THINK FOR YOURSELF
hey there true believers~ here's something for you all to read and think about.
In our world, the people have spoken. And today, we still reel from their decision. I speak not for the left, or for the Democrats. Not for the academics. Not for the elite. Not for the media.
I speak for myself, a human, and others like me. With a brain. With questions.
Until Tuesday, I allowed myself to feel comfortable in the knowledge that anyone, people, could make an informed choice about the direction of their country, not allowing themselves to be assuaged by fear or religion or petty differences. I realize now this was wrong. I was wrong. I do not mean to seem elitist or self-congratulatory. Conviction is a serious character flaw when it leads to self-congratulatory depression.
This is not the end of the left, of reason, of enlightenment, democracy, of any of that, though it certainly stings those of us who jump to-and-from each of these convenient labels.
If anything, one can expect the voices of dissent to cry out louder now, more forceful, amid more expensive, and powerful opposition. In fact, this week is making me re-examine my own life. I am actually quite happy and enjoy quite a lot. Somehow, there has to be something I can do to re-educate and give back. I’m certainly going to try. Great leaders, thoughts, arguments, and conviction arose when it seemed darkest before the dawn. I feel hope that some of these will emerge in the next four years, from many people across our country. It must be possible to embrace them.
Finally, I remember reading this somewhere in academia. (Or everywhere in academia.) Scroll down to Sec. II, Article 1. Check out the presidential oath, extracted below.
"Clause 8: Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." "
Vague, admittedly. Clear that the office governs us all by the Constitution. Not just the electors.
OK, now look here. I’ve also extracted the troubling quote below from CNN’s vanilla story.
Despite Bush's appeal to Kerry supporters, Cheney said the popular vote victory gave Bush a mandate and the Bush White House would continue pushing for the Republicans' "clear agenda." (Italics and bold are mine.)
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that a president and his administration shall win a rubber-stamp of approval for any agenda they may propose simply by winning an election. Where's the outrage, people? It's our country. Not theirs.
George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of their band of merry men do not have carte blanche to enact their egregious tax and foreign policies on a whim.
Rather, the president’s sworn oath is to uphold the Constitution (supra). Not his party’s ideology. I hope that in the coming years, we dissenters choose often to remind our administration of this, and I hope the president’s voting base also remembers.
Of the people, by the people, for the people.
We can change. I think we can change.
===================================
"Think for yourself
Question authority
Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening,
terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in
this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, the
religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by
giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their
view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and
learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness;
chaotic, confused, vulnerability to inform yourself.
Think for yourself.
Question authority. "
- Timothy Leary.
Dreaming of that face again.
It's bright and blue and shimmering.
Grinning wide
And comforting me with it's three warm and wild eyes....
On my back and tumbling
Down that hole and back again
Rising up
And wiping the webs and the dew from my withered eye.
In... Out... In... Out... In... Out...
A child's rhyme stuck in my head.
It said that life is but a dream.
I've spent so many years in question
to find I've known this all along.
So good to see you.
I've missed you so much.
So glad it's over.
I've missed you so much
Came out to watch you play.
Why are you running away?
Shroud-ing all the ground around me
Is this holy crow above me.
Black as holes within a memory
And blue as our new second sun.
I stick my hand into his shadow
To pull the pieces from the sand.
Which I attempt to reassemble
To see just who I might have been.
I do not recognize the vessel,
But the eyes seem so familiar.
Like phosphorescent desert buttons
Singing one familiar song...
So good to see you.
I've missed you so much.
So glad it's over.
I've missed you so much.
Came out to watch you play.
Why are you running away?
Prying open my third eye.
So good to see you once again. I thought that you were hiding from me.
And you thought that I had run away. Chasing the tail of dogma.
I opened my eye and there we were.
So good to see you once again, I thought that you were hiding from me.
And you thought that I had run away. Chasing a trail of smoke and reason.
Prying open my third eye.
-- Tool
In our world, the people have spoken. And today, we still reel from their decision. I speak not for the left, or for the Democrats. Not for the academics. Not for the elite. Not for the media.
I speak for myself, a human, and others like me. With a brain. With questions.
Until Tuesday, I allowed myself to feel comfortable in the knowledge that anyone, people, could make an informed choice about the direction of their country, not allowing themselves to be assuaged by fear or religion or petty differences. I realize now this was wrong. I was wrong. I do not mean to seem elitist or self-congratulatory. Conviction is a serious character flaw when it leads to self-congratulatory depression.
This is not the end of the left, of reason, of enlightenment, democracy, of any of that, though it certainly stings those of us who jump to-and-from each of these convenient labels.
If anything, one can expect the voices of dissent to cry out louder now, more forceful, amid more expensive, and powerful opposition. In fact, this week is making me re-examine my own life. I am actually quite happy and enjoy quite a lot. Somehow, there has to be something I can do to re-educate and give back. I’m certainly going to try. Great leaders, thoughts, arguments, and conviction arose when it seemed darkest before the dawn. I feel hope that some of these will emerge in the next four years, from many people across our country. It must be possible to embrace them.
Finally, I remember reading this somewhere in academia. (Or everywhere in academia.) Scroll down to Sec. II, Article 1. Check out the presidential oath, extracted below.
"Clause 8: Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." "
Vague, admittedly. Clear that the office governs us all by the Constitution. Not just the electors.
OK, now look here. I’ve also extracted the troubling quote below from CNN’s vanilla story.
Despite Bush's appeal to Kerry supporters, Cheney said the popular vote victory gave Bush a mandate and the Bush White House would continue pushing for the Republicans' "clear agenda." (Italics and bold are mine.)
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that a president and his administration shall win a rubber-stamp of approval for any agenda they may propose simply by winning an election. Where's the outrage, people? It's our country. Not theirs.
George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of their band of merry men do not have carte blanche to enact their egregious tax and foreign policies on a whim.
Rather, the president’s sworn oath is to uphold the Constitution (supra). Not his party’s ideology. I hope that in the coming years, we dissenters choose often to remind our administration of this, and I hope the president’s voting base also remembers.
Of the people, by the people, for the people.
We can change. I think we can change.
===================================
"Think for yourself
Question authority
Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening,
terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in
this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, the
religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by
giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their
view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and
learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness;
chaotic, confused, vulnerability to inform yourself.
Think for yourself.
Question authority. "
- Timothy Leary.
Dreaming of that face again.
It's bright and blue and shimmering.
Grinning wide
And comforting me with it's three warm and wild eyes....
On my back and tumbling
Down that hole and back again
Rising up
And wiping the webs and the dew from my withered eye.
In... Out... In... Out... In... Out...
A child's rhyme stuck in my head.
It said that life is but a dream.
I've spent so many years in question
to find I've known this all along.
So good to see you.
I've missed you so much.
So glad it's over.
I've missed you so much
Came out to watch you play.
Why are you running away?
Shroud-ing all the ground around me
Is this holy crow above me.
Black as holes within a memory
And blue as our new second sun.
I stick my hand into his shadow
To pull the pieces from the sand.
Which I attempt to reassemble
To see just who I might have been.
I do not recognize the vessel,
But the eyes seem so familiar.
Like phosphorescent desert buttons
Singing one familiar song...
So good to see you.
I've missed you so much.
So glad it's over.
I've missed you so much.
Came out to watch you play.
Why are you running away?
Prying open my third eye.
So good to see you once again. I thought that you were hiding from me.
And you thought that I had run away. Chasing the tail of dogma.
I opened my eye and there we were.
So good to see you once again, I thought that you were hiding from me.
And you thought that I had run away. Chasing a trail of smoke and reason.
Prying open my third eye.
-- Tool