I sometimes take it as a creative challenge to explain complicated issues in ways that he can understand. On the drive to school yesterday, we talked about what it means to say that 'history doesn't repeat himself, but it does rhyme alot'. "bear, bear, bear, bear" and "bear, care, dare, fare, hair" Then we talked about how my dad was raising a young family back in the 1930s, times were hard, because the banks had suddenly run out of money and the country went into a depression, and many people l...

A young man. He keeps his eyes open to watch TV. His eyes seem to be listening intently when his wife talks about what their new baby is doing. His hand on occasional will squeeze a yes or a no. On good days, with the right wide-awake-drugs, he might have a few hours of seeming wide awake, and will work to vocalize. His baby gets lots of attention from the nurses on the floor. His wife is amazing. She and the baby are there most of the day, every day. She brushes his teeth, checks his eye medi...

Even if you know about the coup in Chile, even if you know about Argentina's runaway inflation, even if you know about Guatanamo, even if you knew about the CIA experiments on unwilling people with drugs and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, even if you mourned the response in New Orleans, fear the proliferation of Blackwater, revile the neocons and neoliberalism..read it anyway. Naomi Klein puts it all together in an amazing flow. AND -- what was done to Chile and Argentina is BEING DONE TO US ...

I am sorry that you had this sad news, but underneath your sorrow you are glad that at least you and yours have known such a beautiful bond. I believe that deep grief is always a sign of a deep and beautiful gratitude. My son is about to enter 2nd grade, and I want him to start a new school also, because at the moment, the school that he is assigned to, supposedly one of the best in the city, seems to be full of "test scores and authoritarian regimes", practically discourages harmonious social...

An eloquent now in GD bemoans the current state: "Another “dogs with stars and elected ponies’ show” today, all with straight faces. Another bunch of multi-millionaires commenting on it, all with straight faces...Who believes those who say they believe? Who says the truth without calculating the risk to their jobs, to their way of life?" It got me to thinking once again about The Passive American. The Passive American. Witness the evolution of American childhood and see how our behavior is bei...

Whatever good, well-meaning ideas get adopted, the bad guys co-opt them, distort, deplete, complicate, turn inside out, and use them for their own purposes. Want a program to help poor women support their kids? They turn it into an excuse to allow the police to rummage through dresser drawers looking for drugs and boyfriend's clothing. Want free education for all? They turn it into a tool of indoctrination and authoritarianism -- a way to instill fear, to homogenize the consumers, and to devel...

What is a good citizen? Many people I know who aren't politically knowledgeable (including many Republicans) nonetheless think it's important to vote. So elections become popularity contests or "personality politics", vague undercurrents of biases and identities magnified and further distorted by the media to its own advantage. Voting is an obligation like brushing your teeth. Even worse, an underlying skepticism or suspicion is directed at those who are more involved or who want to ruffle feat...

I love your posts, Orwellian_ghost. And "The Corporation" was worth seeing. Consider also looking hard at the interplay between corporatism and schooling -- not just the incursions of commercialism, but the historical roots and the intentional similarities in structure. TWELVE years out of each person's life. While schools do teach the mechanics of reading for a couple of years, the main lesson that is taught is obedience to the system. It is a 12 year sentence in a factory or prison, and g...

Our health care system is usually faulted for those who DON'T get treated, or who go bankrupt because of medical bills, etc. These things are terrible. But another especially cruel aspect of American health care is what it imposes on those who are facing terminal illness. How would you want to spend your last few months on Earth? When health care is tied to a particular job -- throughout that particular stage of life -- you lose your freedom when it matters most. Every hour is not the same. Pe...

ought to read the jaw-dropping and eye-opening book "The Underground History of American Education". Ever ask yourself: "why is our society so passive in the face of authority and authoritarianism?" Are you very aware of such aspects of American society as - the class system - the propaganda system - the 'media bubble' (is there also a 'school bubble'?) - corporatist takeover of government - the march toward totalitarianism (of the corporate capitalist variety)? If so, this book will give you a...

