I am approaching 70, and I attest to the fact that there has been a sea change in our attitudes toward our role in the community and also in our respect for learning and uplifting subjects like fine arts.  And it isn't just the younger generations.  We have people here who attended public schools, sent their children through public schools and have grand children in public schools but evade real estate taxes by putting a few grazing animals on their land.

Everyone seems terrified that others might get something for "free."  Few seem half as concerned about the corporate billionaires who are being bailed out by the taxpayers or the outright cheating on defense contracts, etc.

It's going to take a recommitment to each other before much will be changed.

I know so many, too many, people like the seamstress you describe. I'm surrounded by them. They seem incapable of compassion. They forget how quickly all can fall to pieces and how a once independent and self sufficient family could find themselves beset on all sides by circumstance, poor choices, and predators of all sorts and how quicly fortunes can change. I think though that Hemingway's words, "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee", are more prescient now than ever. Many of these people who now look down at their neighbors in distrust and disdain will hear the bell tolling for them. Sad to say that i won't feel sadness for them.

I've told you before that you and I seek the same outcomes, only different vehicles of change. And when I see people who are so similar to my own thinking doing what I consider settling for more of the same I become frustrated and bewildered even. I don't mean to say you are naive. It may be that I'm the naive one to believe that real change is possible. That Americans have the wisdom and foresight to recognize the futility of replaying the same game over and over. Clinton never had a chance with me. But Obama has disappointed me more as he's revealed bit by bit that there's little that is unique about him. I cannot hear this call to unity when it comes from the mouth of someone so...conventional. The real agents of change, or at least those courageous enough to communicate their convictions, have been jettisoned once again by the apparatus, the machine. People like Cynthia McKinney and Cindy Sheehan are labeled as freaks when they are among just a handfull of people actually speaking the truth without regard for political expediency and trepidation. And as this game plays out once again I'm coming to the painful conclusion, despite my capacity for hopefulness, that nothing is changing. Only calls to believe. To place my faith in someone, any new someone, who offers little more than vague glimpses of some foggy notion of how to achieve a movement of, by, and for the people. I don't believe that any of that is acheivable without a real commitment to challenge the status quo. To bravely state the facts of our government's active impriconment of it's own people. Imprisoned in the growing struggle just to provide for ourselves and stay above water.
Nowhere do I see a hint of the courage required to do that in any "viable" candidate.

This past week I've gone back to the speeches of Dr. King and felt a renewed sense of awe and respect for his courage and his unflinching commitment to social justice for all. That man is still unmatched in his ability to call out to all of us to reach for a higher love. In his ability to reach across all divisions and touch each of us ina way that demands through love that we love and support one another. The more he becomes a part of the past, the more we need him now. But I look around and I look again and I see no one willing to do more than use his legacy as a tool to further their own aims and goals. I wonder what Dr. King would make of Barack Obama. I think he would be disappointed in a person who is squandering his unique chance to stand forcefully against all that is wrong and criminal in this country. And maybe this is where I lose that need to embrace hope because I know to play in politics means to play the man's game. And that's why Dr. King was murdered. Because he would never compromise his ideals and the need for honesty in order to play it safe within the system. I am certain he would find little to be hopeful for in any of our candidates because none are truly willing to risk all for all.

So you see, in believing these things I've placed myself outside of the political reality. I'm asking for more than what is possible. As I've been told several times now on this site, Rome wasn't built in a day. Nevermind that Rome signifies all that is wrong and monsterous in our empire. And if that's what we're supposed to be striving for then I want no part of it. And I want no part in supporting anyone who through their complacency or cowardice does little more than feed this empire. And it's sad that I find it necesarry to quantify that to mean all of them, not just Obama.

Sorry to lay all of this on you, Tehanu. I'm speaking more generally about where I am than specifically to you. But I wouldn't say it someone that I felt could not understand me. You are among a dwindling few here that I feel that way about. The way you describe having your hands in the earth and helping to make things grow has touched me deeply. Kindreds are hard to find.

Oh, and one more thing, whippersnapper :o) I'll gladly trade my 46 years for your mere 39 :o)

Take care

Green Grass and High Tides Forever