uranus/pluto as it relates to internet freedom conversation with waybread and mark

[sandstone]

michael is an american and waybread is a canadian.. i am not sure if this bit of info is known, but i think it is a factor..

some of us view the system as extremely corrupt while others think that if one acts to change this system, it will change.. one person seems more idealistic, while the other is perhaps more pessimistic, or realistic..

personally i am unhappy with the direction that both canada and the usa are going in fwiw, and i am a canuck.. the political tactics being adopted at present by the right wing - and i think obama is very right wing, as is harper - are despicable to my mind..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvaYgr5ClXA&feature=related
waybread, this is justin trudeau speaking on some relevant issues and i think he sums up some of the bs the harper gov't with its extreme right wing agenda is trying to pawn off on naive canucks, with the help of that shitty rag the national post of course..

i think the uranus/pluto square is going to continue to push the fracture going on more out into the open.. while we might not be lucky enough to get an arab uprising of our own, i think some of the apathy might get replaced with an attitude of hostility and demonstrations for a better world which these right wing wackos are only interested in thru war and deceit..

 

[Mark]

Whoever had the power of control is responsible for the evil that happened on their watch. End of story.

 

[waybread]

Sandstone, actually I am a dual citizen-- born in the USA but living in Canada for the past 20 years. My family and a lot of my friends are in the US and we visit there often. I also am a serious current events junkie, so I follow a lot of US news-- probably more so than most people living in the US. I can see good and bad sides to both political systems. Right now I am very happy to have provincial health care and a government that most other nations seem to like.

Mark, you know the old saying, that people get the government they deserve. But how convenient to sit back as though the Average Joe has no civic responsibilities.

One big difference between Canada and the US is that Americans focus more on their rights. Canadians focus more on their responsibilities. I live in a small, somewhat isolated rural communities and the level of civic involvement is really impressive.

Maybe I am showing my (advanced) age, but I can think of so many things that are better today in the US & Canada than when I was a kid. For example:

1. London fogs used to kill hundreds of people every year, due to a combo of coal-burning and humidity. Londoners cleaned up their air to the point where this doesn't happen any more.

2. When I was a little kid, other children used to get polio, a life-long crippling disease. I and everyone around me got measles and other potentially serious childhood diseases. No more.

3. When I was a college student, married women could not get credit in their own names. It was perfectly legal for university programs and professions to discriminate against women applicants-- which they routinely did. As a girl, I couldn't walk past a construction site without being subjected to a barrage of sexual comments, whistles, &c from construction workers. I found this scary and humiliating. Girls who became pregnant out of wedlock faced overwhelming social pressure not to keep their babies, so most of them didn't. Some of these girls died from botched back-room abortions.

However, when I was 19, that was the average age of marriage for women in my home state. If women's marriages failed, too bad: the only legal grounds for divorce in my state were adultery and abandonment. And nobody would have dreamed of voting for Sarah Palin to high government office. She would have been told to stay home and mind her kids.

4. When I was a child, discrimination against African Americans was not only legal (so-called Jim Crow laws) but enforced through violence in the American South. Public bus seats, restaurants, theatres, hotels, drinking fountains, and public restrooms were labled "white" or "coloured." Discriminatory voting procedures--legal by state law-- prevented Blacks from voting. Any "uppity" blacks could face lynching or cross-burnings. If their case came to trial, the jury found the white accused "not guilty." Most jobs that paid well were off-limits to African Americans. Even in northern states, job discrimination and discrimination in housing was perfectly legal-- and practiced.

Discrimination also applied to gays and lesbians (who were never "out of the closet") and people with disabilities.

5. When I was born, the world was just coming away from the slaughter of millions due to WWII and the Holocaust. France and England had carved up much of Asia and Africa into colonies, which gave the indigenous residence few political rights-- and the privilege of seeing their natural resources stripped for a pittance and shipped off to Europe. Countries that today are considered modern developed nations (like Singapore and S. Korea) were classified as backward undeveloped countries-- with a standard of living commensurate.

6. As a college student, my male peers got drafted into the Vietnam War. They had to serve a minimum of two years-- one of them in Vietnam-- whether they wanted to or not. Some of them got killed or came home with PTSD.

6. Until the mid/late 1980s, the Internet as we know it today did not exist. There were no cell phones, smart phones, social networking sites, you name it.

So ask yourselves, people, how and why did all of this change?

No doubt it was due to gloomy people who were happy just to sit back and criticize the "authorities."

