Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

As some of you may or may not know (how’s that for ambiguity), I moderate a forum at another message board.

Yeah, that’s right, I thought it was tough moderatin’ a message board. So, I figured moderatin’ the world would be easier.

Let’s take the terms of service, for example. Let’s take violence.

At most message boards, you can’t even promote violence.

In the real world, you can promote violence all you want. Ever seen a Schwarzenegger film? Man, there’s blood and guts everywhere. But its fake blood and guts.

So, the only rule they have to follow in the real world is not to do it for real. Think they can follow that simple rule? Nooooooo!

Like this one member, goes by the name Bushwhacker. Well, he didn’t have a hand in spilling real blood and guts, but he sent some little kids to do it for him! They’re over there in that sandy place and there’s blood and guts everywhere and it’s real!

And you know why? Because this other member, my-mama-been-a-ladle, they’re both really obnoxious, threw some paper planes into Bushwhacker’s Lego buildings and knocked them down and made real blood and guts all over Bushwhacker’s play ground.

Thing is, he didn’t even throw the planes himself. Yep, you got it. He got some little kids to throw the planes for him and lots of kids got hurt when the Lego buildings fell. Even the kids mama-been got to throw the planes got hurt.

So, they’re both bullies. They want to fight each other, but for some reason, they won’t.

Well, I happen to know why they won’t. Because they’re really friends! Can you believe it? Their moms and dads go way back. Both of their families have been friendly for a long time. I notice that I never hear Bushwhacker threaten to beat up mama-been anymore.

Here’s the scoop. Neither of them like another member, sodaminsane. Where do they come up with these screen names anyway?

So Bushwhacker and mama-been got together and mama-been would knock down Bushwhacker’s Legos and Bushwhacker would know all about it all along.

Now Bushwhacker wanted some of the play-sheen that sodaminsane had buried in his yard. Yeah, Bushwhacker had plenty of play-sheen of his own, but you know how immature kids can be. “More, more, more,” that’s all they say.

But sodaminsane wouldn’t give Bushwhacker his play-sheen. A lot of the other kids in sodam’s neighborhood let Bushwhacker have their play-sheen. Of course, Bushwhacker had to give them some pieces of his Monopoly game, but he had plenty of pieces to go ‘round.

But sodam wouldn’t give up his play-sheen. So mama-been had these little kids throw paper planes into Bushwhacker’s Lego buildings and Bushwhacker pretended to get mad at mama-been, but he wasn’t really mad at mama-been at all.

And Bushwhacker’s friends got mad at mama-been, too. And when Bushwhacker got his friends good and mad, he said that they should go over to the sandy place and beat up sodaminsane. Well, Bushwhacker’s friends were worked up into such a lather that they said, “Yeah, beat up sodaminsane!”

Then Bushwhacker got a lot of his little friends to go over to sodam’s place and beat him up and beat up all the kids who lived with him as well.

Sure, some of Bushwhacker’s little friends got beat up, but what a mess they made of sodam’s place!

Nobody even knew why they were sent to beat up sodam and his room mates. Well, that’s not exactly true. Bushwhacker said that sodam had some paper airplanes and was getting ready to throw them at other Lego buildings.

Not much later, though, all of the kids were told that sodam didn’t have any paper airplanes at all, but Bushwhacker’s friends were still mad at sodam so Bushwhacker hurried up and changed his story and said that sodam was one of the little kids who helped mama-been throw the original paper planes into Bushwhacker’s Lego buildings.

Well, that couldn’t be. Mama-been didn’t like sodam, either. It seems sodam let anybody in as a room mate. You know what I mean? Even the “undesirables”. And mama-been’s and sodam’s mom and dad weren’t friends, either.

And that got back to Bushwhacker’s friends, but they were now mad at sodam for helping mama-been throw the paper airplanes. They were so mad at that that they’d even forgotten Bushwhacker’s original story about sodam having his own paper airplanes.

Now, Bushwhacker was afraid his little friends would find out that sodam really didn’t help mama-been, so he told his friends that sodam was making his room mates do all the work around the place. If they didn’t, according to Bushwhacker, sodam would beat them up.

Well, by this time, sodam just gave up. He couldn’t win for losing. And that was a good thing because he used to beat up his own room mates.

And Bushwhacker said to his little friends that they really did a good job making sodam give up and all and they needed to help sodam’s room mates fix up the place and share the work equally, even if they had to beat up the room mates to do that and they did beat up some of those room mates pretty badly.

