What's at Stake in Madison: Only the Future

All of a sudden, just as I prepare to reactivate my Facebook page in order to netblog a Where Is Cassandra? post, my IP doesn’t connect with all the computers in my house. That’s very odd. It hasn’t happened since I’ve been here.

That reminds me of what is going on all over the world, a disruption or shutdown of Internet service.

UPDATE: I’m watching NBC waiting for Meet The Press (maybe it’s not on at 11am EST) as I see the anchorwoman and her correspondents also mouth code phrases such as “anti-budget people” versus “pro-budget people”, then cutting immediately to the turmoil in Bahrain.

If anyone knows anything about editing (Eisenstein) they know that the intention is to create a connection between hard working middle class Americans such as firefighters, policemen, nurses, teachers and many other people gathered in Madison, Wisconsin to fight for the right of collective bargaining, to keep within the middle class so that they, too, have the right to send their children to college, not just those who can afford it, with the turmoil in the Middle East. Comcast and General Electric are making that connection. We are getting selective information from the major media. Perhaps that is true also for the Internet. I’m talking about America, folks. Not some far off autocracy. This is corporate authoritarianism. I could link you to any one of my previous blog posts regarding this, with primary sources and fact checking, if I could get on the Internet.

NBC. Not Fox News.

UPDATE: Sorry, I was just informed by my significant other that Meet The Press and the other Washington Sunday morning talk fests are on Sunday (duh) and today is Saturday. Remember, the rhetoric on the media is all to create a narrative that disguises the truth. To sway millions sitting on their couches watching the TV machine. They see groups of people rallying with signs then a cut to tumult in the Middle East so the major media can force a false connection.

I’m an older person, smack in the middle of the Baby Boom, and I remember rallies in America. For civil rights, where the media showed security forces hosing down innocent people, black and white, who fought for the right for equality. I remember Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman (forgive me if I misspell names; I have no access to the only source of “facts”, the Internet) who were murdered fighting for that right.

I remember rallies against the Vietnam War. I remember rallies for woman’s liberation, to give women the right to work as equals alongside men as opposed to being limited to secretaries (nothing wrong with secretaries, mind you, but it’s also nice to have options that pay more so you can raise your children without worrying about where the next dollar is coming from). Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had to start as a secretary while her male law school colleagues were given a leg up the ladder.

Do we want to go backwards into the dark ages? Or do we want to move forward to preserve our culture and civilization?

We are Americans, not consumers. We are a land of laws, not of men.

(By the way, I’m writing all of this without the benefit of the Internet and its magical algorithms. Elementary, my dear Watson.)

Unfortunately, a sad fact is that millionaires and billionaires have more in common with each other than with ordinary Americans struggling to pay their bills. Rush Limbaugh, with his millions of dittoheads, is worth something like $300 million and makes about $35 million per year.

Do not be dazzled by stoking fear and racism. Think about what’s best for you and your children and your children’s children. The fight in Madison, Wisconsin is about the future. But it’s happening now.

Pay attention. Politicians live off taxpayer money. That’s how they are paid. They have lavish, lifetime health care and pensions. They are welfare kings. Do not be fooled.

As those fighting for their rights and their fair share are saying, there’s enough for all of us. This is not a zero sum game, which means that someone has to lose for someone else to gain.

We can all gain. We can have a win-win solution. Unless, of course, we are crushed in our efforts.

I guess you can survive without the Internet. Maybe even flourish. Unless dusty old “dead tree” books are all destroyed (Soylent Green, Fahrenheit 451) and the only information available will come from a few sources. Then we only have a short time to maintain the illusion of credible objective information. What kind of knowledge will come from that? 1984. George Orwell.