Open Letter to Move-On.org

Although my participation in the Obama campaign was minimal (small donation, phone calls, door knocking) I am inspired by this campaign and would like to offer some ideas of how to continue the momentum throughout President Obama’s term in office. You may have already thought of these things because you’re way ahead of me, but last night’s history-making election results move me to respond in some way.

I also just finished reading Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, showing how since the Reagan administration, economist Milton Freidman’s policies have taken away the rights of the common person and given everything to big business, the lobbyists, Congress, and the Washington insiders. These are very strong entities who are already trying to influence the Obama White House. We need a grass-roots organization to support President Obama and use nonviolent protests, teach-ins, and rallies to communicate to these entities that we want change and will no longer sit back and let business as usual steamroll over our lives.

I realize that you already know this, but I just have to say it for my own benefit, I guess. We need to continue the momentum started during the campaign and show President Obama that we support him and his policies. Here are my suggestions:

1. I heard that there were about 700 campaign offices throughout the US helping to make these results happen. Let’s keep them open as community grass-roots organization posts where new proposals coming from the Obama presidency can be explained and supported.
2. Let’s use our grass-roots offices to picket the offices of big business, the lobbyists, Congress, and the Washington insiders to show them that they need to change their ways and show the country that their businesses will no longer run this country.
3. Let’s use our grass-roots offices to keep young people engaged in the political process and develop their own skills in organizing, working, and promoting President Obama’s policies to make his promises a reality. Yes, we can!
4. On two occasions, I received a robo-call from Michele Obama asking me to support Barack’s campaign. She has a very sweet but compelling voice. Let’s ask her to continue to call us when President Obama needs extra support to move one of his proposals through Congress. I would do anything she asks.

President Obama and his cabinet cannot do it alone. They will need our support in order to keep moving in the direction of change. They also will need people with foresight and common sense to help keep to the middle way where excesses in either direction toward the left or right will weaken our democracy. That’s why we need everyone to work toward realizing our dream. Yes we can!

An Open Letter to the Candidates and the Media

I don’t want to hear about the vice presidential candidates. I don’t want to hear about the candidates’ wives. I don’t want to hear about who is the bigger change agent. I don’t want to hear how much money the lobbyists are paying the candidates to campaign for their special interests. I want to know what the candidates’ platforms are.

The elevator stops at each floor. If you think you can effect change, then tell me what that means. Where will you start and where will you stop?

I want to know what you think you can do in the next four years to make this world a better place for its inhabitants including the fish in the sea, birds in the air and living things on the ground.
Tell me how you will improve our lives with all that money the lobbyists are giving you.
What are you going to do about global warming?
What are you going to do to promote health and welfare including preventing untimely deaths due to war, poverty, disease, drug addiction, alcoholism, and man’s inhumanity to man? Down here in the trenches, these issues concern us.

I realize that a president is not a magician. Don’t try to convince me otherwise. Just let me know what you are going to do in the next four years to create life on this globe that's a little bit better than it is now.

Tired

I’m tired of the political campaign, the rhetoric, and the assumptions the news media makes. So here’s a little funny I ran across by Jeffrey Shaffer in his article “How to revive a campaign” in the Christian Science Monitor on Sept. 5:

“My opponent was overheard at a party telling lobbyists for the oil industry that he opposes offshore drilling because he fears it will awaken giant subterranean reptiles that will run amok, destroy our cities, and drain the military budget.” And “My opponent has bragged repeatedly that he gets his ideas about economics by listening to old Led Zeppelin records played backwards.”

How about coming up with more funnies to help lighten the campaign bluster?

Joe Biden - reformed plagiarist?

I am disappointed that Obama selected Biden for his vice presidential running mate. As an English teacher, I warned my students about plagiarism using Biden as an example of how it can haunt the person years later. Maybe it no longer haunts Biden and he’s a reformed plagiarist. However, even when people who drink excessively stop drinking they still call themselves alcoholics. If he’s not plagiarizing, my guess is that he’s doing something else that’s equally dishonest. I don’t trust him and I don’t think I would like to see him step in as president if Obama couldn’t serve.

Maybe as my son-in-law suggested, I should just give him a chance. But I have misgivings. How important is it that he might be the next vice president? Is it fair to disparage him or is it fair to make analogies that compare plagiarism to other fraudulent activities? If I look for his highest life condition, remembering that each of us reside in the Ten Worlds from Hell to Buddhahood, then I have to ignore his earlier transgressions and trust that he has overcome them.

But I also have a responsibility to face reality.

As a writer, I think that stealing someone’s words is the same as stealing their TV, stereo system, or car. Maybe even more serious because it misappropriates the thoughts created by another person.

If I invented a new system of energy transmission that solved the energy crisis and someone else called it his own, I could feel violated, or I could be willing to share it with the world like with open source programming. So maybe plagiarism only becomes a violation depending on the attitude of the victim. But even with open source, even though everyone shares, someone gets credit for his work. They just let others use what they created. That’s different.

