Tired.

Post #40,852 by bepatient 6/1/02 3:56:51 PM Reply	Tired. Yep...everybody that thinks the Fed should have its power curbed is a racist. Brilliant Ash. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #40,859 by Ashton 6/1/02 4:50:41 PM Reply	But that's the Trouble with simplistic slogans - no? (And your inane "summary" sucks as much as the slogan which initiated this exchange BTW.) Ideally - we don't need no stinkin Nanny! from the local cop to Mayor to County to State to Fed (but ... we'd better have Something like the UN, til the species grows up a Lot). Ideally. But many of us aren't adults, so ... All I suggested is: the Red Herring of 'States Rights' is as odious as that of, 'bad-ol Fed Govmint'. Both phrases have 0 information content. The System is corrupted by the concentration of $$, which purchase manipulative power: at very least the power to buy the propaganda which erects phony issues and prevents any actual debate occurring. Just recall the last travesty (and hosted by avuncular Lehrer of PBS yet!) Too absurd even to be laughable as "debate". Dunno IF.. getting the airwaves back / taking away the incentive for outright purchase of reps (to pay their Ad bills, or they won't Be reps) - is a possible reform, or is nearly enough to restore the feel of a civilization. But it sure Couldn't Hurt. And at least the idea is inherently non-partisan (unless one believes that One of our "two" near-identical parties is somehow more corrupt than the other?) WTF - more idiotic polar-opposite slogans sure as hell won't 'work', just preserve the same old useless BS, blared incessantly just before Selections. That => further declining participation, for the obvious reason that, one's vote is currently useless. If you believe in trend-line analysis. (Hell You gotta believe in That ;-) A. Hey.. Anything would have to be superior to the present boring morass of unrelieved lying slogans - created by smarmy assholes educated to be just like Billy. Which is to say: barely literate. And certainly in-credible.
Post #40,875 by Brandioch 6/1/02 7:48:44 PM Reply	Jingoism. Slogans. Whatever. They're all used to indicate the point at which rational thought has stopped. That's why I have zero respect (and a ton of disrespect) for anyone resorting to them. Instead of discussing an issue, it's all about labeling the other side and slapping a sound bite on your position (whether it is accurate or not). Why is that? Are we afraid that our position and belief might NOT hold up under scruteny? Is it because we don't want to take the time to evaluate the other's position to see if it might be a better position than our's? And this is NOT all right/wrong or black/white or binary as some people like to say. It is possible for someone to have a better solution to a problem than your's without you being wrong. But you'll NEVER know that if you NEVER look at their position. Particularly if you try to dismiss them with a label or jingo.
Post #40,877 by Ashton 6/1/02 8:33:01 PM Reply	No Slogans! - would be the more enlightened Way, but in the interim: at lease a few pithy, hopefully thought-evocative catch-phrases appear to be necessary - merely to begin Anything, beyond the range of one-to-one actual conversation. (After all, our internal "metaphor processing center" operates via association; it may be more 'holographic' than some simplistic look-up table, but - association is the rubric. I think - peering inwards..) 'Shorthand' evidently works -- it is when dialogue is replaced! by mere duelling-phrases -- that the Babel which IS our present defunct System, drives out all reasoning. And this, we have to recall - has been a pattern from the earliest days in Murica. Our newspapers have always been full of innuendo, slogans Tippecanoe and Tyler Too ... 2440 or Fight! ... Remember the Maine! and ever with lots of !!! So 'we' Like shouting over talking, and simplistic over the difficult search for the possibly simple. That can't be bred-out immediately, merely for seeing its relationship to easing the usurpation of power by the primitive$ amongst us. I dunno if Honest Slogans! is an oxymoron, but it Has to be better than States Rights! - let the locals* fuck you over, not them Meanies from Outta State!!* {sigh} Once a culture begins to allow unpunished Language Murder.. it may be curtains anyway. Disrespect for Language guarantees Babel. :( (Sympathy for er France AND Quebec - I Know What They Mean! re mongrelization for Ad-bucks and Disneyization) Ashton as to 'local' - currently, we be fighting off such as: a foreign Corp-consortium hoping to plop a 100-room Hotel smack in the middle of bucolic countryside, with weekly 'Events' to fill up the 2-lane with bored Yuppies from SF (while depleting an iffy water-table, pushing septic conditions extant) yada yada. Yes, it Does begin 'locally' - but 'it' best not end there.

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