(no subject)
Jan. 20th, 2007 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnny9fingersSpent an hour on the 'phone to Stephen as he assisted in helping me find my way through Mother's old computer's file structures looking for the .dbx extentensions. (We may have exchanged pleasantries as well, but for certain types of people Stephen is very very good company.) He has mislaid his old car's documents, and though about to junk the banger, still needs them to inform the authorities. Will add him to my orisons, if that's the word, and ask Old Gods to help out.
I owe him big drinks, and will happily supply him with such.
Chums are so diverse.
Some are similar politically, but many are far from it.
It seems in the nature of friendship that points of similarity are not as important as liking.
I find that on these pages many folk I like are diametrically opposed to me, politically speaking - and I find that such is true of my non-virtual chums.
Speaking of which I also find that people's humour modifies otherwise negative opinions I might hold about their other views -megilothsprings to mind. Perhaps I'm just getting more liberal in my old age.
Radical. Liberal. Conservative.
Left. Centre. Right.
It still amuses me that US opinion regards Liberal as synonymous with Left. In my radical youth it was regarded as being a position of apologists for the Conservatives. In America, it appears, such is not the case. America still seems to have no real Left-Wing politics at all.
When Hillary is regarded as dangerously and extremely Left-Wing what does that make FDR?
As Churchill seems to Americans, many Brits tend to regard FDR as being the great American Statesman (and our salvation to boot when our backs were really up against the wall - we don't feel the same about Stalin, who probably forced the USSR to make as great if not a greater contribution in terms of human resources).
I am beginning to hate all politics, despite being politically inclined. I think people matter more, but then again: politics is people.
Perhaps I just adore paradox. Or perhaps I'm just too tired and stupid to think things through properly anymore.
I owe him big drinks, and will happily supply him with such.
Chums are so diverse.
Some are similar politically, but many are far from it.
It seems in the nature of friendship that points of similarity are not as important as liking.
I find that on these pages many folk I like are diametrically opposed to me, politically speaking - and I find that such is true of my non-virtual chums.
Speaking of which I also find that people's humour modifies otherwise negative opinions I might hold about their other views -
megilothsprings to mind. Perhaps I'm just getting more liberal in my old age.Radical. Liberal. Conservative.
Left. Centre. Right.
It still amuses me that US opinion regards Liberal as synonymous with Left. In my radical youth it was regarded as being a position of apologists for the Conservatives. In America, it appears, such is not the case. America still seems to have no real Left-Wing politics at all.
When Hillary is regarded as dangerously and extremely Left-Wing what does that make FDR?
As Churchill seems to Americans, many Brits tend to regard FDR as being the great American Statesman (and our salvation to boot when our backs were really up against the wall - we don't feel the same about Stalin, who probably forced the USSR to make as great if not a greater contribution in terms of human resources).
I am beginning to hate all politics, despite being politically inclined. I think people matter more, but then again: politics is people.
Perhaps I just adore paradox. Or perhaps I'm just too tired and stupid to think things through properly anymore.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 11:09 am (UTC)Please do forgive me for my earlier brusqueness. I am only just coming to an awareness of all the conventions and courtesies (or the lack thereof) that exist in this vitual place and if I blundered earlier where not invited I apologise.
Unused though I was to this medium, I've come to find it fascinating.
In essence, I feel an affinity for the essay as a form, and in this modern world it can be made possible for the essay to become transformed, through the conventions of the diary and the virtual forum into something dynamic and (much life the notion of hypertext) something with depth.
I suppose our model is a transformed Montaigne, brought to the forum (that word again).
Then all one needs is content. And like Montaigne, the most any of us can write into the void is ourselves.
As I might have mentioned in an earlier post: I'm only the sixth most interesting person I know, but I get by.
I was politicised at an eary age - punk did that in '77 even if you loved Led Zeppelin, and the battle lines were drawn up according to the drugs you took and the extremity of your political stance. Being a naturally competetive sort, I ended with a bit of a habit living in an anarcho-syndicalist squat, where in between drugs and striking miners (during the Miner's Strike of '85 we gave space to a stiking miner from Barnsley who stole the food money to go and get pissed, and called us all southern pansies - but I digress), I tried hard to rustle up a bridge four (perhaps the Barnsley miner had a point).
The excuse of musicianship was, I suppose, the only thing that saved me either from a serious habit or the horrible quality of becoming terminally boring.
Politics and my life have been inextricably linked. My mother is the chair of the local ward of the 'Labour Party', of which Our Leader Tony Blah's behaviour caused me to leave.
So I'm a bit of a refugee from politics.
Also I'm demi-posh (couldn't resist that - I do hope it's a neologism) and half Irish peasant farmer, so am necessarily a paradoxical creature by nature.
As I mentioned, I feel an affinity for the essay.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 05:48 pm (UTC)I skipped politics early. Social studies were my least favorite subject, and I consistantly failed to find interest in govermental wrangling and lawmaking. My appreciation for history grew from a personal quest to learn more about our Civil War and evolved sometime around when Ross Perot discuss our national debt on TV. I began to look for more sense in my government, since certain things seemed like a given. I had a debate just yesterday on the ideals of our Constitution and whether those ideals should be exported internationally, or whether our leadership role in the world was not bound by the same ideals that bound our domestic behavior. I think the crux of my issues with politics revolve around my personal belief that constitutional morality IS exportable... and that a nation can't expect anyone to be civilized if it can't even follow its own ideals. But then again, I'm a 40/60 kinda guy and don't mind taking a hit if it makes the world a better place.
bah... too early... too sore... not enough coffee.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 07:49 pm (UTC)At the moment, the only progress on any front I can see is by finding some points of concensus, and building a new politics from there. I think both US parties have to re-invent themselves. There should be an evolution in politics - one that takes into account some increasingly more obvious circumstances - from things like climate change, limited oil reserves, Freedom, injustice, financial responsiblilty, etc... right down to the courtesies of life.
And I think both sides need to take some aspects of this stuff on board.
We all care passionately about our freedom, but we've also got to take care of our place of living, and we've got to clear up our own shit, and we've got to learn how to act like a mature grown up responsible civilisation, which is what we have the potential to be.
And we can only start with the personal, as I do agree with frickinmuck, that we should do that within our abilities.
I find I can't argue for it's own sake any more - I just want to find out what I really think, then incorporate it.
Like politics, we all must evolve.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 10:58 am (UTC)Just like a good case of the AIDS, you're catching on :)
Make no mistake aboot it, I'm rather conservative. Sometimes I go a little out on the edge, to the point of falling of the proverbial cliff, but I like to incorporate a sense of humor. At least I find it funny.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 12:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-13 07:16 am (UTC)