Well, in reality the place wasn’t in that bad of a shape, so Bushwhacker told his friends to mess it up a little and then clean it up afterwards. Bushwhacker’s little friends were starting to get confused, but the friends who didn’t have to go to the sandy place were perfectly clear why the other little friends had to go and beat up sodam’s room mates and get beat up themselves. They even supported them by sending them little toy boxes to put the toys in because Bushwhacker’s friend, rummyguy, wouldn’t send them any of his toy boxes.

So you see, it’s harder to moderate the world than to moderate a message board. At most message boards you can’t even promote violence. In the world, you’re allowed to promote it, but you can’t kill people and Bushwhacker and mama-been can’t even follow that rule!

So, I tried to give Bushwhacker a warning, but his little friends wouldn’t let me. I did give him an unofficial warning, though, since this was the first time he sent little kids to die and kill.

But mind you me, if he does it again, I’m giving him an official warning. And then, you know the rules, three strikes and you’re out. Of course, Bushwhacker’s been talking to the other moderators to try to get that rule changed just for him. He wants to be able to get as many strikes as he can get.

Meanwhile, Bushwhacker and mama-been have been gettin’ quite the chuckle out of their little charade.

well... I have to say that I lost the thread at some point of the reading. Complex interactions at first sight.

At least you attempted to read it, Arcadia.

Another person who read it asked, “So what do we do?”

This was my answer.

There are no easy answers at this point.

We have to persevere, though.

First, we have to talk to those we know who actually believe Bush. We have to talk to people (and I hate these misnomers) no matter how they label themselves politically.

Obviously, we’ll be preaching to the choir with those who consider themselves politically progressive. The only thing we can say to them is not to give up the ghost. We need to tell them to communicate with others as well.

I think we won’t have a problem with political moderates, either. The only problem is that “moderate” sometimes translates into “apathetic”. We need to show these people the obvious truth and tell them that it’s in their best interest to become active one way or the other.

We need to talk to people who consider themselves politically conservative as well.

I’ve already talked about the message here.

What we have to tell conservatives is that Rove, Bush and cabal are not political conservatives. They are neoconservatives. There’s a big difference.

The real conservative political party in the U. S. today is the Libertarian Party. They believe in what the “old and true” Republican party used to support.

1. Very little federal government interference.
Basing the love lives of the citizens upon a law is not small government.

Throwing the ten commandments in our face is not small government.

Funding and/or cutting taxes for “faith based” initiatives is not small government.

Here’s where I would differ with Libertarians. If the government budgets money for social programs, I trust our government to disperse that money more fairly than I trust “faith based” or even private sector institutions to disperse the money.

“Faith based” doesn’t take into account those with no “faith”, such as atheists. Of course, George H. W. Bush once said that atheists could never be considered “real, patriotic Americans” because they don’t believe in a god.

Also “faith based” should be called “Christian based” because, after all, that’s what Dubya means when he talks about it.

We move further and further away from a secular government when we tell “churches” to assume the responsibility of some or any governance of our citizenry. It is not what the founding fathers meant when they said “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. One is free to exercise one’s “religious” beliefs, but no particular “religious” belief should be held in higher esteem than any other by our government.

Do we really think Dubya will search out Wiccans?

Does the quote from the First Amendment above say that one is not allowed to have no “religious” belief?

What about “the right of the people peaceably to assemble….” There is nothing in that amendment which denies the people the right of peaceable assembly to talk about philosophy, which would include the non existence of a supreme being.

2. Fewer taxes.
Is asking for billions upon billions upon billions to support a war of choice going to help keep taxes down? Where is this money to “spread democracy” going to come from?

Again, I would disagree with Libertarians because, although I’m not religious, I do believe that I am my brother’s or sister’s keeper. If someone is in need, I believe that I can part with some of my money to help others.

I believe my money is better spent helping others (READ: taxes) than making greedy CEOs wealthy.

If we privatize every philanthropic program, do we really think that the CEOs and top executives who run those programs are going to run them with “the people first” in mind?

Enron. Haliburton. Need I say more?

“Faith based?”

Oral “give me money or I’ll die” Roberts. Need I say more?

Remind true conservatives that something’s got to support Bush’s “spread of democracy” and funding of everything that’s “Christian”…I mean “faith based.” Taxing us or those who will come after us is the only answer.

3. Take care of America and Americans before taking care of other nations.
“Freedom marches on”. See #2.

American corporations need to return to the status they held before the misinterpretation of the fourteenth amendment. When they begin to behave in a way that’s destructive to America and/or Americans, Americans should have the right to shut them down.

