MrFriendly

That often noise will fall on deaf ears.

Do we stay quiet because a voice will not be heard by many? Do we speak loud because because a voice will be heard by only a few? Do we come to an understanding that a voice is what is central to everything?

Speech is a big deal, the freedom of it is an even bigger deal, because it is our freedom of expression. Language, is our freedom, our ability to articulate our thought, the ability to express our emotion. A freedom to speech is a freedom of expression, a freedom of articulation of thought.

And here enter a juxtaposition, where I am from, at a basic level, there is no freedom of speech guaranteed by law, yet a freedom of expression in which we get away with murder.

No freedom of arms, yet an establishment gets away with wiping out an entire native people to nothing more than smack takers an paint huffers.

A city designed architecturally to discourage democracy, yet, is a country's shining example of culture, thought, and outspokenness. This little federated stage of Australia was to be the birth place of unionism in this country, the birth of the Labor party. And now, a time, in which we both rejoice in the ideas it held and lament the reality that followed.

Unions too powerful, and a paradigm shift too strong, the little guy, once more, is left behind. But where as once before, the little guy got nothing, the hard work of many guaranteed a little, for a lot. Something complacency has no place to take for granted.

My country was built on the oppression of natives, built by the imprisonment of Irish convicts to the benefit of British lords. We moved passed that a long time ago, when we stopped remembering what it was we all stood for. For peace? for progress? for what?

We lost our identity a long time ago in the search for it, now, we're 5 states and two territories wondering where we all fit in the globalised world, asking where our fragile culture went to, wondering if it were just easier to be a 51st state than under the Queen's dominion.

I am the generation Y outside of the US. More displaced, more confused, and more pissed off than ever. Tired of the division that we never stood for, tired of the choices we never felt we should make, just, tired the crap because the late gen x and early gen y watches it all get washed away like nothing happened.

Well, this country is fucking divided, along country / city, along native / white, along 5th generation immigrant / 2nd generation, along Indian student / don't fucking complain you only have a student visa and I'm a damn citizen, along I'm tired, you're tired, we're sick of deciding and every election is proving that here. We're just tired of the news cycle maaaaan...

Division and divisive politics are done, it will move no further forward, and those who believe in it are, quite literally, fucking retarded.

I'm not going to sprout some socialist bullshit about being united. Fuck that. What I will sprout is this, believe in your right to be pissed off, believe in your right to speak out, believe in your right to question the system and ask if there isn't a better way to do business.

Ask real questions. Why don't you get universal health care? Why should guns be so available, how is it the lower class can't afford to be healthy and thin (and that fact, is fucked up) because in my daddy's time it was the other fucking way around.

Why people? What is the reality we're allowing to unfold? What do you want from life? What do I want? What can we really deliver?

Where do youfit in with the rest of it all, just how important are you? I think the answer to that question might just determine your level of happiness in this modern age.

I'm not going to tell to take down the government or picked at a union strike. I am going to ask you to ask yourself what you believe. I am going to ask you what you really feel when you see a people take down their government or what you feel at a union picked line. Do feel for them? why? Do you feel against them? why?

Fucking why to anything you feel. Why? Seriously, I ask the question, why? Why the anger for this, the faith in that, why not this or that. We are all masters of our own destiny, and together, we can master our way through fucking a lot of people's shit up.

So I ask you, how confident are that what you perceive around you is fair and just. How often do you think "this isn't right!"? How often do you feel more should be done?

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Zeraph

hmm, a lot of that was simply a rant, not the right place for philosophy. I suggest you italicize the rant part, and formulate what you're asking a bit better. Because you're not exactly answering your own question. Which is what can lead to a good debate.

Personally I ask why all the time. As time goes on I am more and more anti government. And somewhat anti-police. They have anyone who isn't upper class on a tight leash that they can yank anytime they want. And often do, just for the hell of it. So yeah, I'm basically with you though I don't live there, I'm angry. I speak my mind. I talk to similar minded people. If you remember from another thread, we are debating about even building a bunker because we think more people will be think like us and government as we know it may not survive.

Personally I hope it doesn't. I'm not some crazy militia man that's going to bomb anything or anything crazy like that. But I don't like the state of the world we're in now. Even if we have to sacrifice luxuries and technology to make a better decision making job (i.e. government) then so be it.

I see a dark age ahead of us, for the entire globe. Don't know when, just that I feel it coming.

PS I think "this isn't right" on a day to day basis. My friend is locked up in jail right now without bail because of an obviously crazy ex-employee accused him of something. I mean WTF?!

bagatelle

Our country (Finland) fought for their independency from Russia 1917, we again defended our country against them in the wars in 40's.

I have faith this is still in short memory of our government for not to lose our national identity yet.

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MrFriendly

I'll be honest, given my very hazy recollection of ever writing this, it will be fair to say I was drunk at the time of writing. Therefore, point conceded

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Ourcrazymodern?

I thought it was quite an enjoyable rant, actually. The tone of it exactly answered your questions to my mind. I constantly think that "things" aren't right, but temper that reaction with the knowledge that my right to speak to these things is limited, because I don't take the necessary actions to change them.
I admire your honesty.

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BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Zeraph

OP is a good point. I mean, what's the voting average percentage? Like 20% of the population? Most of the old timers? WTF?

MrFriendly

Non compulsory voting is an interesting beast, I think it really does change the face of politics in a lot of ways.

