Dodd’s Despair Matches My Own!
This Reuter’s photograph of despairing Senator Chris Dodd mirrors my own despair today about most things in this world.
His despair has been caused by an inability to get regulations through which would have regulated the U.S. banking and financial industries, the ones that caused the catastrophic Global Financial Crisis.
The lobbyists have had a field day as they seek to allow banks and financial institutions and their leaders to do again whatever they like regardless of the damage they have already caused or will cause again.
‘Too Big To Fail’ has become the catch cry of the bastards who are running our world for their own selfish benefit. The people who have lost their jobs and/or houses, well…who cares about them? Not the wealthy, that’s for sure. They will make lots of money out of the situation, you know, buy houses at fire sale prices then sell when the market recovers.
The failure of achieving real financial regulation in the U.S. has highlighted the abject failure that is American democracy and, sadly, many of the European democracies. The moral of the story: the political process can be bought if you have enough money.
Buy a politician is the new game in town and those politicians who have some morals and concern about their country and the world are swept aside by the conscienceless rabble who willingly serve their corporate masters whose only interest is making mega-profits.
The only solution to this problem and many of the problems which beset out world lies with the people. When they reach a certain tipping point, then a revolution may begin, one that could purge the world of all the Robber Barons and the Militarists and the Evangelicals.
But don’t hold your breath while you’re waiting for this to happen. Just sit back, watch American Idol, drink your Budweiser beer and perhaps puff on a joint or two!
Friends, the world we live in is a dirty place. Even religion is dirty and corrupt.
I wish I could create a clean, peaceful environment in which to live, for me and my friends.
But the world always intrudes!
This is a smokescreen by Dodd….a face-saving gesture especially when you consider he is about to retire….so he no longer needs Wall Street’s blood money to get elected. Robert Reich says it like it is:
http://robertreich.org/post/371113369/whos-killing-financial-reform
Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, scolded Wall Street representatives at a hearing Thursday for sending “an army of lobbyists whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms” needed by the public. “The fact is,” Dodd said, “I am frustrated, and so are the American people.” He charged that Wall Street’s intransigence was the reason for Congress’s failure to pass any bill to regulate the Street. “The refusal of large financial firms to work constructively with Congress on this effort borders on insulting to the American people who have lost so much in this crisis.”
In other words, it isn’t Congress’s fault. It isn’t the Senate Banking Committee’s fault. It certainly isn’t Dodd’s fault. The reason more than a year has passed since the biggest bailout in the history of the world and nothing has been done to prevent a repeat performance — even as the biggest banks are doling out more than $30 billion of bonuses, even as Goldman Sachs is awarding its big traders $16 billion in bonuses (more than the $13 billion Goldman collected from taxpayers via the bailout of AIG), even as AIG itself is handing out bonuses — the reason is … what, exactly, Senator? Because the Street has sent an army of lobbyists to Capitol Hill?
Call me old fashioned, but I thought Congress was in charge of passing legislation, not Wall Street.
Dodd left out the most telling detail, of course. Wall Street is where the campaign money is. Dodd of all people knows that. He’s been on the receiving end of lots of it over the years.
Wall Street firms and their executives have been uniquely generous to both political parties, emerging recently as one of the largest benefactors of the Democratic Party. Between November 2008 and November 2009, Wall Street firms and executives handed out $42 million to lawmakers, mostly to members of the House and Senate banking committees and House and Senate leaders. During the 2008 elections, Wall Street showered Democratic candidates with well over $88 million and Republicans with over $67 million, putting the Street right up there with the insurance industry as among the nation’s largest equal-opportunity donors…………….
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David G Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 10:31 am
Morocco, whether Dodd is sincere or not really doesn’t matter. Democracy doesn’t work anymore assuming it ever did. Big money buys anything and everything.
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Morocco Bama Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 11:59 am
You don’t believe his insincerity has something to do with the failure of Democracy? Per your post, you said:
His despair has been caused by an inability to get regulations through which would have regulated the U.S. banking and financial industries, the ones that caused the catastrophic Global Financial Crisis.
I posted an article supporting my position that Congress and the Lobbyists are in bed together and Dodd’s despair is a charade to save face.
Yes, I agree, the whole thing’s dead (Democracy and all that Jazz) and to expect this dead horse to produce a viable solution to itself is insanity.
There will be blood……but whose????
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Grace Reply:
March 13th, 2010 at 6:00 am
“Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner”
Matt Taiibbi points out that there are – right now – on the books, enough laws to prevent the kind of financial speculation that has been going on.
