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http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/the-grass-is-closed-what-i-have-learned-about-power-from-the-police-chancellor-birgeneau-and-occupy-cal/
http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/505028.html
these three links have troll-free comment strings. read them.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-i-stopped-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-ows-protests-20111110#ixzz1dk0n2cdA
this one has comments, some quite astute, some with links for further reading, some non sequiturs, some disagreeing politely or ignorantly, and some piles of deliberately insulting troll-leavings. Put on your boots and hold your nose as you plod through. Don't go unprepared.
Am I the Orwellian, for slapping warning labels on the comment threads with dissenting opinions? or is that what you need to do to protect yourself as a human emotional being who can't afford to be enraged 24/7? Is it the trolls (who don't care what the truth is, only who they can upset or insult in their rebuttal against the article at hand) who are the Orwellians?
Kids, when the year 1984 rolled around, and things weren't as bad as in the novel _1984_, we all had a good laugh about it. Meanwhile, the American government had been using doublespeak for almost 20 years to justify its military actions, the sitting president was using doublespeak to justify his pro-rich economic policy, and he would soon be secretly selling weapons to Iran (a radical anti-american theocratic dictatorship) to finance anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua. (It's not entirely a fair summary. Look up 'Iran-Contra Affair' for yourself.) Maybe our government was already bought and paid for by the Buyers and the Sellers, who were already selling our futures for a quick buck.
Freedom, and its opposite, are not boolean states of being, not absolutes or mere abstractions. Freedom is a matter of degree. Are we moving towards more freedom, or less? Are we free to do the things that matter, or only the things that don't matter? and when freedom is taken away, it is usually slowly, in an accumulation of tiny amounts, the way daylight fades and your eyes keeping adjusting until they can't adjust any more, and only then do you realize you're in the dark. You've been in the dark for a long time. and you don't realize how long until someone flips on that first painful light.
http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/the-grass-is-closed-what-i-have-learned-about-power-from-the-police-chancellor-birgeneau-and-occupy-cal/
http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/505028.html
these three links have troll-free comment strings. read them.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-i-stopped-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-ows-protests-20111110#ixzz1dk0n2cdA
this one has comments, some quite astute, some with links for further reading, some non sequiturs, some disagreeing politely or ignorantly, and some piles of deliberately insulting troll-leavings. Put on your boots and hold your nose as you plod through. Don't go unprepared.
Am I the Orwellian, for slapping warning labels on the comment threads with dissenting opinions? or is that what you need to do to protect yourself as a human emotional being who can't afford to be enraged 24/7? Is it the trolls (who don't care what the truth is, only who they can upset or insult in their rebuttal against the article at hand) who are the Orwellians?
Kids, when the year 1984 rolled around, and things weren't as bad as in the novel _1984_, we all had a good laugh about it. Meanwhile, the American government had been using doublespeak for almost 20 years to justify its military actions, the sitting president was using doublespeak to justify his pro-rich economic policy, and he would soon be secretly selling weapons to Iran (a radical anti-american theocratic dictatorship) to finance anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua. (It's not entirely a fair summary. Look up 'Iran-Contra Affair' for yourself.) Maybe our government was already bought and paid for by the Buyers and the Sellers, who were already selling our futures for a quick buck.
Freedom, and its opposite, are not boolean states of being, not absolutes or mere abstractions. Freedom is a matter of degree. Are we moving towards more freedom, or less? Are we free to do the things that matter, or only the things that don't matter? and when freedom is taken away, it is usually slowly, in an accumulation of tiny amounts, the way daylight fades and your eyes keeping adjusting until they can't adjust any more, and only then do you realize you're in the dark. You've been in the dark for a long time. and you don't realize how long until someone flips on that first painful light.