‘I am in awe
of what we accomplished.”
(•) Now let’s go to Joe for a quick possible sketch of the next 25 years or so. I agree about Waxman and Markey and even about Madame Speaker.
Senate, Senate, overrun,
giving voice to the
exploited, our tired poor
huddled massive fossil:
the darn hole economy.
(•) GreenpeaceUKniks talking with Bill McKibben.
More, as audio.
(•) 10000 years from now. 20000, if it were a millimeter, the history of Earth so far would be a block and a half long. From here to the park entrance down the street. Is that right? —Way off. 1.4 mm.
mm, short for mammalian metabolism.
—Oooh how creepy. At my neighborhood scale, 1 millimeter is the time from now back to the start of the extinction event. This apartment is unlucky.
(•) We are the world that lives on the Earth. —OK one of the worlds.
i am in awe that the democracy loving people of Honduras have taken back their nation from the clutches of the oligarchy of chavez loving communists! Yes, Victory! Awesome! Yes.
i notch my rifle barrel every time i vote
An odd dichotomy creeps into every politics. It’s usually some variation of Meliorism versus Impossibilism , or pragmatism and realism versus idealism. The truth of them is a socially created construct, but none the less real for all that it’s a product of patent absurdities.
The benchmarks used to defend meliorism and pragmatism generally don’t stand the test of time. I can think of two exceptions that do — Nixon’s environmental laws, LBJ’s welfare and civil rights laws. Both came when the government was under enormous pressure from impossibilists and idealists :-) — which is a factor routinely overlooked or elided altogether by “realists”, which certainly casts a different light on pragmatism.
Be reasonable. Demand the impossible.
The political victories in these things have nothing to do with the merits or demerits of the cause. At the power level, the advancement resistance are a function of what very self-absorbed people think will benefit them or head off threats, to them. If left to their own devices, they dither for a while and then pass enormous bills that are designed to placate the “realists”. Sometimes their standing is slightly improved by being seen to have been a part of the process. More often it’s another round of musical chairs. The people left sitting write fatuous histories in which impossibilists, bless their hearts, are so self-destructive that they undermine the steady leadership of people who win games of musical chairs.
Selah.
so where does the “make us do it” fit in? is it related to the request recipient’s power? can’t imagine someone saying that to al gore.
it seems like the metaphysical conflict arises because ultimately one HAS TO believe in what comes next, even when the probabilities are obvious, the course can only run smooth with faith in the predictive instruments and “right application,” such as the disagreement over individual or collective emphasis. in the sense of the narratives’ fight for supremacy leading to mutual accusations of betrayal, i thought it was interesting to see krugman wait until after the vote to use the heavy hardware:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html
and who exactly is THIS guy talking to?
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/062809.html
—he had to wait for them to go on record.