"Barbara O’Brien’s wide-ranging account of Zen history is conveyed with a master storyteller’s ability to keep the forest from getting lost in a myriad of trees. Wearing her scholarship lightly, she blends just the right amount of skepticism about her hagiographic sources with a deep appreciation for the Dharma." — Barry Magid, author of
Nothing Is Hidden and
Ending the Pursuit of Happiness Order here!
I am not sure if I fall into the madman section on this or not…I may need to be “kept under control” by the rest of you.I do not wish to “try to make” anyone live any way, but I , like Billmon, whom I respect a great deal, have gotta call em like I see them.
I read this piece 3 times and I couldn’t help but feeling he was saying keep your friends close and your enemy closer….that the right is somehow a greater danger to us if we were to split up then if we stay together…(did I step into a backroom whisper of abused women who knew it would be worse for them if they dared to try to escape?)…….perhaps this was not his intent at all.
He spoke of how there could be no velvet divorce…to that end I agree..most aren’t.He spoke of how the right needed an enemy, there too I agree- but with the right or without it we can and will be the enemy if they so choose(as we have well seen)…to my simple eyes it seems far worse for us if they control us AND make us the enemy then if they just “hate us for our freedoms”. Am I really safer?Really?With friends like the right who needs enemies?
“With” them 3000 of the “blue” people have been killed . “With ” them we are viewed as animals by the rest of the world.”With ” them our kids and grandkids will be in the friggin poor house to pay for their little games..”With ” them we are being drug into the toilet ….”With ” them we have an anchor around our necks.
Don’t you see we ARE the enemy? I don’t want to “make it so” it just is the reality…YES if we were to split there would be bloodshed but it would be worth it to have a country we believed in… the first people who came here thought it was worth it.It would be worth it to face the world with pride.If we stay together there will be bloodshed too.The beatings have not yet started.First they make it acceptable to torture the enemy…. then they make you the enemy.Thats what the right calls us now.. that EXACT word…
I have looked for some reason, any reason that the north and south should stay together and there are none.To avoid the beating we will get after only makes my point stronger.No there would be no velvet divorce but the worse it gets over time the more messy it will get. Right now emotions are high to be sure, but no where near, as Billmon points out where we were in 1860…we don’t HAVE to come to a full scale conflict.. we are adults and we know this is NOT working out….because they will see us as the enemy is not a reason to stay in … they see us that way anyhow.
And yes I agree the divide is not north and south, but you gotta cut the pie somehow…and people can choose where they want to live…people could reorganize as they see fit.
Let them have the damn brand name ,, fine let them call themselves the USA until they run the brand name the rest of the way into the ground…fighting over who gets to keep the name is like fighting over who gets a sofa…the name is a small price to pay to be free from the dictator we have.
Not to mention I am done with the right.This weekend they went so far as to suggest sending child molestors to prey on reporters kids, they suggested their kids should be “hunted down” I would sooner die in a civil war with my freedom and what I know is right then to be “united ” in any way shape or form with them. Enough already….it’s time for divorce court.Remember the lessons of Auschwitz.Once we are on that train it’s too late.
So keep me under control.Tell me why we should be united …sell me on the idea.Billmon failed to reason with me despite the fact I agree with a lot of what he says.. Anyone??