The problem is not the laws, it’s the system.
Karl Marx pointed out in the 19th century that if capitalists can’t profit from productive investment, they will turn to speculation, and the ensuing bubbles will prove that no laws can stop them.
We are seeing it AGAIN, and to believe that this can be fixed with more laws is not learning from history.
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Whose blood, Morocco? That of the little people, of course. It has always been thus.
Regarding Dodd’s visage, I feel that his rather open face does show despair. Of course, it might be that his mistress knocked him back for a naughty or his shares have dropped in value or his wife has run off with a ventriloquist. Who would know?
Wagelaborer, I agree, it is the system. The same system has been in operation for 10,000 years. The strong exploit the weak. The religious exploit the gullible. The wealthy never know when enough is enough. There’s a sucker born every minute. Power corrupts. Humans are capable of great good and even greater evil. You can’t pull your socks up if you haven’t got them on.
What a circus life is!
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I can see why DG can relate to that expression, on what is Chris Dodd’s face. We should end the Fed, and Congress should never have gone along with President Clinton, and abolished the Glass Steagall Act, thus unleashing the banks, to invest as they please, with others’ hard-earned money.
As far as Dodd, good riddance to another Jew, whose loyalty to the Jewish government of Israel is greater than it has been to the USA. Check out his voting record.
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The problem is greater than we may understand. Our very way of life is violent. Just EATING makes you a participant in the destruction of the Earth. It doesn’t matter meat eater or vegan. It is the owning and hoarding. A system that creates surpluses and famines. Soldiers and slaves. Our very Everything is antithetical – to a life lived in harmony with the Earth. Our leaders including all Congress members and Senators have benefitted from the corruption. Sure, I believe that Dodd is in genuine despair. Anyone with a remote conscience would feel despair at the turn of events. Patrick Kennedy channeled the rage yesterday too.
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What would Dodd be despairing about, Grace, considering what has just been presented about him? If he is despaired, it is for the vain, selfish reasons David reports….not because his paymasters won’t cooperate.
In regards to the rest of your comment, I find this interesting:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/04/the-scourge-of-agriculture/3120/
The Scourge of Agriculture
Richard Manning, who has written extensively about culture, agriculture, and the environment, believes that “noble savage” isn’t a particularly satisfying way to describe tribal peoples. “It’s more complicated than that,” he says. However, in his new book, Against the Grain: How Agriculture Hijacked Civilization, he makes the case that tribes—particularly hunter-gatherer tribes—live in a way that is fundamentally sustainable, whereas the social system that developed with the advent of agriculture has spawned inequality and famine, and has had an immense environmental impact in a period of time (about 10,000 years) that pales in comparison to the history of human life on the planet (about 4 million years). While arguments against agriculture have gained steam in the past few decades, they have centered mostly on the debate over twentieth-century developments like the Green Revolution or genetically modified crops. Manning’s scope is much broader than that, and extends to the very origin of agricultural societies. He argues that a major change took place among humans when we discovered agriculture—and began to move toward an ethos of dominance based on the practice of domestication.
“Domestication is a human-driven evolution,” Manning writes, “a fundamental shift in which human selection exerts enough pressure on the wild plant that it is visibly and irreversibly changed, its genes altered.” Paradoxically, Manning explains, domestication helped create a society that was even more affected by the vagaries of nature than hunter-gatherer societies. This is because the kind of agriculture we came to practice was tied to a catastrophic relationship with the earth: the clearing of large tracts of land to put a single crop under till. That practice began to destroy diversity—the fundamental strength of all natural systems.
In Against the Grain, Manning looks beyond the environmental effects of agriculture and civilization, which have already been well documented, and explores what these inventions have done to the quality of human life on the planet. Agriculture gave us surplus, surplus gave us wealth, and wealth gave us hierarchies that necessarily created an underclass. “If we are to seek ways in which humans differ from all other species, this dichotomy [between rich and poor] would head the list,” Manning writes. “Evolution does not equip us to deal with abundance.” The industrial agriculture showcased in twentieth-century America—fueled by government subsidy and the “dumping” of surplus grain in foreign markets and characterized by the shift toward processed food—has resulted in the obesity of the developed world and the malnutrition of the developing one. Readers may find Manning’s proposed solutions to the problems caused by agriculture to be surprising. While one might expect him to encourage civilization to abandon agriculture in favor of something more “noble,” in this interview he suggests that we should embrace it. In fact, the key to combating the problems we’ve created through agriculture lies in utilizing the very environmental manipulations we’ve relied on to domesticate our environment—but in different ways.
