"Why do people cling to structures that only demonstrate harm? Why are people so afraid? Why do they turn to conformity, to cruel rulers, to mediocrity that rewards them with nothing but frivolous and transient comforts? In the end, I struggle not to see the masses of people around me as dreamwalkers, or dreamlemmings, or scared children. I don't mean to be so disappointed, but if I were to accept the conditions so many do in my own thinking or allegiance, it would make me insane. I won't trade my sanity to banish the questions that remain. I would rather be lonely."

:sigh: I would rather be lonely too, nez.

in my aging-hippy run continuation high school (where all the fuck-ups went and did yoga for P.E. and raised organic chickens for eggs and the teachers taught us how to make a vaporizor out of a blender and a rubber tube), our school newspaper was called "The Lemming."

I remember how bitter my teachers were. I was the optimist and wasn't afraid. I realized later that they had just been through situations like yours too many times and were getting tired.

I am sorry that that happened to you. It makes me mad reading about it. It is never okay to treat humans like they are animals (not that i think it is okay for people to treat animals the way that we treat them). I like that you tell the story and move into the Oaxaca situation. People like to think that the U.S. treats their citizens so much better or that Mexico and the U.S. are in contained boxes when, in reality, there are like 10 people that control the world's economic resources. we just play into their game. some of us less than others. It truly is all connected.

great post (yet again...)

i love the sound of that school. it reminds me of a school i went to once...what was it called? a "------" school...can't remember. some type of school. alternative school. we learned math by stories (+ was a guy so happy he wanted to hug everyone, thus his arms out to his sides, thus "adding" them...the division character had an apple in each hand thus the shape "÷", and he liked to give them away, or give one away, or dole them out thus the division, like that), ate tamari-sprinkled fried sunflower seeds in class as a snack. all had our own beeswax crayons and were learning three languages at once! this is why, to this day i can count for a bit in french, and german. (later i learned to count in korean from studying TKD, and Spanish, well, you can pick that up just living in Miami!)

yes...to me the stories in the post are tied together. i'm glad that came through.

and i do know personally how it would be very easy to be bitter. a while back (and i meant to write on it), something made me realize i was—even in small ways—giving up. it was brad will getting shot. i saw my reaction, which you helped me see was...off. and i realized my thinking was getting crystallized. and the only thing that melts those crystals is Hope. so i try to allow it again.

i am sure this will continue to be a process, lest i end up like so many grownups one day.

Reminds me of Vieques. Peaceful protesters where rounded up from the beaches, thrown into open air dog cages, the women where repeatably frisk and harassed on by their U.S. Marine guards. All because these people dare to question the mighty U.S. Navy on how it used our land and how it poisoned our children. My courage failed me and I was not there with me. But then I know that is just delaying the inevitable.

Wow, Nezua; this post is a great post and asks a lot of poignant questions.

Your sentiments about civics and mobilizing people informed historical debate over the U.S. Constitution, specifically. In the propaganda spread to promote the newly written U.S. constitution (widely known as The Federalist Papers), Madison arguably dissuades what behavior you're advocating because of its potential influence:

[The] distresses under which we labor [must] be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

...The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal of different opinions, concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions [*cough cough*], have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity... So strong is this [mutual animosity], that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. [Emphasis added.]

...The inference to which we are brought is, that the causes of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects. [Emphasis retained by original author.]

Source: James Madison, The Federalist No. 10 (1787).

Of course, the ironic thing about this excerpt is the interest of controlling the effects of faction rather than eliminating the causes plays into the interests of those creating the governing document more than society as a whole As a result, the Constitution's shortcomings allowed other pluralities of thought to form and to gain too much power under the banner of citizen and faction control.

i never knew someone had used such specific meaning for the word "faction." interesante.

yes...madison. he'd love what georgecheney has done to the government of america. or rather, i should say, the boil that our history hath crested forth." jeje. words like "hath" and "crested forth" are a lot of fun, everyone should try one.

france...britain. spain. the new Murka. they all got around, didn't they?

they really had a lot of ideas about people.

"Why do people cling to structures that only demonstrate harm? Why are people so afraid? Why do they turn to conformity, to cruel rulers, to mediocrity that rewards them with nothing but frivolous and transient comforts?"

I always wonder about this. Do they think there is nothing more?