 

[MaeMae]

i never knew waybread lived in canada. explains why i always thought her out of touch with reality when she constantly says "see a doctor about this or that"
this or that in US costs anywhere from a 100$ to 100,000$ or more in US.

 

[sandstone]

waybread,

you make positive comments on a number of changes that have been beneficial and moved our society further away from a type of slavery, whether it be based on race, sex, or religion and also the positive developments in the world of medicine..

however many other inequalities still stand out and the gap between people in both canada and the us continues to widen between those who have and those who don't.. it explains why more and more people are working at very low paying jobs, or worse - living on the streets.. how do you put these trends in context with the positive ones you point out? young people today are more disenfranchised economically then ever before.. they get to borrow money to pay for education that leads to no jobs and are also strapped with a huge debt that has to be worked off if and when they are lucky enough to find a job.. if the job they get is minimum wage - so many of them are - it will take forever to get rid of the loans and they can forget about ever owning a house...

meanwhile on the other side is wall st and the banks who just recently were given a get out of jail bailout package.. corporate welfare is alive and well in north america with these same financial leaders being given bonus packages for bringing the financial world to the edge of a precipice. surely you can see the inequality at work here? many others can and are taking to the streets to voice these concerns about 2 different systems - 1 for the rich and another for the poor..

the american dream is in the garbage can.. harper, our bozo for leader here in canada would like nothing better then to make canada the next state in the usa.. funny how these politicians all go to church and profess there belief in god.. to me it looks like going to church for them is nothing more then washing their hands on sunday for all the work they did during the week.. the political system we have, and the media system we have are all corrupt and we do need to talk about this publicly as much as possible as i see it.. we need to follow it up with actions as well to demand a different structure as the one we have now is rotten to the core as i see it..

thanks for your comments.

 

[waybread]

i never knew waybread lived in canada. explains why i always thought her out of touch with reality when she constantly says "see a doctor about this or that"
this or that in US costs anywhere from a 100$ to 100,000$ or more in US.

MaeMae, there still are many Americans with health insurance. How else do you explain the vicious conservative backlash against "Obama care"? No I am not out of touch. My American sister will be undergoing surgery this month. She is unemployed, and thankfully this surgery will occur before her former employer's health insurance runs out.

If people need a doctor, they need a doctor. Many hospitals offer free or low-cost care for people who truly can't afford it. A former tenant of ours got some major surgery this way.

Medicare is available, also, for people who qualify.

 

[waybread]

Sandstone, of course there are problems!!! Have I ever denied them? We live in the real world, not some kind of fairy land.

My parents were young adults during the Great Depression. They had real horror stories of what that kind of poverty was like, and it was far worse than anything we face today. For one thing, Americans had no Medicare, no Medicaid, no welfare, and no unemployment insurance.

Never mind my grandparents' generation, when rural people had no electricity, no running water, and no schooling beyond about the 8th grade. No modern medicine, women couldn't vote or oftentimes even own property. If they were married to an alcoholic who beat them and drank up the pay check, any divorce they might hope to obtain came at the cost of giving up custody of their children because a divorcee was viewed, by definition, as an unfit mother.

We should all be sufficiently idealistic to work towards a better world, but there is a point at which the virtue of idealism becomes unrealistic and bitter, and then it becomes a vice. Especially if we do not lift a finger to change the world according to our values.

 

[Mark]

waybread: I'm the one who wants to start the revolution. That's not "sitting back."

 

[waybread]

waybread: I'm the one who wants to start the revolution. That's not "sitting back."

What's the hold-up?

[Pun intended.]

What's keeping you from starting something?

 

[Michael R]

Sandstone, actually I am a dual citizen-- born in the USA but living in Canada for the past 20 years. My family and a lot of my friends are in the US and we visit there often. I also am a serious current events junkie, so I follow a lot of US news-- probably more so than most people living in the US. I can see good and bad sides to both political systems. Right now I am very happy to have provincial health care and a government that most other nations seem to like.

Mark, you know the old saying, that people get the government they deserve. But how convenient to sit back as though the Average Joe has no civic responsibilities.

One big difference between Canada and the US is that Americans focus more on their rights. Canadians focus more on their responsibilities. I live in a small, somewhat isolated rural communities and the level of civic involvement is really impressive.

Maybe I am showing my (advanced) age, but I can think of so many things that are better today in the US & Canada than when I was a kid. For example:

1. London fogs used to kill hundreds of people every year, due to a combo of coal-burning and humidity. Londoners cleaned up their air to the point where this doesn't happen any more.