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Grace Reply:
March 13th, 2010 at 5:38 am
I respect David’s insight into Dodd’s demeanor. I personally find it slightly more convincing than Joe Biden’s well-tanned, polished smily protest of Israel’s tresspasses.
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Thanks for the link, MB. I will read on. I find his solution interesting and leaves me wanting to know more..
“Readers may find Manning’s proposed solutions to the problems caused by agriculture to be surprising. While one might expect him to encourage civilization to abandon agriculture in favor of something more “noble,” in this interview he suggests that we should embrace it. In fact, the key to combating the problems we’ve created through agriculture lies in utilizing the very environmental manipulations we’ve relied on to domesticate our environment—but in different ways.”
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So, Grace, you’re saying Dodd is an honest man with a conscience? You also claim to despise the injustice being visited upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli Government. Please reconcile what I am pasting below with your backing of the assertion that Dodd is despaired? Oh, and as far as I can tell, Therese, Dodd is not Jewish…although his father was a U.S. Senator and lead Trial Counsel at Nuremberg.
http://www.pjvoice.com/v25/25303dodd.aspx
On April 24th, Yom Hazikaron 2007, Dodd spoke to the National Jewish Democratic Council’s Washington Policy Conference. Micah Green introduced him as a person “who embodies the ideals, not just of the democratic party, but the ideals of helping the unfortunate and helping those in need.” Adler felt “that leadership, that commitment to the values of the Democratic Party, and I would add, Jewish values is what makes me so proud to introduce my friend.”
Israel: An island of hopefulness in a sea of despair.
I am glad to be before you this morning to share some thoughts on national policy and on issues affecting all of us in our country and in the world in which we live.
Today, Israel remains an island of openness in a sea of despair, obviously, as all of us know painfully. The success belongs to all of the Israeli people and is more lasting than anything that has happened on the battlefields, as many there had been over the years. Israel continues to show its goodness to the world. That its politics are open and vibrant, that its markets are free and fair, and that its laws hold for weak and strong, and that its might is only for its self-defense.
We also know how much of the world prefers ideology to fact, of course. How many choose to make themselves blind to Israel’s virtues because they prefer to identify someone as a “scapegoat” to advance their own political causes.
For six decades, America has been a good friend to Israel and I’m here today to claim my part in that friendship over the years, and deeply proud of it, 32 years in the United States Congress, 26 in the United States Senate.
I can not promise you easy answers on the dangers that Israel and the United States faces today, but I can promise one small and vital thing: I am a man who believes his own eyes. No one will ever have to persuade me of Israel’s goodness, of its deep meaning, its necessity that I already know, and I learned young in a very significant ways.
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Grace Reply:
March 13th, 2010 at 7:51 am
Well, when you put it that way..
“and I would add, Jewish values is what makes me so proud to introduce my friend.”
Dodd is steeped in the company line,
“Israel remains an island of openness in a sea of despair..” – WTF?
“that its might is only for its self-defense.” – Be sure to throw that in. Be sure to make reference to Israel’s RIGHT to self-defense. Remember Chekhov’s Gun?
“No one will ever have to persuade me of Israel’s goodness, of its deep meaning, its necessity that I already know, and I learned young in a very significant ways.”
I didn’t know a thing about Dodd before this. He does not represent my state.
I am discouraged by how thoroughly so many men and women of power believe in Israel’s “goodness” and “right to defend themselves” from their Neighbors, the Palestinians by GENOCIDE. I always knew politicians were snake oil salesmen, but this is worse. The unequivocal support of the activities of Israel should be unacceptable to every American, in particular because so much of our tax money goes to them. It is why they have the money to build illegal settlements. On that note, Biden was only doing what America has always ever done. He protests in speech only while doing absolutely nothing as always. You tell me, Morocco Bama, what is it going to take to get this stranglehold released? How could the U.S.A. turn on its heels now and refuse to support the things that “we” like to do in other locations?
Israel claimed regret for the terrible timing, but I can’t help but think, they enjoyed proudly displaying an impotent America.
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Maybe Dodd is forlorn about the loss of his drinking buddy. He wants the good old days like the following….he and Teddy getting plastered and hitting on semi-retarded blond DC groupies. It’s an excellent article about Ted Kennedy, by the way.
