It's Radicals without Rules Thing

Dear America,

"I WILL NOT SAY 

THAT YOUR MULBERRY-TREES 

ARE DEAD.  

BUT I AM AFRAID 

THAT THEY ARE 

NOT ALIVE." 

 in a letter of Jane Austen

there is a commercial that proclaims somewhat the obvious, making a short quip linking modern day drama and age old common sense  -- 'the issues that you don't tackle, tackle you.'  and don't even ask me if I can remember what the ad is for...that escapes me, lost in a sea of better things to remember bobbing to the surface and drowned for all of eternity -- or at the very least, until I see it again, maybe tomorrow.

One thing (out of many!) that is rather magnificent about life, is that eventually we become someone that wasn't born yesterday.  With a little bit of luck and by the Grace of God, we grow up.  We begin to see things before they happen, plan for things unexpected, and learn to guard ourselves against the plethora of evils that may or may not come our way.  Things like, taking the car in at the first hint of a rattle unknown, a condition unsound, and anything else that makes our intuition go hmmmmmmmmm... 

what is that, pray tell?

We learn that some things, we just can't ignore.

Welcome to middle age, G, so glad you are here (and isn't it lovely, timely even, that you have taken up crochet...as the universe giggles from it's belly, fathoms deep, and laughs). 

At about the midway point of Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky (as if you didn't know that already), we are sent on quite the voyage of enlightenment from the experience of a leftist's travels, and come the chapter entitled, "The Education of an Organizer,"  we glean a sense of the elaborate plan we are living right smack in the middle of today.

Just love this part (not really), reveling in an organizer's understanding of how the world operates, when Alinsky gives us this:  "Essentially, life is a tragedy; and the converse of a tragedy is a comedy.  One can change a few lines in a Greek tragedy and it becomes a comedy, and vice versa."

wait, there's more...

"A sense of humor enables him to maintain his perspective and see himself for what he really is: a bit of dust that burns for a fleeting second.  A sense of humor is incompatible with the complete acceptance of any dogma, any religious, political, or economic prescription for salvation.  It synthesizes with curiosity, irreverence, and imagination.  The organizer has a personal identity of his own that cannot be lost by absorption or acceptance of any kind of group discipline or organization,  I now begin to understand what I stated somewhat intuitively in Reveille for Radicals almost twenty years ago, that 'the organizer in order to be part of all can be part of none.'"

wow.  pretty deep, huh.

Going even deeper, understand that this is how Obama was made, almost from the very instant his itty bitty 'bit of dust' was conceived, birthed and given a name -- Barack Hussein Obama.  His destiny came rolling in to meet him, making quite sure his blend of being white and black, Christian and Muslim, growing up alongside an education and experience combining a hybrid of Marxism...
Capitalism...
Environmentalism...
Revolution-ism...
and thoroughly evolving over the years into what we see now as Globalism,  a conglomerate of a brand spanking new mad, mad world of a certain and highly organized proportion.

What began as one man's son, grew up into the man we see sitting in the Oval Office, community organizer and all --  rather, a beautiful specimen, a shell, of that which is part of all and none.  it's a miracle, really.  how lucky can one man be?

and don't get me wrong...similar, but different, arguments can be made right about now of Donald John Silly Putty Trump.  he has organized himself to be just about anything we want him to be, and more.  just my opinion, eyes wide shut, alright.

Alinsky continues, "[W]hat keeps him going is a blurred vision of a great mural where other artists -- organizers -- are painting their bits, and each piece is essential to the total."

But not likely winning high marks for motivation -- when we hear a little something go a little something like this:  "That's a pet peeve of mine: People who have been successful and don’t realize they've been lucky.  That God may have blessed them; it wasn’t nothing you did. So don’t have an attitude "

now,
on it's own, this is a very unfortunate phrase..."it wasn't nothing you did," he said.

If only he outlined the truth back behind keeping that lucky duck afloat, and just maybe getting everything he wants (or close to it) -- for old Chinese proverb says, good luck is preparedness meeting up with opportunity.  quack quack that ain't no jack

At what cost, true cost, comes with all that preparedness?  hmmmm the world may never know that answer; for that story is different for each and every one of us times e pluribus unum times 300 million times seven billion times the power of one or all or no one.

 And really, are you really going down the road that says God is blessing some people and not others -- "that God may have blessed them; it wasn't nothing you did?"  Seriously?

Attention Howard U and everyone else who cares to listen:  You know that little tick deep down inside you that makes you do something -- everything from your homework, to showing up in life for yourself and quite possibly a family, and just maybe, from time to time, even take the car in for service  -- that little birdie is God making you do the work!  Tick Tock time to rock.   It's called preparedness for all good things that may OR may not come your way!

God gave us free will to do with whatever we please; jokes on you if you don't get it.

But this Howard University commencement speech -- it displays just how blended, like a whirlpool, this president really is.  Here, read it for yourself, right now.  In some ways, it's the greatest speech I have ever heard; and then again, it's not.

Let's look at what Obama said just before and just after the little luck bit, shall we?

...We can’t meet the world with a sense of entitlement. We can’t walk by a homeless man without asking why a society as wealthy as ours allows that state of affairs to occur. We can’t just lock up a low-level dealer without asking why this boy, barely out of childhood, felt he had no other options. We have cousins and uncles and brothers and sisters who we remember were just as smart and just as talented as we were, but somehow got ground down by structures that are unfair and unjust.

And that means we have to not only question the world as it is, and stand up for those African Americans who haven’t been so lucky -- because, yes, you've worked hard, but you've also been lucky. That's a pet peeve of mine: People who have been successful and don’t realize they've been lucky. That God may have blessed them; it wasn’t nothing you did. So don’t have an attitude. But we must expand our moral imaginations to understand and empathize with all people who are struggling, not just black folks who are struggling -- the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender person, and yes, the middle-aged white guy who you may think has all the advantages, but over the last several decades has seen his world upended by economic and cultural and technological change, and feels powerless to stop it. You got to get in his head, too.

isn't it amazing...
how this guy operates...
blending things and agendas together like an island of mismatched socks and broken toys.

But then, quickly,  he kicks in a community organizing rule to snap the audience out of its self-inflicted doldrums:

Number three: You have to go through life with more than just passion for change; you need a strategy. I'll repeat that. I want you to have passion, but you have to have a strategy. Not just awareness, but action. Not just hashtags, but votes.

aw this man manufactures magnificent magic, doesn't he?

what a masterpiece.  in all of its confusion, bit by bit, the abstract becomes modern day brilliance.

the thing is --

and this may seem like it is coming out of nowhere, as in left field, like a wicked storm, whatever...

but looking at my republican party, the GOP, the land that conservatives frolic and play -- we have been out-skippered for so long, not only can we not see dry land, we can't see anything close to a horizon; we are being bombarded from every side and taking on water.  What was once a fine schooner reveling in and of itself, and, its common sense approach to life and liberty, is now tattered, torn asunder, almost like something has died, or at the very least, is very much not alive nor well.

The radicals really don't follow the rules at all.  They are pirates.


and this is just another sad sad day in a mad mad world

Make it a Good Day, G