Category: Politics

My recent trip to Dungeness Spit was nearly idyllic except for a couple of moments. As we were walking along the beach listening to the sound of waves lapping the shore, I heard a funny “buzzing” sound and could not figure where it was coming from since I could not see anyone in sight. Finally, I looked up and saw what I thought was a small airplane flying overhead. Leslie said “drone,” but at first I didn’t believe her.

She was right, a drone was following us, or at least the shoreline as we walked. I didn’t mind that as much as I would have minded a helicopter flying low overhead, but it still creeped me out.

It wasn’t long before a Coast Guard boat came around the point, going somewhere at full blast.

Perhaps I should be reassured our government is so vigilant. I’m not. Combined with recent stories of Homeland Security clashes with locals in Forks and nearby areas, I wonder if this heightened security is either good or necessary.

Leslie worries that the government knows of threats that would justify these measures but won’t tell the public because we might become too worried. I worry we’re quickly becoming a police state where our every move is monitored out of fear that we might “step out of line.” And more and more, I feel like “stepping out of line” to save some small part of this planet for my grandkids and great grandkids.

Most of all, I worry I might have something in common in with the Right Wing crazies that I despise.

This is a powerful video that deserves attention:

No wonder the Republicans didn’t want to confirm Elizabeth Warren and forced her to take her fight to Massachusetts’ Senate race.

The bigger question, for me, at least, is why President Obama wasn’t willing to fight for her confirmation, as Barney Frank urged.

Having finally found a category plugin that I finally like, I’m beginning to see some importance to how I classify blog entries. And when I see how many of my entries are simply categorized as “uncategorized” it’s a little embarrassing.

As a result, I’ve spent some time the last three days going back over old entries, particularly those written when there wasn’t a means of classifying entries. Doing so has reminded me that this blog was started as a form of political protest and played an important part in my blogging for a several years. Heck, at one time a reader had the nerve to call this an “anti-war blog,” and by then I’d begun to transition to being a “poetry blog” before becoming a photography blog and, even later, a birding blog.

Luckily, long ago when I started, or thereabouts, I described this site as, ” Focusing on poetry, literature, and photography and using the arts to explore and develop a personal philosophy.” And that’s pretty much what I’ve done here. What you see here is, generally, who I am, and, hopefully, who I’m becoming.

Most recent visitors have been spared the political polemics, but that doesn’t mean they’re not part of my philosophy. I can’t imagine having values if you aren’t going to advocate them openly and publicly. It’s just that lately I have expressed that side of my philosophy on Facebook.

However, I’m a devoted environmentalist and when this video showed up on one of the political sites I follow, Organizing Notes, I had to pass it on:

in our regular programming.

You’ve been spared this aspect of my personality unless you’re a long time follower of this blog, one I started in protest of America’s invasion of Afghanistan, God only knows how many years ago.

Recently I’ve only been expressing my political views on Facebook, though doing so seems like little more than preaching to the choir since nearly all my Facebook friends share similar views.

Still, since this blog is a tribute to my desire to lead the best life I can and since I devoted much of my life after Vietnam trying to create a better, more just, society, I don’t see how I can ignore anything as devastating as the rise of the Tea Party and the continuing assault on the middle class.

Though I would never display my emotions as effectively as Kucinich does in this video, he articulates my present feelings as well as anyone I know.

I’d love to see Kucinich run in the primaries against President Obama before the next election. At least I’d have a chance to vote FOR somebody rather than AGAINST somebody.