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/200704/kennedy-ted-senator-profile?currentPage=1
In December 1985, just before he announced he would run for president in 1988, Kennedy allegedly manhandled a pretty young woman employed as a Brasserie waitress. The woman, Carla Gaviglio, declined to be quoted in this article, but says the following account, a similar version of which first appeared in Penthouse last year, is full and accurate:
It is after midnight and Kennedy and Dodd are just finishing up a long dinner in a private room on the first floor of the restaurant’s annex. They are drunk. Their dates, two very young blondes, leave the table to go to the bathroom. (The dates are drunk too. “They’d always get their girls very, very drunk,” says a former Brasserie waitress.) Betty Loh, who served the foursome, also leaves the room. Raymond Campet, the co-owner of La Brasserie, tells Gaviglio the senators want to see her.
As Gaviglio enters the room, the six-foot-two, 225-plus-pound Kennedy grabs the five-foot-three, 103-pound waitress and throws her on the table. She lands on her back, scattering crystal, plates and cutlery and the lit candles. Several glasses and a crystal candlestick are broken. Kennedy then picks her up from the table and throws her on Dodd, who is sprawled in a chair. With Gaviglio on Dodd’s lap, Kennedy jumps on top and begins rubbing his genital area against hers, supporting his weight on the arms of the chair. As he is doing this, Loh enters the room. She and Gaviglio both scream, drawing one or two dishwashers. Startled, Kennedy leaps up. He laughs. Bruised, shaken and angry over what she considered a sexual assault, Gaviglio runs from the room. Kennedy, Dodd and their dates leave shortly thereafter, following a friendly argument between the senators over the check.
Eyewitness Betty Loh told me that Kennedy had “three or four” cocktails in his first half hour at the restaurant and wine with dinner. When she walked into the room after Gaviglio had gone in, she says, “what I saw was Senator Kennedy on top of Carla, who was on top of Senator Dodd’s lap, and the tablecloth was sort of slid off the table ’cause the table was knocked over—not completely, but just on Senator Dodd’s lap a little bit, and of course the glasses and the candlesticks were totally spilled and everything. And right when I walked in, Senator Kelly jumped off…and he leaped up, composed himself and got up. And Carla jumped up and ran out of the room.”
According to Loh, Kennedy “was sort of leaning” on Gaviglio, “not really straddling but sort of off-balance so it was like he might have accidentally fallen…He was partially on and off…pushing himself off her to get up.” Dodd, she adds, “said ‘It’s not my fault.’ ” Kennedy said something similar and added, jokingly, “Makes you wonder about the leaders of this country.”
Giving Kennedy the benefit of the doubt, it’s quite possible he did not intend an assault but meant to be funny, in a repulsive, boozehead way. Drunks are notoriously poor judges of distance, including the distance between fun and assault.
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Grace Reply:
March 14th, 2010 at 2:18 am
I see my mistake. Assuming, believing that a politician “feels” what the rest of us might feel. That is the problem made with the sociopaths. Regular people assume they must be regular too.
Dodd, she adds, “said ‘It’s not my fault.’ ” Kennedy said something similar and added, jokingly, “Makes you wonder about the leaders of this country.”
That is typical sociopathic humor.
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Grace Reply:
March 14th, 2010 at 3:01 am
Alcohol isn’t the problem, it’s the solution.
Yes, alcohol can blur the lines, but this night out between Dodd and Kennedy sounded like a regular night out for those two.
I don’t recall, nor have I been told that I ever assaulted someone when I was drunk.
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well never mind people, it’ll all be over soon…………
the earth shifted slightly on its axis after that earthquake in chile and we are now hurtling out of control into the great beyond…………..we just don’t know it yet.!!!
joking……….but apparently the earth has shifted due to that earthquake……….
as for the global financial crisis, well, i think the west is in its death throes and a rude awakening is awaiting us all……………..
here in europe greece has started the ball rolling and it won’t be long before others follow suit…
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Per Wiki’s Bio of Dodd, he is an Irish Roman Catholic…..who loves Israel. Go figure. How could anyone love a country? That’s sick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Dodd
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coco Reply:
March 13th, 2010 at 9:12 am
could you please clarify your last sentence. is it: How could anyone love a country that’s sick?. or is it: how could anyone love a country?. That’s sick.
the full stops make all the difference.
and in the link you provided, i didn’t see any reference to love of any country.
i’m being pedandtic i know, but must be assured of your meaning before i comment.
otherwise, there could be some great misunderstanding.
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Morocco Bama Reply:
March 13th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Coco, it’s as I stated. How could anyone love a country? That’s sick. Do you love a country?