I'm halfway through 'Underground History'. It's a fascinating perspective. The very structure of schools -- to a great extent, regardless of actual content -- has acclimated us to the insidious expansion of fascism and top-down, centralized power. Where once a few years of schooling prepared people for a lifetime of independent thought and independent livelihoods, kids today in the better schools are prepped to be serfs-in-suits with laptops and powerpoint presentations, and in the inferior scho...

Today, a microcosm: a single floor in a single workplace. Seven years ago, their salaries were steadily growing, and gas was less than $1.50. "I keep the heat off in the winter and wear sweaters and blankets, and leave the car parked in the driveway all weekend." Since then, pay cuts, almost no raises, gas is around $2.90, and co-pays have climbed. "He doesn't want anyone to know this but he had to file for bankruptcy." A little shift in the economy, a little shift in management styles, a l...

The stifling small-town world of yesterday, for all of its many faults, had one advantage in that you largely knew "who you were dealing with" and pretenders could be identified. Prejudice against newcomers was both a tragedy and a defense. Left-wing groups have a dilemma: how to be open to newcomers while not being open to destruction by infiltrators who mean harm. I see it often. Local activist groups become hotbeds of discontent and anger when a deceptive individual begins to spread lies or ...

I haven't posted at DU for a while mostly because I've got 1 or 2 hours per day of "my time" and I've been digging into my ancestry a bit, and into the ancestry for a couple of friends of mine, also. But DU, you're not far from my mind. I read the Greatest page just about every day but haven't been in a position to post. Pick up one thing in the universe and you'll find it's hitched to everything else. I want to share with you where the genealogy has taken me. I don't care about being connect...

Before logging on to DU this morning, I flip on the TV for a few minutes, and start to be lulled into soft thinking about Gerald Ford. Awww, of all the Republican presidents in recent history, he was the best, I am thinking. At least he was reasonable. Yes, he pardoned Nixon, but at least he also pardoned the draft dodgers. He was, the FOX news caster says regretfully, "his own man". CNN touts its upcoming special about Ford via Larry King. Aha! It's 7:15 AM! I can flip to Public Access TV and ...

Young man, I didn't know you. I know your girlfriend's father quite well, though. More than a coworker, he's a friend or a "comrade", as we've commiserated over the horrendous decline of our government and even attended a protest or two together. Six or eight months ago, he started talking to me about you. "My daughter is dating this young man; he just got out of boot camp. He comes to pick her up, and we talk. You know what? I really like him." he said. "He's a great young man. So polite. He ju...

What ought to be common knowledge isn't, or James Baker would be skating on thin ice on charges of treason and fraud. I hope everyone at DU is aware of the ground-breaking report by Naomi Klein in the November 2004 issue of the Nation, that Baker was trying to convert the power of the US government into $1 billion of Saudi money for his very own Carlyle group. At that very minute he was trying to use the leverage of his role as "special envoy" of the United States in charge of negotiating away I...

After reading the AMAZING set of graphs in the DU research thread "", which I HIGHLY recommend, I am pondering whether the "ownership society" much touted by Bush may well be ultimately an undesirable goal even if it were achievable across a broad section of the U.S. population. We all enjoy the thought of a luxury life funded by investments, but ultimately the income derived from capital depends somewhere, somehow on labor. But a graph at the end of that thread predicts that the "pie" of US na...

I fault people to the extent of their malicious intent or their '7 deadly sins' but no further -- never for gullibility. A child is born gullible and some people never grow out of that, some may not even have the mind to get beyond it, and some may mistakenly believe that innocence of worldview is as valuable as innocence of intent or action. Some may have burdens and scars too deep to take on any more emotional conflict, to accept the pain that comes with reshaping your mind in a way that con...

or, just mixed up: hence, "lostnfound". The last 5 years are wearing on me. How I long for clarity of worldview.

