Washblog

The world is fractal, and collectively we are a holographic representation of it.

"When" is in the past, when things we see now were set in motion; it is now, with unavoidable mandate from the universe to make decisions (even if we decide to do nothing); it is in the future when we will be confronted with everything all over again through a lens partly of our own making, as a consequence of those decisions.

One of the biggest (perhaps "momentous" is a better qualifier?) decisions we make is to see ourselves, each other, and the world differently. Some points in time are better/easier/more auspicious... hell... demand that we reconsider and rethink our relationship with the world in this manner more than others.

I don't think the "left", whatever it is, may, or in the future have been, has ever been single issue unless that issue is so grandiose as to be of little practical value. But I think we are at a point where because of events, technology, and maybe sheer critical mass a different worldview and paradigm for interacting with each other is taking hold.

The rest of this is a rant/free verse/somethingorother in the vague mode of seabos (hopefully with more conventional grammar and syntax), of one holographic perspective of this fractal world we live in. "Single issue"? "Lost?" Not on your life!

Comments... you know what good comments would be? Posts of news reports, press releases, URLs concerning the myriad groups which are doing things and not giving a damn whether the "leaders" are out in front. I'll bet there's some group somewhere working on each and every thing below.

I never want to see anything reduced to a slogan ever again. Now is the time to create a slogan so large, so encompassing, that it is unusable, collapsing into a black hole and taking all other slogans with it.

Every time I see that picture of Clousing I am so angry and sad and frustrated. Simple? A slogan? Not on your life!

Mr. Pelz: When will Clousing and Watada, and the others, be free?

Ms. Sheary, congratulations on your re-election by acclamation. Now tell me: When will Clousing and Watada be free?

When will veterans have adequate health care?

When will veterans demand that all Americans have adequate health care?

When will veterans and their families stop shopping at Walmart?

When will veterans and their families demand that something be done about the strip malls and cheap sprawl which spring up around military bases destroying farmland, wildlife habitat and destroying the very quality of life we are all fighting to preserve?

When will big corporations stop exporting cluster bombs, particularly low-quality/yield ones where unexploded bomblets then litter the landscape, continuing to kill and maim for years to come?

I went to crappy public schools. When are we going to have educational access for all, regardless of age?

When will we all be able to attend at least a few classes at a major public university, for free, for credit?

When will public universities become institutions for increasing the collective knowledge and intellectual wealth of our communities, instead of publicly subsidized clubs for elites raised with a worldview that their entitlement is granted by God?

When will public universities again become institutions of learning, rather than government-subsidized think tanks and research labs for the enrichment of privately-owned businesses?

When will taxpayer funded reasearch and infrastructure again become part of the public commons?

When will corporations and government start investing in their own worker training?

When will corporations and government start hiring based on merit and an ability to learn?

When will we move beyond economic fundamentalism?

When will the vanishing middle class grow up and quit asking for sympathy when it drowns itself in debt getting degrees to prove that yes it is better and more entitled than the people who choose not to?

When will people start learning as communities, and teaching each other?

When will the people who choose to join the military quit pretending that everyone who didn't asked for their protection or sacrifice?

When will we have meaningful, respected and rewarded bootstrap public service which doesn't involved killing people or destroying the planet?

When will the National Guard stop being a haven for double-dippers and be reformed as the "well regulated militia" which the Constitution intended?

When will policing, fire protection, management of elections, maintenance of our public utilities and so forth become accessible to the people as public service?

When will the revolving door between the military, government and industry stop?

When will people in the military and government start talking about a smaller, more efficient military and government?

When will they start making it happen?

When will the tax reformers finally agree on the facts of what our tax burden is?

When will we finally have the guts to ask what the relationship is between money spent and education?

When will K-12 schools again be teaching kids to read, write and think?

When will tax reformers accept government regulations as a form of taxation?

When will someone start studying the relationship between government regulations (e.g. not health or education-related) and the cost of government itself (e.g. health or education)?

When will decisions on governance be made on the basis of public good rather than political expediency or an identified funding source?

When will we realize that "government by the people for the people" is not a problem which can ultimately be solved by technology?

When will people start getting more involved as a result?

When will we have simple voting systems which an ordinary reasonable person can comprehend and which give us collective faith in the outcome of elections?

When will technology systems start evolving which respect and support the premise that governance and society itself is ultimately a people problem?

When will military and government employees and their families stop voting to tax urban liberals?

When will military and government employees and their families stop making right wing megachurches and televangelists rich?

When will we accept that there have been people living here for thousands of years?

When will they get our respect?

When will we accept that there is no "untrammelled wilderness"?

When will we stop using that as an excuse for waste and ruin?

When will we start recognizing and rewarding wise use of the earth by those who live there?

When will we stop "protecting" portions of the earth for an elite few?

When will those same elites stop sacrificing or allowing sacrifice of portions of the earth in the name of political or economic expediency?

When will we realize that government and corporate rights to "free speech" do not extend to manufacturing consent?

When will we acknowledge our collective human right to walk all of the earth freely, so long as we do it lightly?

When will we accept that nature need not be harmed by our presence if we accept that we are part of nature?

When will we start moving towards sustainable communities?

When will those sustainable communities finally be able to achieve a sustainable State?

When will we take the answers we have to these questions and start working on a sustainable World?

When will we finally get leaders who realize that it isn't divisive to ask questions like this: that it has to happen and is happening?