In Australia you have to vote, which can make elections totally unpredictable, like our election last year which yielded a hung parliament. If you're ever so inclined to read about Australian politics you'll quickly understand that a balance of power coming down to three independent country seats and a Greens member (Very very VERY left wing party) was kinda of big deal.

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levite

How often do I notice that something's wrong? How often do I have to call out our society on its failures vis-a-vis justice and equitability?

A whole fucking lot.

There are many things silence is good for: introspection, listening to the concerns of others, listening to the teachings of others, contemplation, learning humility...but aiding society is not on that list.

I happen to consider myself an American patriot. On the Fourth of July, I read the Declaration of Independence; on September 17, I read the Constitution (complete with all 27 Amendments); and on Thanksgiving, I read Lincoln's proclamation of the day of Thanksgiving. I am proud to have read the Federalist Papers, the correspondences of Jefferson, Madison, and Adams, Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention, the texts of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, various great speeches from American history, and various arguments and briefs to the Supreme Court in key cases. I am proud to vote in every election, and to serve on juries when called.

But this country is fucked up. What I love is the ideals upon which it was founded, and the furthest-reaching dreams of its Founders and greatest citizens-- not the government we currently have (and by "currently" I mean, in my lifetime so far, and in the foreseeable future), or a certain political party, or the minutiae of the setup of the governmental bureaucracy in its current form.

The Republicans and the Democrats both suck. The country I love has been turned into a plutocratic oligarchy more or less run by multinational conglomerates and right-wing religious fanatics. We need quality free education for everyone, through college; quality universal health care; a restructuring of our taxation system to stop trying to bleed the poor, and start trying to get the rich to pay our fair share; we need to stop treating corporations as people under the law; and we need to get the government out of people's bedrooms, out of the marriage business, and out of the business of spying on its citizens-- not to mention out of the business of holding foreigners indefinitely without trials, torturing people, and declaring war on abstract concepts (You can't have a war against "terrorism." I'm sorry, but that's not possible. You can combat or hunt specific terrorist organizations. You can seek to create sociopolitical contexts that do not favor the success of radical groups that tend to end up becoming terrorists. You can label specific actions "terrorism," and criminalize them in your country, or in international zones, or across many areas if multiple nations ally in such an endeavor. But you cannot declare war on a concept, because that is idiotic). And a thousand other things that are wrong, stupid, ignorant, and cruel that I could go on and on about.

Proud as I am to be knowledgeable about America and its history, and to vote, and to serve my society when called, I am just as proud if not more to write to my congressional representatives and to the President about my concerns, to sign petitions, to protest when necessary, and to help organize demonstrations when that has proven feasible, to support unions and progressive social reformers, and to help others organize, protest, and make their concerns heard.

When it comes to the betterment of the human race, silence is not golden. Wrongs don't right themselves, problems don't fix themselves, and help does not just appear for the helpless. A successful democratic society is all about checks and balances. And the ultimate check on every institution is the people. Which ain't nothin' but a fancy term for the bunch of us. Everybody got to look out for everybody else, and got to shout out, or nothing gets done right.

Or, to put it a little better:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
But if I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when?

-Hillel (a founding teacher of Rabbinic Judaism, turn of the Common Era)

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Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

WhoaitsZ

well, levite basically just said what I was about to post.

Everybody in America say they want change. It's bullshit, overall, because so many people refuse to vote. The biggest thing keeping us down ultimately is ourselves.

The Koch brothers has an advantage over us. They manipulate people and confuse them and get them pissed off. It works.

I still have a weird faith in politics. I know that sounds unbelievably silly but politics can do good things. What we have to do is say "Hey you, read this, listen to that" and make kids actually care.

We also need a new parties. For instance I am very liberal and the majority of Dems are just another shill making money with no real ambition to do what is right in a progressive fashion.

People as a whole are the ultimate sheep. Give us food, poisoned or not, and we will eat it. We must break the Media (FOX, MSNBC, CNN) yoke and find real journalism and real coverage about real issues. Every person who watches the news only to see what Sheen or Spears did deserve a cockpunch.

Get ourselves involved. Get others. Do shit.

One last thing that I have discovered is the accidental placement of a messiah figurehead or mascot. No one person should be held up 100% to the standards held as a whole. We are flawed and we should be honest. Acceptance is what makes me try to be liberal. When we pick a human logo he will fuck up; everybody fucks up.

Wis. is a great example of when people finally say 'oh my they wanna do whaaat?". We can do better.

[/soapbox]

yeah this is straying into politics. labels, labels, labels.

roachboy

i was forwarded this article today and thought it a good addition to this thread. i'll link it below...click on the links.

The New American Pessimism by Charles Simic | NYRBlog | The New York Review of Books

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Zeraph

Yeah, but how often does the green rep win? I'm guessing about as often as ours (never).

MrFriendly

The greens party has been winning senate seats for a long time. The big deal was winning a lower house seat, no one thought it was possible but apparently the seat of Melbourne had finally had enough of the major parties.

On interesting party we do have here that came very close to winning a seat in our state election is the Australian Sex party. Its platform is based on getting the government out of peoples private lives.

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Plan9

...

It says philosophy, but it means politics.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

MrFriendly

Nah that was my bad, I was all kinds of wasted when I post the OP. You're right, it really does belong in Politics.

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