Important Reminders

Why People Don't Change Their Minds, Facts or Not: a study.

Important for me to remember, and everyone.

Someone Else's Teal Deer.

For instance, I want everybody to have healthcare. I want lazy people to have healthcare. I want stupid people to have healthcare. I want drug addicts to have healthcare. I want bums who refuse to work even when given the opportunity to have healthcare. I’m willing to pay for that with my taxes, because I want to live in a society where it doesn’t matter how much of a loser you are, if you need medical care you can get it. And not just by crowding up an emergency room that should be dedicated exclusively to helping people in emergencies.

You probably don’t agree with that, and that’s fine. That’s an expansion of the American Dream, and would involve new commitments we haven’t made before. But the commitment we’ve made to the working class since the 1940s is something that we should both support and be willing to fight for, whether we are liberal or conservative. We should both be willing to fight for the American Dream. And we should agree that anybody trying to steal that dream from us is to be resisted, not defended.

Sow it everywhere.

Occupied America Welcomes You.

These links are stolen from this post, and well... watch them. I think they're Good.



And



And Some Curious and Oh yeah, Apathy's always been a problem! Scenarios and Some predictable scoffing at the freaking out by the Super-Rich over being called on their bullshit.

And now, I tell you why I don't mind that the #OccupyWallStreet (et al) movement doesn't seem to have a coherent message. You see, neither has the Left, for any real amount of time now. Even through the Obama campaign, the message was pretty much, "Something's Gotta happen now/Something's Gotta Give," with no indication of what that Something ought to be. Because we all had different ideas, and part of the character of the left is at least trying to respect the differences in those ideas, at least as far as what we ought to focus on.

The problem with that, while it is ideologically correct, is that it makes it damn hard to have anything to sink your teeth into, and get excited about.

Enter #OccupyWallStreet, the Left-in-Microcosm: confused, unfocused, desperate, eager, willing to be loud, and ultimately wanting it to be over so we can go home and get back to doing things we'll enjoy. The point isn't to be the message. It's to hold up the problem so that the responses will generate something we can stand behind, and shout to the rooftops. It's a roundabout way to get at the generation of a message, but has anything else worked? And if this doesn't work, it's just one more try, and at least a wonderfully visible one.

For my part, I'll continue to send pizza and bagels to the protesters, and hope it continues-- at least, until it's no longer needed.