Will drive you mad.
It was just an ordinary Monday, following the lazy trickle of traffic of an ordinary Sunday, when, boom!
Hey!
How, y’all been?
Whatcha been doin’?
Me?
Well, I’ve been hauling my pasty ass from one end of this dirty, old town to another, working surrealistically long hours, and paying the price in sleep, meals and exercise (personal hygiene is still barely passable, although I was awakened by the cat trying to clean me up. She just looked at me pityingly, shook her head, and went back to trying to get my ankles to smell cat-mouth fresh.)
Now if I were a cagey dog, I’d have called in sick or disgruntled or something ominous to the various places that contribute to my bank account, pounced on the generous hat-tip that Crooks & Liars tossed my way a few days ago (Thanks again!) and have marketed the daylights out of this little site. However I opted not to for two reasons:
1. I like a roof over my head, and to feed my meager vices, and I’m not a Nebraska meat packer (which, you’ll pardon me for saying so and maybe it's just me, sounds vaguely…uh…dirty. “Yeah, Jim, I know! I never thought she’d go for a ‘Nebraska meat packer’, but she had a couple of martinis, and bless her heart, you know down deep she’s a bit freak-ay.” ) so it’s into the labor pool for this working man.
2. Getting a hat-tip is nice, but it doesn’t mean anything kin the long run. For a day it’ll spike, but it always settles back down to a previous level, plus a few new friends picked up along the way (and a troll or two). And them things return to their proper cruising altitude.
I understand and feel a particlar kind of sorry for people who chase the spike in any endeavor: the Ahabs, forever stalking their particular White Whale, because IMHO, nothing I know ever works that way.
Bill Macy didn’t get to be a star today based on "Fargo"; he got to "Fargo" and beyond by practicing his craft like any other working man. Asimov wrote a jillion books, one at a time, year after year. Hell, Lincoln lost every damned election ever until the big one.
There are people -- people I know -- who routinely wager large parts of their lives and futures on the Big Score, and it just never works out that way. And so I don’t know if its blog taboo (blogboo?) to flash one’s hitcount to the world (as if the world were watching or cared :-) but while a daily total of visitors is satisfying and I cherish the comments and emails I get, the number itself is not relevant to me one way or another; the process, the work and the people I get to interact with are what matter, so I posted it up here just to illustrate a larger point.
That anyone can hit it big on any given day, but the inflation of the moment has no nutritional value, and it evaporates like dew in a firestorm. What matters is the work, and the residue of what endures after a freak sunny day in February has gone. And my reason for using this, specific example during this political season is this:
It is especially important to remember over the next nine months that the world we living in and the nation we love will not be changed by massed millions in streets on a Sunday, but by a few hundred scattered here and there in polling places on a Monday.
That winning back our nation is the hard, steady, behind-the-scenes work of thousands of volunteers – and, yes, I’m looking at YOU -- that does not come with the sugar-highs of huge spikes and fanfares and giant novelty checks.
Because virtually nothing of value ever does.
We win this country back one vote and one voter at a time.
We will kick the everloving shit out of these people…if we can just get used to the fact that this is a game of inches and single digits. Marches and rallies and petitions and blogs and so forth are terrific and I’m all for them, but in the trenches of the political universe, damned good ass-whippings are administered in the aggregate on election day, and that aggregates comes in small, unspectacular increments.
Or, as Voltaire said, "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."
21 comments:
"We win this country back one vote and one voter at a time."
...actually if we do like the Republicans...we get 'em back a few million at a time with just a line or two of code.
...Its the 21st Century Baby...ones and zeros. Lets take the ones and give them the zeroes...for a change.
anonymous,
For most of "Diebold and DieBeautiful" people I know, crying digital vote fraud every time they lose, or sneeze, or the Cubs crap out is just another way to rationalize their pre-existing apathy, passivity and paranoia.
There have been some good critiquing of the last two cycles, but waaay too often "Diebold" is just whiners code for the latest chapter in their lifelong saga of "Everything's all rigged and we're all screwed anyway so why bother?"
Fuck that.
I don't fathom why some Dems give these pricks such a massive amount of credit for evil genius.
If the GOP had a Big Lever in the Sky, there would never have been a need for the kind of mundane, on-the-ground discrimination that the last two elections featured. Paul Hackett would never have come withing ten miles of beating Jean Schmidt in a bright Red district, and today Alan Keyes would be the Junior Senator from Illinois.