2. When I was a little kid, other children used to get polio, a life-long crippling disease. I and everyone around me got measles and other potentially serious childhood diseases. No more.

3. When I was a college student, married women could not get credit in their own names. It was perfectly legal for university programs and professions to discriminate against women applicants-- which they routinely did. As a girl, I couldn't walk past a construction site without being subjected to a barrage of sexual comments, whistles, &c from construction workers. I found this scary and humiliating. Girls who became pregnant out of wedlock faced overwhelming social pressure not to keep their babies, so most of them didn't. Some of these girls died from botched back-room abortions.

However, when I was 19, that was the average age of marriage for women in my home state. If women's marriages failed, too bad: the only legal grounds for divorce in my state were adultery and abandonment. And nobody would have dreamed of voting for Sarah Palin to high government office. She would have been told to stay home and mind her kids.

4. When I was a child, discrimination against African Americans was not only legal (so-called Jim Crow laws) but enforced through violence in the American South. Public bus seats, restaurants, theatres, hotels, drinking fountains, and public restrooms were labled "white" or "coloured." Discriminatory voting procedures--legal by state law-- prevented Blacks from voting. Any "uppity" blacks could face lynching or cross-burnings. If their case came to trial, the jury found the white accused "not guilty." Most jobs that paid well were off-limits to African Americans. Even in northern states, job discrimination and discrimination in housing was perfectly legal-- and practiced.

Discrimination also applied to gays and lesbians (who were never "out of the closet") and people with disabilities.

5. When I was born, the world was just coming away from the slaughter of millions due to WWII and the Holocaust. France and England had carved up much of Asia and Africa into colonies, which gave the indigenous residence few political rights-- and the privilege of seeing their natural resources stripped for a pittance and shipped off to Europe. Countries that today are considered modern developed nations (like Singapore and S. Korea) were classified as backward undeveloped countries-- with a standard of living commensurate.

6. As a college student, my male peers got drafted into the Vietnam War. They had to serve a minimum of two years-- one of them in Vietnam-- whether they wanted to or not. Some of them got killed or came home with PTSD.

6. Until the mid/late 1980s, the Internet as we know it today did not exist. There were no cell phones, smart phones, social networking sites, you name it.

So ask yourselves, people, how and why did all of this change?

No doubt it was due to gloomy people who were happy just to sit back and criticize the "authorities."

If this is your summation after all that.......very sad.

 

[waybread]

How so, Michael? You did catch the irony, I hope.

What would be your summation?

 

[Michael R]

How so, Michael? You did catch the irony, I hope.

What would be your summation?

That you are out of touch with the real world.I live almost a stone's throw from the Canadian border in Washington and commune with many that come through our town to shop.I know the profile of those who live in very rural areas and somewhat isolated.They generally are more informed than you appear to be.They are aware that the Canadian gov is manipulated by the "Crown" and European power & money,the same as the U.S.That they have been duped & are deeply entrenched in the NWO.The people no longer have a say much less any control in either country.Why is that?Because the majority cant come to any agreement(controlled news,uninformed,apathetic) and dont want to entertain the facts that both our governments are guilty of atrocities all over the globe under the guise of fighting terrorism,protecting freedom,so they can rob those countries of resources,establish routes around the world ,not only for oil distribution but drugs also.The U.S. government are the biggest drug dealers in the world.But that was so, long before 9-11.If you think that is embittered hype i would say just ask all those women/children that are DEAD or missing limbs & parts,or have no village or place to live and on and on.

MARK SAIDWhoever had the power of control is responsible for the evil that happened on their watch. End of story.

Thank you,i can live with that.

 

[waybread]

Michael, I am not out of touch.... although it suits your purposes to portray me as such. I bet that I follow more US and international news than you do. We have high-speed Internet out here, as well.

When have I ever denied that a lot of crummy things happen in the world-- moment by moment? But I "live with" these realities because I don't see suicide as a viable option.

But I challenge you to identify a period in American history when you think things were better. Show me a time and place when people were less "manipulated" than they are now.

The notion that Canadians are manipulated by the Crown is utterly bizarre. Where is your evidence for this???? QE2 should be so lucky. Just what do you mean by "communing" with Canadian cross-border shoppers, anyway?

You may recall that Australia had a referendum to decide whether to turf out the monarchy, which was defeated by a whisker. In a democracy, people get to make these choices. My personal belief is that one reason why anglo-Canadians want to keep the monarchy is because it is one of the few things that distinguishes them from Americans.

