I dig your version of NPR, Flipper, which gets me to thinking... Mein Gott, looking at the trials and tribs of Pacifica radio the other day, holy shite, the Left really is its own firing squad when you come down to it. The factions at Pacifica Radio (including Democracy Now, KPFA/K, WBAI, etc.) would rather fight each other for precious clique righteousness, and hate each others guts, than unite against anything like a common enemy or for a common positive cause. Google it! (It's depressing!)
The Left in the USA is, for all purposes, over. I don't mean the ideas of personal freedom, anti-imperialism, and human rights -- which almost every one of my many Libertarian friends agrees with me 100% on. Many so-called "Tea Partiers" are really recovering Rightists who are pissed off with their own straightjackets. The old paradigm is idiotic and dying, thrash as it might. The Left and Right concepts need to be hauled into the streets, doused with a flamethrower and rebooted. I have as many if not more friends who are Recovering Right (Libertarian, etc.) as Recovering Left (Couterpunch? Rizla?). I voted for Ron Paul, not agreeing with everything he ever wrote in some flyer 20 years ago, but feeling with all my heart that this was the one honest man who spoke the truth, who hated the war and loved the Constitution, and who represented me, and holy shite, did the leftist spears fly my way. They still do, just like my vote for Nader. Thou shalt not f*ck with our mainstream orthodoxy!
Goethe: "Men are divided by their opinions but unified by their outlooks." Great words! As in... I don't have to agree with your every opinion... but is your idea of a beautiful world pretty similar to mine? I'd rather have an observant religious neighbor who was tolerant and respectful and friendly, who could be invited to a party and agree to disagree, than a room full of Pacifica f*ck-wads questioning my political correctness, and bad neighbors to boot! (I lived in SF once, I know the archetype very well...). My perfect world doesn't mean everyone thinks like me.... it means we tolerate and respect each other, behave with dignity, and try not to hurt people all over the place and pollute the living space, i.e. planet, to all hell. Opinions? The more, the merrier. I'll take my Libertarian friends over the leftists I used to know any day. Libertarians usually party better, also.
I try to never forget that spooks and their underworld connections tend to hover around any of these so-called major world events, like Ukriane... (hard to call them that major when radiation is poisoning the Pacific Ocean, a rather more pressing problem.) Cui bono? I don't see a plus here for the Ukrainians, the Russians, or anyone other than trouble-makers, underworld thugs, and arms dealers, k-ching. And Mr. State, I can't make head or tail of Go, either. But I will continue to try. I can get the gist of the I Ching without belonging to the culture, maybe it's like that, but takes more work.
I still think Chess would be a better model for creative engagement/conflict than what our government has been doing since 1949 or so. So far, it looks like thug Putin is a far better Chess player than thug Obama. Big old rant, thanks for indulging.