Struck up a conversation with a woman whose husband is in Iraq. She's a wonderful, graceful young lady with intelligent eyes and a gentle attitude towards those around her. She says she appreciates that I "support the troops" -- because I pitched in with a few dollars to help ship some care packages to some soldiers. I feel sorry for these people so far from home, in the heat, in the fear, sent there by an idiotic president owned by certain greedy and extreme factions in our society. Recently ...

There's something called "Channel One" which is a way for advertisers to target the captive audience in classrooms. It's TV screens which are offered free to schools that agree to ensure that kids are present and watching them for so many minutes per day. Among other things, they have ads encouraging kids to join the Army. This is taking up school time. Textbooks are a new target for advertisers. Once free of ads, they now include advertisements as well as corporate-produced, industry-specific ...

Poet/activist Drew Dellinger from "A COMEDY SPECIAL : Behind every terrorist there is a Bush" which was a live recording of a benefit for the International Inquiry into 9-11. (It also had David Rovics singing: Who would Jesus bomb?, and if you happen to want to hear the whole special, you can find it at (Link)) The poem seems to border on paranoid delusions at time, but the third stanza reminds me of the Paul Simon song 'The Boy in the Bubble' ('These are the days of miracle and wonder..'). We...

Five years of an affront to all that matters. Retributions to the good guys wear on us. The news has exploded into confusion...not the TV news, which is all fluff and propaganda, all the time...but the news of the Internet. The Beast in Washington gets uglier every day. I long for simple news: indictments, resignation, an end to the war. I WISH the Congressman Jefferson story could be simply "one corrupt politician stealing $100K for himself got caught". Good, go to jail, do not pass go. Doub...

Texas passed on 6/1/2003, becoming effective 9/1/2003. It loosened regulations for electronic surveillance, and took away recourse for customers who might want to sue the carrier. At the time, I thought that it was probably a sign that the Bush Administration was embarking on a massive domestic spying program under the Patriot Act, and that telecoms were nervous about getting sued. No recourse for the one who is being monitored -- the bill states that: (g) A computer trespasser or a user, agg...

The vulnerability of humans he bursts out of piano class maybe 6 a big boy's confident eyes scan the empty room and melt into tears Out follows the piano teacher saying this is Peter and he's upset. will you watch him his mom will be here shortly your mom will be here don't worry I try to talk to him but his mind is mother-focused then she arrives he shouts and runs MOM!! Tears just like a dam bursting like a boy out of piano class or a levee breaking and 6 year old boys left wandering to unf...

I've seen many stories here about the freeper neighbor or the rightwingers waking up, and they are so encouraging to hear. Often when I read those, I feel guilty for not making a daily effort to 'mix with' the rightwingers more. I know that every rightwinger 'converted' might end up sprinkling 'seeds of doubt' among 5 or 10 of their friends. I try to talk about the state of the country to the few rightwingers I , but I generally don't feel successful in raising their awareness. Maybe I'm too ex...

An email I had received said that the Democratic mayor and governor were incompetent and corrupt and the Bush did everything he could, etc... It was from a close relative. I worked hard to gather all the links to try to send a somewhat cohesive email, which follows. First, my email: Blame Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin, fine. People on the left don't feel as much of a need to believe that their leaders are blame-free. Or godlike. Or divinely directed. Could Blanco or Nagin have done more? ...

The objectification of a childhood. I don't know him now, and I didn't know him then. Or did I? Looking back on it now, I have an image in my mind of his innocence spilling out all over the stage, spilling out through the TV screen into our living rooms, all over America. Before he had a sense of an identity. There he was, just 5, and black, and given this grandiose stage on which to expand, with screaming fans all around. "What is this fantasy world into which I have landed?" "Is this all about...

My former secretary, a conservative Christian, and I agree on one thing: television programming is almost all garbage. Materialistic, shallow, degrading garbage. We are on opposite sides most of the time, but we both wrote letters to fight against media consolidation. Neither of us likes 25 minutes of commercials in every hour; we both cringe at the idea that shows like 'Fear Factor' find an audience and we wish that serial killers hadn't become ever-present on the Discovery Channel. Does she k...