You have to face the fact that in a democracy people can vote for what they want. If conservatives hold different opinions than you do and they out-number you, that is just the way democracy works.

And let's unpack your message. You think the populace is "manipulated", "duped", without a "say", without "control", and so on. Michael, if you entertain such a low opinion of Americans' brain power, maybe you can find another country whose people and values suit you better. China? Cuba? Syria?

I think you are committed to being unhappy, and you pull your politics up behind your commitment. Big Daddy doesn't run the world to suit your idealism. You ignore good things that happen because they don't suit your commitment to feeling powerless. If we want to psychologize this, I would say you position yourself as the "child" who inwardly resists the parent's' running the household to suit themselves. But at some point, we have to recognize that we are now the adults, and we have to take responsibility for our nation's political actions.

I would like for you to explain, Miachael, just how the advances in social justice that I described above (Civil rights, women's rights, &c) came about.

If you feel strongly about things, join a political movement. There is more strength in numbers. Unfortunately the recent "Occupy" movement was too poorly organized and unfocused to make a difference, but this is a correctable problem.

Incidentally, I knew three people who perished in 9-11. While I dismiss the more bizarre conspiracy theories about the attacks, I do think the government should have done a better job to protect Lisa, Robert, and Joe.

But life goes on. Man up, dude!

 

[sandstone]

waybread quote "We should all be sufficiently idealistic to work towards a better world, but there is a point at which the virtue of idealism becomes unrealistic and bitter, and then it becomes a vice."

i like what you have said here and think it is worth considering.. my question to you is do you think that you are taking a more realistic attitude to what is going on today by reflecting on the past having been always worse then the present? i don't know the term to describe this either, but perhaps a type of reverse idealism might best define it.. i think one possible result of this thinking is naivety.. however you would like to characterize others "idealism becoming bitter and a vice" i think you express a type of naivety thinking everything today is better and will always be better then it was in the past..

 

[Michael R]

But life goes on. Man up, dude!

OMG,you would vote for Sara Palin if you could,am i correct?

 

[waybread]

Sandstone, I have studied a fair bit of history. So no, I am not naive enough to think (as per Rousseau) that "we are living in the best of all possible worlds." All I am asking for is some (A) balance and (B) sense of realism.

I don't know what is in the drinking water these days, but it just seems that conspiracy theories verging on hysteria have never been so prevalent. Maybe it's the Internet; where any idea, no matter how factually unsustainable, can get traction with adrenaline junkies looking for someone to blame besides themselves. Maybe blaming Big Daddy for everything is one of the less appetizing manifestations of Pluto in Capricorn.

Naive? I say not. Idealistic in my own way? Absolutely. The difference is that I haven't given up and quit on the world. I help out where I can, according to my nature. When I was teaching, I oftentimes had over 200 students per class in large lectures. I tried to educate them about global poverty and economic development in impoverished countries, among other topics. I still give hundreds of dollars per year in donations to disaster relief. My husband helps to financially support an African student in a nearly all-white prep school in South Africa. I support local farmers by buying food from them directly, when I can.

Michael-- Why would I vote for Sarah Palin? I am not a Republican, let alone a Tea Party or libertarian type. I registered as an Independent when I lived in the US, but always voted the Democratic slate, except for the one time I voted for the Socialist Worker's Party. In our last provincial election, my husband and I voted for the Green Party. Sarah Palin scares the bejeesus out of me.

What I do support is her right to speak her mind and to run for political office. Ca. 1970, she would have been told to shut up, act more feminine, and stay home to take care of her kids. If she is silenced, then none of us can count on freedom of speech for ourselves. If conservative women are shamed from running for political office because liberals dislike their views, then democracy is weakened.

BTW, Michael, if I were a resident of Washington state, I might campagin for your Democratic senator, Patty Murray.

 

[Michael R]

Michael-- Why would I vote for Sarah Palin? I am not a Republican, let alone a Tea Party or libertarian type. I registered as an Independent when I lived in the US, but always voted the Democratic slate, except for the one time I voted for the Socialist Worker's Party. In our last provincial election, my husband and I voted for the Green Party. Sarah Palin scares the bejeesus out of me.

Hallelujah! I am so glad we could find something we agree on.

 

[waybread]

Hallelujah! I am so glad we could find something we agree on.

Me, too Michael. I really am not such a bad person, once you get to know me.