The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Ulrika:

What's the answer? It might help if prounion people got out into society and began listening to people as well as lecturing them. Coalition building is becoming a lost skill in our society.

Yes, something like that, to be sure. I have gradually come around from something like New Liberal antiunionism to being pro-union, but I still have these various reservations and complaints, not least of which is that my union, at least, and probably most, is still living in the last century in terms of how to build union networks that mean something in members' everyday lives. I suppose that means I need to get more involved with my union. I have ideas, but someone needs to get them pushed into place. Oh, well, who needs free time anyway?

I find Kevin Drum at his least useful when he's doing his practiced bend-over-backward-to-see-it-their-way dance. It's not really his strength, and I don't wind up feeling informed or enlivened by the exercise.

I'd be happy, really, if the Washington State Democrats could just get it together enough not to have a big wodge of broken HTML at the top of every single blinking e-mail they send out. I'd bitch directly, but I very much fear this might be a Moose Turd Pie sort of thing...

Michael-

I am so poor at being nimble when I'm pissed, really, so I think I'll go with, "Be of good cheer," instead. When I get cheerful, industrious, and effective to align at once, I believe I will be taking over the planet.

For unrelated reasons, I have been reading old rasseff threads, and so unto you I say: balloons, streamers, confetti, two dozen white doves, and the sound of champagne corks going off in volleys. Quite so. Well said. Me too.

Oh, yeah, that's great, promoting one addiction to substitute for another.

(Says the girl who spent more on beads than books at Potlatch.)

I don't claim much in the way of Beatles biographical knowledge, but the story I heard of how "Hey, Jude" was written is that it came to Paul spontaneously as he was trying to find some way to cheer Julian Lennon up when John was taking up with Yoko. Originally, it was "Hey, Jules," or so the story goes. On that basis, inarguably it would not have been written had Paul and John not been in a band together, but whether John's musical influence was key is less clear.

I do find it striking how much music I like is born of pain, though. "Layla" and all of Rumors come to mind, as well.

We are coming upon a new era of America that will last a thousand years...

Remind me again how long the Thousand Year Reich lasted? I'm not saying it isn't bad; I'm not saying the times aren't dark, but you know, even the Roman Empire didn't come close to a thousand years, and frankly, the Chinese won't let us remain an economic superpower if our imperial britches get too big.

I've put a number of political books on hold and am doing an ungodly amount of comfort reading. I just got done with rereading Diana Wynne Jones' Charmed Life and am now galloping through The Lives of Christopher Chant. I think this is the first time I've ever read them back-to-back like this, and I'm seeing ways in which the two books relate which are never stated explicitly in either one. This is the first time I think I've realized that The Goddess in Lives must be Millie, Chrestomanci's wife, in Charmed Life. Also, Christopher's childhood disgust of shop talk at the dinner table in the prequel nicely meshes with the way that table talk in Charmed Life is determinedly free of discussions of magic.

In parallel, and much more slowly, I'm working through Image and Reality of the Israel: The Israel-Palestine Conflict by Norman G. Finkelstein. It's interesting reading, but it's the sort of book I can only take in little nibbles before I have to stop and think. I got interested in it while browsing Amazon reviews of From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters, which the Finkelstein was held up by some as debunking. You can read the updated introduction to Image and Reality at Finkelstein's website.

Ah, but the Canadiens still beat the Chinese in the arena of Chinese Pie

Fascinating article, tho.

Patrick, I'd just like to chime in with MichelleB. My gradual slide to the left (or possibly, failure to slide to the right when a number of my libertarian confreres went), and into the fold of the politically active and actively informed, can be directly correlated to my involvement in rec.arts.sf.fandom and later, discovering the blogosphere through links and blogroll at Electrolite. This year I went to two Democratic caucuses, did volunteer phone banking, went to political rallies. All new territory for me. In the end, I wish I had done more, but it's still that scary big step behind me now. There's no doubt in my mind that you, and people like you, have played a major role in that personal renaissance. You make a difference.

Actually, Missouri is on almost everybody's list of swing states,

Freshly back from www.electoral-vote.com, I reckon you're right. I must have a blind spot for Missouri, as I have been thinking of it as firmly 'red' all along, and that's clearly not the case this cycle.

but that's hardly what this argument is about.

No, it's not. I think Avedon made the point best anyhow. But hey, have fun at Worldcon. Wish I could be there.

