Of the states that give more money than they get, 78% are Democratic.
NOW who's redistributing wealth unfairly?
Details here.
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- Elizabeth Barrette (
ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
- Mood:
angry
POLITICS: States that give, states that get
Of the states that give more money than they get, 78% are Democratic.
NOW who's redistributing wealth unfairly?
Details here.
-
Poetry Fishbowl Open!
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Content notes for "The Little Shadow Across the Grass"
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Poetry Fishbowl Open!
Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Reality is stranger than fiction." I will be checking this page periodically throughout…
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Content notes for "The Little Shadow Across the Grass"
These are the content notes for " The Little Shadow Across the Grass." Read about the Grunge. The Ghost Dance was meant to " roll…
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Setting notes for "The Little Shadow Across the Grass"
These are the setting notes for " The Little Shadow Across the Grass." Read about the Blackfeet Reservation. This map shows Glacier…
October 31 2008, 00:38:30 UTC 12 years ago
(I have to say: the way we're going about politics is not helping. We do not need Two Americas. Comments like that posted first to this entry make me want to take my toys and my pennies and go home. I actually have been sitting on my hands for days now, trying to decide whether I was brave enough to respond to anything in
Try this...
October 31 2008, 02:00:56 UTC 12 years ago
You identify what's dysfunctional. You think about what "community" means to you. You figure out what you want and need from community. Then you identify what's required to get you from where you are to where you want to be. You break that down into steps, and you start doing one or more things that will move you in the direction you want to go. With community, the key steps typically include:
* Find some other people who want a community enough to make some sacrifices to manifest it.
* Learn some new people skills; talking to elders is a good way because they often remember pre-wreckage communities.
* Do the hard things. Work past disagreements. Talk about uncomfortable things. Hey ... here we are!
* Find some place(s) where community can gather to do things as a group.
It has taken us over ten years to build a Pagan community in central Illinois. HARD WORK. There are times I want to tear my hair out. But then there are times when it just ... soars. If it weren't for community, we'd be off the end of our rope: the only thing currently bringing regular money into the household is our new housemate paying rent. Other than that it's my parents giving us money and what I bring freelancing. Assuming anyone ever pays me for the work I do; I've had two markets this year cheat me out of several hundred dollars apiece.
>> And what destroyed ours? <<
A lot of things contributed to that. Some we did to ourselves -- women were so desperate to be equal, to be free, that we went a little too far. Our young people got bored in the farms and small towns; they hungered for the bright lights and big cities, and often discovered that those things couldn't feed the hunger after all. The American Dream teaches independence -- we wanted our own houses, our private vehicles. We forgot that part of what made America great was cooperation like the barn raisings and, heck, the Boston Tea Party.
Some of it was done to us. Companies found it convenient to have a mobile workforce, so they put a lot of pressure on people to cut community ties and move where the jobs were. And the jobs went overseas or evaporated, and the companies said, "Sorry, we don't need you anymore." Our elders are forced out of the workplace and pressured into retirement communities and other segregated living; they are deprived of the opportunity to give back their wisdom, watch the children, do the things elders were biologically created for. And people wither when they aren't needed.
Something this terrible doesn't have a single cause. It's gestalt, zeitgeist ... excuse me, I have to go stomp down the one German-speaking character in my head.