None of that happened, because feet-on-the-ground still decide elections.
They give so much credit to "The Evil Genius" (Rove, Diebold,etc.) Driftie because - well, hell - nobody can defeat 'em except for 007. So, why try...
Bitches with built in excuses.
(Psst - anybody seen Sean Connery lately???)
Same the world over Drifty, Here in my neck of the woods, Belfast NI, the "moderate" left of centre SDLP is never seen except at election time. OTOH the "extremist" Sinn Fein is on the streets day in day out (Can we help?) And the British Irish and American governments wonder why the Shinners get the votes. Elections are won by giving the electorate something to vote For not Against.
More and more people are noticing the "poo smell" too. It's delicious. I even kind of like the poo smell these days, just for the pleasure of seeing others suddenly notice it. The dawning wonderment of the "Heyyyy..." is wicked cute.
Well - I just heard that they are going to have a Rovian "Vote against Gay Adoption" measure on the ballet for the 2006 Election.
BLEH!
Anything (yet again) as a wedge-issue to get the *BASE* out to vote in strong numbers. These folks may not give a shit about the Candidates, or KNOW the Important Stuff they are For/Against - BUT they will DAMN-well come out to vote against Gay-Adoption! By GUM! (And the vote for Rat-Ass GOPer who's run a few Bazillion info-mercials on this Topic.)
And evah notice how the Gee Whiz's nick name for his supporters is the SAME as Ole Osama? The Base. (Al Quaeda means *The Base*) No coincidences there.
:-D
The Ports!!! The Ports!!! DG. The Ports will be controlled by Ayrabs. The way the administration has been fear mongering and saber rattling for the last four years I was convinced that all Arabs were terrorists! Now the president says it's OK, these arabs are friends of mine, 'don't worry'. Wow, this news is hitting the MSM. this is the biggest turd that's hit the fan since we've been doing this singles dance. Everybody's hearing about it and the president is *for it*, Geez!
Congrats, DG, on the well-deserved recognition and the level head. Though four days without blogging for us... I don't know... Maybe I believe there are some pipers that must be paid.
-- Piper mac
Congratulations, drift. I've got you on my Favorites menu, along with the usual suspects, who have a couple of things in common: great, funny writing ability, judgment, humanity--oh, and outrage that inspires action.
Thanks.
Ah yes.....coming to grips with the.....spike.
Didn't another two-bit, tin-plated wordsmith once wrestle with that problem himself, back in the days when he was inventing blog-riffs long before there were any blogs.
But here's an interesting tidbit I came across while reading the ol' Wordsmith's letters....
HST was actually concerned about what publishing the Vegas book would do to his reputation as a still, at that time (early '72) somewhat 'serious' journalist....which is the reason why the original Two-Parter in Rolling Stone was published under the 'Raoul Duke' byline.
Anyway, Rave-on Drifty....Rave-on.
And may you never write alone.
.
Is this directed toward anyone in general, DG?
jurassicpork,
Nah. Every now and then I read of another dustup between A-List, and B-, C-list (whatever that means) bloggers over acknowledgements, links, blogrolls, etc. etc. and I just shrug. I've gotten Bit Hit days a dozen or a score or whatever times in the last 10 months and while its is very nice to be read by a wider audience for a hot minute, it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't last, any more than being an audience member briefly on camera and asking a question on Oprah makes them "famous".
Then it occured to me how similar that kind of Big Score thinking is to the political discourse. How some people want to take to the streets or storm the baracades because somehow that'll solve everything. And again, I've been on marches and rallies and they're fine, but ultimately they're nor substitute for the Little Hits of voter registration and local activism.
Piper mac,
Thanks!
Gazetteer,
Thanks for the encouragement.
HST is a hero of mine. Ditto Harlan Ellison, who I really wich would write more.
muddy,
That "poo smell" meme does seem to be catching on doesn't it :-)
Gaias-child,
I dream of visiting the Auld Sod. Should I ever go, perhaps you can point out the cool places?
Mr. Drift,
We have been made fun of since the eighties. I am not a person to ever say quit; I hate these bastards. If you believe we can win in the polls this year than I will give my best shot for it.
Frankly, I give a damn about this country, but I will no longer tolerate its disdain for us. My family has supported this country with enough cannon fodder. Enough is enough.