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Morocco Bama Reply:
March 13th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
…..as in it’s sick to love a country. There was no question mark at the end of of the statement “that’s sick” so it reads that it is sick to love a country.
coco Reply:
March 13th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
well yes, i do love a country. the country i live in. perhaps in an abstract sort of way. not the same love that i reserve for friends and pets. but a ‘love’ all the same. because it’s a good country and the people here don’t kill their neighbours in the surrounding countries. i couldn’t love it then if it had the same ideals as israel.
Morocco Bama Reply:
March 14th, 2010 at 2:37 am
You love ideals, then, coco, and you’re using the country as a surrogate recipient of your love of ideals. In my opinion, that’s misplaced. Countries are a manifestation of the destructive system of civilization. Countries divide the human species. Countries help pit humankind against humankind. How can you love the concept of country, considering? The love of country and god is what justifies so much destructiveness in this world. Many of the U.S. soldiers will tell you they love their country…..for its alleged ideals and that they want the entire world to be like their country and share its ideals so they fight to bring that about. That’s the delusion of love of country and of god.
Once again, I will continue to reiterate, stick to the principles/values/ideals and let loose your grip of the actors. It’s the only way out of this mess.
Morocco Bama Reply:
March 14th, 2010 at 2:42 am
What is your country, coco? I find it childish to play the game of my country is better than your country, my god is better than your god. Do you believe in god, coco? If so, do you adhere to a religion? If so, what religion? If so, do you love your religion and believe it to be better than other religions.
Stick to the principles/values/ideals…..that’s what should bind us all….not the man-made institutions that pretend to uphold those principles/values/ideals.
Grace Reply:
March 14th, 2010 at 3:14 am
San Francisco used to be a small Mexican outpost with dirt roads and one of the most amazing Estuaries on the Planet. Gold was discovered. The land of oak, was turned into Oakland, an urban desert, as the city was built and became part of the American states. The estuary has been nearly decimated. Remember this was once the most lush land and now we kill sea lions because they are eating the last of the salmon!!! Thank God we are not Mexico anymore! I love this land. That is the bottom line for me. I hope China doesn’t take over. Republicans wasnt to drain every last little bit of Resources (trees, ocean, air) and then what, move back to Texas? Or they will all go to Cost Rica when the shit comes down. No, I will stay here and write letters. There are parts of California that are owned by the locals. No Feds or state police can penetrate. Now, that is my idea of a good time. I am all about the 50 Autonomous States.
Well, I certainly know a lot more about Dodd than I did before I made the post. Thanks for straightening me out. Any man who can claim that Israel is an island of openness in a sea of despair is nuts!
I really only intended to use his face to mirror my despair over the fact that financial regulation is being delayed by the Robber Barons who want nothing to change. They want to rip people off then want the same people to bail them out when they lose money in bad investments.
If Coco is right and the world has moved off its axis, perhaps the change of air or location will bring about a change for the better in humans!
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mea culpa……….
i’ve just read david’s reply and gone back and read morocco’s comments………….
(which i hadn’t previously)
but i still maintain my views about the sentence structure…………………..
and the earth shifting off its axis………………
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David G Reply:
March 13th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Coco, you stick to your guns. I love the way we have such a diversity of views on DC. That way we all learn something and constantly have our thinking challenged!
Cheers.
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I thought we were in a recession, but I have been reading how the number of billionaires has increased and their wealth has increased as well. Where did all this money come from? Why did they get it all and so many others endup homeless and hungry?
As the earth shifts on it’s axis all the wealth seems to be running up hill toward the already too rich. It sure seems to come out of my pocket a lot faster than it goes in!
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Morocco, while I find your urgings to give up on ‘actors’ and embrace principles, values and ideals interesting, in a greed-driven world where PVIs are in very short supply, how are they to be instilled into the hedonistic, ‘put-me-first’ population?
While I accept that your idea about the Montessori School is a good start, its impact will be very small and very slow and the world is moving quickly towards extinction (nuclear war, climate change, over population, etc).
Jeannie, the system is geared towards the rich getting richer. They wouldn’t have it any other way! I guess when people are homeless and starving, the peasants may start to revolt. That may be the only way that real change will happen!
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Morocco Bama Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 1:45 am
Morocco, while I find your urgings to give up on ‘actors’ and embrace principles, values and ideals interesting, in a greed-driven world where PVIs are in very short supply, how are they to be instilled into the hedonistic, ‘put-me-first’ population?