So I still believe that a person who plagiarizes is stealing by not giving credit to the source. And I also think that a person who plagiarizes and thinks he’s overcome that affliction is still going to have the urge to take from others if not their words, then their ideas, their rights, or their possessions.

I'm a Whining Victim

I’m going to whine. After the previous blog where I criticized whiners, I’m going to whine. I love words. I love to play Scrabulous and now Facebook put it down.

What am I going to do? I thought about creating my own word game to play with my friends. But that might take some effort. So all I can do is whine.

What if I started a petition to the makers of Scrabble to get over their fear of losing profits and accept that Scrabulous only motivates people to purchase their product? Appeal to their baser instincts of greed, anger and foolishness. For what else would motivate a giant corporation to sue another corporation?

Maybe I need to find other pursuits that don’t fill the pockets of greedy corporate giants.

Autocorrect or Intuitive Responding

Whenever I want to write my blog, I start out writing “I don’t know what to write” repeatedly until I think of something to write. I finished my to do list today except for writing this blog but I don’t know what to write. I keep misspelling what, but my auto correct feature corrects me. That’s nice. How about auto correct every time we make a misstep. How would that work? Well, when I put my foot in my mouth, autocorrect would erase the blunder and make something more appropriate come out of my mouth.

I guess the GPS has an auto correct so if you make the wrong turn, GPS can recalibrate the trip and guide you back to your route.

What about procrastination? How many times do I have to remind myself to do something that’s waiting to get done? Would autocorrect put me smack in front of the task and keep me frozen there until I did it? What about when I want to do something but shouldn’t? Like it would be a big mistake if I started smoking pot. But never having done it, I might want to try before I die. What keeps me from doing it? Worry about getting caught? I don’t think that motivates users negatively. Not enough money? Again, not a big deterrent. My conscience? Not so great there either.

I guess I’m better at not doing things than I am at doing things. I wonder why that is? Some people are just the opposite. They spend, spend, spend, or eat, eat, eat and can’t put on the brakes. I don’t have a problem with that. My problem is with do, do, do what must get done in order to get to the next place. Is it a failure phobia or success phobia?

What’s the difference between eat, eat, eat and procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate? One puts things in and the other avoids putting things out.

But I have no trouble with elimination. And that’s putting out, I think. I do that a lot.

So do I have a behavior disorder related to holding back? If I gave out more, I would have diarrhea constantly. I just overcame that behavior. So now I’m struggling with the opposite, but I’m not constipated.

Maybe I’m not really procrastinating. Maybe I’m just being true to my theory that I have to wait until the time is right and I use my intuition to feel that it’s the right time. So is that why I don’t take action until the time is right?

Does this mean that I’m healthy? That I’m doing the right thing? That chanting puts me on the right path? That I’m beating myself up over nothing? That I don’t need autocorrect to motivate me to do the right thing? I’m already doing it.

Reframe Bullying, Achieve Goals

Do you avoid being alone? Do you keep yourself busy so that you don’t feel the space of aloneness crowding in on you? Do you substitute feeling alone with drugs or alcohol? I received a book to review that spent the first two-thirds of its verbiage on bemoaning the sad life of self–absorbed women victims of misguided parents, friends, relatives, sick uncles, alcoholics, self-absorbed partners and employers.

I’m a compassionate person, but after reading 150 pages relating events about these sad, desperate people, I’m feeling burned out. Within these pages, I found two solutions to this sorry state of aloneness: become more self-absorbed by finding your life force, and return to your secret garden. Granted, there are still about a hundred pages left, but I don’t think I can endure the potential for self-absorption much longer.

I am reminded of a time when my daughter, Debbie, started playing clarinet. Yes, the first year of playing an instrument can be difficult for the listeners, but Debbie had a natural musical talent and in the spring of that first year, she was preparing for her fifth-grade band concert, soloing with “Pop! Goes the Weasel” and adding her own little improvisation to the end of the tune. She decided one beautiful day to practice outside on the side porch.

As she practiced, our neighbor walked by and said, “Debbie, you sound like a sick cow!” I heard the comment and waited for Debbie’s response. Debbie continued to practice and when she finished and came back inside, she said, “Mom, I think our neighbor doesn’t feel very good about herself.” She played beautifully in her concert and continued to study clarinet and is now an accomplished clarinetist with a doctorate in clarinet performance. Had she been one of those self-absorbed victims, I shudder to think what might have become of her. But rather, she saw through our neighbor’s ugly comment and labeled it low-self esteem instead of a personal attack.

Although I understand that there may be people in this world who suffer at the hands of bullies, abusers, inept parents, and others, I’m sorry to say that this book I’m reading probably does not offer the solution to their pain.