Erik-

1. So you weren't planning to eat or drink while in New York? You don't think airline miles can be donated?

2. This is not a matter of fact but opinion.

3. I'm sorry; I had the impression you lived in the St. Louis area. Missouri is not on my list of swing/contested states. The rest is again a matter of opinion, i.e. that I think your time and energy could be better spent in the unromantic work of the trenches of politics.

4. Work on reading comprehension; nowhere did I claim Fandom wasn't your tribe. What I said was, Worldcon is important, contrary to your claim.

(5.) Re my faith in the election, again, I think you're having a reading comprehension problem.

But that was a nice dodge of the substance of my points. Almost as if you had no good answer for them. Erik, I submit that you are on a self-righteousness high on this subject and it is affecting your thinking. In fact, at this point you've got your ass hat on, and I wish you'd stop it. You're both smarter and more reasonable than this.

...it seems to me that this is absolutely the wrong forum in which to bring this up, as no one here is an expert on the subject and everyone is simply offering platitudes

Can't help wondering why you brought it up then. Could it be the discussion did not go as you'd planned? You might also look up "platitutde". I don't think it means what you think it means, given it doesn't aptly describe several of the posts on the topic.

...no one here is going to change my opinion on the subject

This must be some new-fangled definition of "open-minded" that I was heretofore unaware of.

Obviously there's nothing constructive happening in this discussion of vaccines.

Really? Did you just totally miss the posts by Lucy, tavela, and bellatrys? Because of course it couldn't be that you're choosing to ignore them in favor of Kris's hot button approach just because it's so much easier to put on some indignation than it is coming up with a substantive response. It couldn't be that, because of course you started this discussion because you're interested in hearing all points of view. So I guess you must not have seen those yet. I commend them to you.

And, for what it's worth:

"Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.

"So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.

"But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."

Here's a thought: if you're worried about votes not getting counted (as I am), go volunteer to be an election monitor. Give to the ACLUs efforts on that. Work on any of the absentee ballot get out the vote drives. In any district where they've stuck us with paperless machine voting, work toward 100% absentee balloting. Let that be your marker.

What on earth is it about helping to create another Chicago is it that it has to be Custer's last stand? And if they win in November (Bog forbid) that doesn't make it the last stand either. That just means we're going to fight harder, and longer. We're not in a one-protest-does-it kind of fight here. We can't just raise our fists in the air and then go home to ignore politics forevermore. The real deal is that people who care about our country have to get involved in things that work, stay involved, talk it up to others, get them involved, and keep working at it together. Politics, is like doing the dishes. You have to keep doing it, because bad things happen if you just hope someone else will do it for you.

I would have stood with you, and maybe done some good. But I won't stand for you.

SFX: Eyes rolling loudly.

Erik, get a grip. The RNC is not the last stand. You want to "stand with" us? You want to do some good? Take that time you were going to spend in NYC making noise and go devote it to volunteer work in a swing state for America Coming Together, or MoveOn's No Voter Left Behind project. Go door to door for your local Democratic candidate(s). Give the money you would have spent in New York to Tony Knowles Senate campaign. Or any of the list of sponored candidates at kos or Eschaton, or one of the Dean Dozen(s). Buy a couple of lending copies of The Corporation and lend them around to people who are waffling about how to vote in November. There are dozens of ways to make a difference that will make more of a real difference than making a pilgrimage to New York so you can get a solidarity high.

And while we're at it? The Worldcon is one of the seats of my community. It is the gathering of my tribe. That tribe, that community, and feeling connected to them, and sincerely attached to the Nielsen Haydens among others, is unquestionably the reason I am as informed as I am, as mobilized as I am, and as empowered as I am in this election cycle. If you don't think that's important, you have a lot less political acumen than I credit the RASFF "Libertarian" of your choice with.

Hrm? So now Patrick and Teresa staying in NYC to protest is the hinge upon which the election will swing? Holy crap! When did this happen? Is this like one of those old Star Trek episodes, where Patrick will have to fight off the resurrected shade of Richard Nixon while Teresa improvises a cannon out of raw sulphur, diamonds, and citrus fruit?

Quoted in toto because it's so damn' beautiful. Gosh it's a lucky thing I had already swallowed my selzer. The Comedy Intellectual irregulars ride again, by golly.

Yes, Ray, now that I think of it, you and Fafblog are made for each other. I'm glad you linked up. I won't even tell your wife...

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