Smedley Butler told it like it was during our last honeymoon with deregulation. Unfortunately the only ones who learned were the bastards.
Americans are not bad, just their leaders. I support nothing this government offers and reject anything they may offer. Fuck the USA... We are more mighty than we seem.
Bob
Bob,
Well said, and good on you! We fight because we must. I would respectfully disagree on one point, however: the broad use of the term "Americans".
It breaks my heart but I believe the strategic poisoning of the public well by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove has done its work. Other that geographical, there are no more catagories in this country to which we can apply the term "Americans" any longer.
There is the loony Right, and the enabler Moderates -- the Falwell Wing's willing hostages who are, at some level, terrified where their party is going but are mostly much too cowardly and delusional to stand up to them.
A party of pussies and crazies...and then there are the rest of us who have been pounding on the glass, tryin to warn them that this is where their folly would take us.
The margin between winning and losing comes down to a few hundred thousand voters, but thanks to Rove, et al, there is no more "we" in America.
You want interesting? Try on this intellectual freak show for size:
. As the author says in the beginning, “These people live amongst you.” Some choice quotes from this “Steeling the Mind” conference attended by some Orange County wackos:
“You know, there was about 6 million Jews that died in the Holocaust. Right now, the population of Israel is about 5.2 million. You just have to wonder. God is so exact in his numbers. I wonder if He’s just waiting his time before he allows the fulfillment of the gentiles.”
“Every experiment is a poison to life.”
“It’s just a matter of time before the clone people come. Will the Antichrist be a clone? Will they be able to be saved? These are big issues.”
“Al Qaeda has nukes planted in the U.S., according to my intelligence sources.”
“Anything that does not conform with Scripture must be purged away.”
“Maybe the most fatal lie of the devil is that you can get to heaven through good works. Every religion follows Satan’s plans—good works.”
“I do not believe the storm was meant primarily as a judgment upon the city of New Orleans. Rather, I see it as a judgment on our entire nation for our mistreatment of Israel.”
“We are going to reign with Him over all the nations of the world . . . It will be a theocracy with the absolute reign of Christ—with a rod of iron.”
Anyone who deviates from the Bible “will be tried immediately. No appeal. No need for appeal. There will be immediate punishment. Humanism is the religion and philosophy of the devil. God will use the millennial reign to prove that.” (Didn’t Hitler say that the Third Reich would last 1000 years?)
(E)volution is the “dumbest, most dangerous religion in the history of humanity.” (Religion? Gee, I can’t believe it’s not a science!)
“It is fun to make fun of evolution,” Holvind says, grinning. And that’s why he has a standing $250,000 offer for any scientist to trump him in an evolution-versus-creationism debate. “Bring ’em on,” he says. “They’re a lot smarter than me, but I slaughter them because I’m right and they’re wrong.”
“Since the inclusion of evolution in textbooks, there has been a moral collapse in our country.”
“A straight line runs from Darwin to the extermination camps. I don’t think you understand what happened to the Jews until you understand evolution.”
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall vote Republican and join the militia. That’s not what it says? What Bible are you reading?”
Most unintentionally revealing quote of the night:
“Folks, if America needs to be saved, it’s now. There are troubling times coming.”
Again, I repeat as a public service announcement, These people live amongst you.
I agree. So, since we know the Rupublicans will put as many anti-gay, homophobic, anti-abortion items on the ballot in Nov to bring out their loonies, the Democrates must fight back with similar tactics.
We've got to have similar fires to light under the butts of folks thinking "darn, this country's going to hell. What can I do?"
RagingGurrl,
Darlin' I'm betting you already know what to do.
Find that nice man or woman who is standing up the GOP in your locale and throw your shoulder behind them.
Pick a man or woman running for Big Office somewhere who lights you up and send them a check and a "How can I help?" letter.
The side of the angels never has too many volunteers.
Hey Driftwood,
Yup, I'm helping on that level. But I was also wondering what issue(s) would bring Democrats out to the polls in record numbers.
Republicans know how to bring their rightwing base to the polls. But I don't think Democrats do. What puts fire in their bellies? What needs to be communicated clearly and often that will wake this voting block up? Should a measure banning foreign company operation of American ports be added to the ballots this Nov? Perhaps?
I know what fires me up, and just as you might think, it doesn't take much.
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