Sending American jobs to third world countries is destructive to Americans. Despite what some say, it does not help the people in those third world countries. American corporations are not off shoring their work to allow workers in those countries to gain income parity with US workers. Think about it.

India’s tech sector, by the way, is finally catching on and beginning to demand such parity. We are, consequently, sending less, not more, computer technology “help center” work to India.

4. The Bible
If one can cherry pick from the bible, and that’s what people do anyway, then cherry pick those sections that say we are our brother’s keepers. Most people who consider themselves politically conservative also consider themselves religious. There are many instances in the Judeo/Christian bible, or The Tora for those of the Jewish persuasion – same book, different name – where we are told that greed is bad (think of camels, eyes of needles and how easy it is to get to heaven – it’s in the bible), coveting the stuff of others is bad (um, Okay?), letting people suffer around you is bad, etc.

5. Sacrifice during war time
The real test for a conservative is are we being asked to sacrifice for the war effort? Conservatives who were around during WWII know that, when the country is at war, the citizens need to support the troops, and I don’t mean with a ribbon pasted on your SUV.

Bush has asked us to sacrifice our freedoms. He has not asked us to sacrifice materially on behalf of the war effort. This isn’t even a real war in his eyes. That’s proof positive.

Tell people to vote their conscience in spite of the electoral college.

Conservatives should be voting for Libertarians.

Progressives should be voting for Greens, Socialists, etc.

The people who run this nation now, from the state to the national levels, are wealthy, were wealthy before they were in office and will continue to be wealthy when they leave office. Their holding office is about them, not us.

The electoral college has a trickle down affect. Yes, it only is in affect for presidential elections, but people, knowing that electoral votes are limited, figure there are only enough for two parties to fight over.

If only Democrats and Republicans can get electoral votes during the presidential elections, then why vote for anyone else for national congress or governor or state legislatures? It’s a vicious circle that needs to be ripped open.

There’s something we can do to change the way America looks at the rest of the world. We can work with groups who are working to change, if not eliminate (that would be my choice) the electoral college.

People would begin to vote their consciences starting at the local levels and maybe the Democrats and Republicans wouldn’t be so smug about their lots in life.

Of course, make absolutely certain that your congress people and state legislators do not support changing the twenty second amendment. We’re seeing the beginning of a fascist dictatorship now. If the twenty-second amendment was changed, that would be the nail in the coffin for sure.

Of course, with such a large family, the Bush dynasty can continue even if the amendment isn’t changed.

Work on conservatives. Tell them that Bush, Rove and cabal are not conservatives. They are imperialists. Tell them that voting Republican these days is not what they think it is.

In fact, for those on the other side of the spectrum, voting Democratic these days is not what they think it is. If we can hold Bill Clinton, the father of NAFTA, up as a poster child for progressives, we’re in trouble.

Look at how many Democrats didn’t join Barbara Boxer in being “the loyal opposition” in investigating voting fraud in Ohio or in opposing Rice and Gonzalez or who voted for the so called bankruptcy bill.

What can we do now? As Thomas Jefferson said, “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...”

There’s one more very important thing to keep in mind. Doing nothing is not an option!

American corporations need to return to the status they held before the misinterpretation of the fourteenth amendment. When they begin to behave in a way that’s destructive to America and/or Americans, Americans should have the right to shut them down.


what does the 14º amendment say?

The fourteenth amendment was established shortly after the Civil War.

The purpose was to give African Americans “human” status (big of ‘em, hey?)

Well, the clerk who was keeping the record of the proceedings, a corporate stooge, made notes in the margins, sort of wishing out loud, about corporations being included in the amendment.

So, an amendment that was supposed to give black ex-slaves the same rights as everyone else in the country, ended up giving corporations human status.

Ironically, as we know, blacks didn’t actually get the rights that the amendment was written for until the 1960s while corporations began their life as human entities in the 1860s.

It happened in 1868. Look it up. It’s great – if you’re a corporation.

It’s the reason corporations have first amendment rights, fourth amendment rights, etc.

Before that, they used to have to get permission to set up in towns and they had to serve the locals first and foremost. People had the right to know what was going on behind the gates and walls of corporations. Now, as David Korten’s books says, “Corporations Rule The World”.

Now they serve the locals if you’re local to, say, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Mexico, China and our old buddies in Vietnam. Africa’s nice, too.