughts and items may be worth it. Jerome’s post was very informative.
Have fun college shopping, but must admit that i was surprised to hear that your son was of college going age!
That is a sign up on my dining room wall. Some of you have seen it. It is there for a reason. These past five years have turned me into a very angry, frustrated cynical woman. This is not the person I want to be. This is not the person I once was. But I am the one that has allowed these feelings in, to take me into despair at times. I fight it but with the daily assault on all our souls it is hard not to cave in.
I refuse to give up. I refuse to allow the criminals in the White House, the street corner, the back alley, the halls of congress to scare me into submission. I am the only one that can change the way I feel. So, just for today, I will fight with all my heart and soul to stay optimistic, to be happy and do my best to be a better human being. Namaste!