That’s an excellent question, David, and one to which I don’t have an answer. All I can say is let’s build it and see if they come. I’m addressing the individuals who appear to see some light and therefore are dissenters, or potential dissenters. In order for dissent to be even remotely effective, the dissenters have to be on the same page….or at least the same book.
While I accept that your idea about the Montessori School is a good start, its impact will be very small and very slow and the world is moving quickly towards extinction (nuclear war, climate change, over population, etc).
When I first introduced my intentions in regards to the school, I acknowledged what you have written above, David, but we still feel compelled to do something, and this is the most effective strategy considering the options. We prefer not to fly a plane into an IRS building, shoot our coworkers, shoot Pentagon security officers, assassinate a puppet president, immolate ourselves in protest, or gather in a free speech zone and sing Kumbaya.
So, laugh at us, if you will, but at least we’re not Feeding The Beast.
I will ask you this, though, David. If you feel as you do, then why did you bother undergoing the agony of Chemotherapy to eradicate your cancer? Seriously, if you feel the situation is as hopeless as your reply to my positive intentions indicates, then why attempt to survive only to perish in a destined nuclear conflagration?
I understand misanthropy….really, I do. I’m a cynic, and any cynic worth their weight has undertones and overtones of misanthropy….but the cynic is hopeful at heart and really doesn’t hate life or humanity…..we just are dismayed at watching wasted, misdirected potential. Plus, wouldn’t life be rather dull without all this Dangerous Creation? What would you blog about? Try not to be an Archibald Beechcroft.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXx9HjnuCeQ
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David G Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 7:46 am
Morocco, I have been blogging for many years. If I thought there was no hope of making the world a better place I wouldn’t bother. But, in common with most people, while I manage to be upbeat and hopeful much of the time (and, on occasions, even manage to inject a bit of humour into DC) there are times when the world’s problems seems so big, the forces of Evil so massive, that I feel daunted, even crushed by them.
This is quite normal for thinking humans, especially those who, foolishly perhaps, involve themselves in the affairs of the world. I blog to try to make sense of a senseless world and to communicate and work with others who want change!
How to achieve the change is the difficult, frustrating question.
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Grace Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 5:00 am
As a person with a young kid, I cannot give into despair – even if I may sense doom, like trouble at the edge of town. Of course the trouble we speak of is nuclear annhilation! I spent my youth, waiting to get nuked. When I was 18, i could’t get out of bed. Reagan had his finger on the button and was talking shit everyday. Having survived that!, I had to make a decision to live and act as if things will continue, somehow, someway.
My son comes out with ideas like: putting platinum in smokestacks to decrease pollution escaping from smokestacks. Things like that – give me some hope.
If I could start a school, I would. I think it is great to have a dream like that and to work to make it reality.
There are my two bits. Oh, and I feel like I have death hanging on my back – in the form of a tumor that no surgeon will remove. So, I have to overcome within myself a looming sense of doom. We are all going to die anyway. We might as well try to live our dreams. Peace.
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David G Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 7:52 am
Grace, it might be better for us to live our dream, one we construct for ourselves, rather than to try to change the world.
History shows us that even if we managed to get rid of all the corrupt, evil people in the world, immediately another group of them would quickly grab the reins of power.
Sometimes, accepting and living with the harsh reality of the world and human beings is the most difficult thing we have to do!
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I appreciate, David, how you are willing to say, “…it might be better for us to live our dream, one we construct for ourselves, rather than to try to change the world.” – even though it contradicts your statement on DC’s header. A refreshing change from black and white, “rational” discourse – which usually ignores the complexities and contradictions of the real world.
Bravo!
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Grace Reply:
March 18th, 2010 at 4:01 am
I agree with Denise, David. Your response was outside the box and refreshing. I hadn’t responded becasue I found myself meditating on the words. I left it up on my page all day so I could reflect on it. Thanks for the affirmation that it’s ok to live the dream. I beleve that one person can Be a revolution and inspire others. It is small scale change, but it can evolve into something bigger. Especially if everyone is living their dreams… At least it might free up a few more people after seeing it modeled.
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Denise, the thinking person must be pragmatic and flexible, must put survival ahead of trying to change things that perhaps, because of human nature, are difficult, perhaps even impossible, to change.
I’ve been battling against the status quo for years. To do so requires periods of self-rejuvenation.
Grace, we each have to take responsibility for ourselves, try to survive as best we can while doing what we can to improve our world. Being black or white about things is a recipe for failure!
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