Making it personal!

So last night I once again had a difficult time sleeping. It seems to be my regular status lately.

Perusing my friends posts on FB the last few days I've noticed several things. I need to preclude this by saying the instigator for this ONLY started me thinking, our dialogue has no reflection on my current thought process, other than a comment he made: "You made this personal."

Before reading his last comment to me I had already drawn the conclusion that we were coming from two directions and it was unlikely we were going to meet anywhere. So I didn't reply to that last comment. Understand, in writing on the net you have little to no idea if a comment is meant to be snarky, pithy or sarcastic, my 'assumption' based on the previous dialogue was that he meant this in a negative manner.

'I made it personal'. Why is that a derogatory comment? Or rather why would I take it as negative?

"The Personal is Political"

This is a theory, from Carol Hanisch's paper in 1969, that has been bandied about Women's Studies and the Women's Movement for 40 years.

I'm not going to discuss Hanisch's theory, because that isn't specifically where my mind is going.

I'm stuck on this idea that somehow when I make the personal, or rather my personal, political I am somehow in the wrong.

But guess what? It is all personal.

We almost lost our house, that is personal.

I can't find a job, that is personal.

I can't get health insurance, that is personal.

Taxes are killing us, that is personal.

The list goes on. The reality is simple,

Micro-politics:

The use of formal and informal power by individuals and groups to achieve their goals within organizations.

Macro-politics:

Are produced when the community at large and the leaders of the government as a whole are brought into the discussion and determination of policy.

Simplified, micro would be voting for the mayor of Aurora, macro is when I vote for President of the United States.

But when we are 'formally' focusing on micro issues no one takes offense. However my so-called formal opinions on political issues, whether at the micro or macro level are formed by my personal experience, education, and needs.

So yes I do make it "personal" when involved in political or social dialogue. In the particular conversation that sparked this tangent, the other person was upset by the actions, (of mostly strangers), that involved an activity/career that they had been involved in. They felt that people who had no experience should not have a voice regarding this particular career.

So I ask, how is this not personal? I need to be clear, you could just about substitute any other career/activity. If injustice is being done, shouldn't we do something about it?

If I accept their premise, I have no experience with A, therefore I have no right to object to B, well if that were the case than everyone who objects to Catholic priests who have been caught only have the right to object if they are A. a victim or B. a priest.

Oh I get that I am using an extreme example, but why do we as individuals, groups, communities, et cetera make the presumption that just because someone draws from the personal their argument is less valid?

Without the personal to motivate us what would be the impetus for change?

It is the personal that empowers us, makes us impassioned, motivates us to make change, to inform, to go outside our comfort zone because principle demands it of us.

If the personal were not political, if it did not impact us so clearly, empower social justice so emphatically, than there would be no groups that lobby regarding drunk driving, drugs, abuse, rape, domestic violence, smoking, LGBT rights, same sex marriage, bullying, and the list could go on. What is the Occupy Wall Street protest about, if not personal? Protests from the 60's? The Women's Movement? Domestic Violence Awareness?

Yes it is all personal. Make it impersonal and why would anyone care about their friends? family? neighbors? community?

So I intend to keep it personal, deal with it!

The Scary Herbs of Halloween

The Scary Herbs of Halloween

Moving?

I'm considering a move to WordPress. Partly because this blog is tied to an email/google account, so if I want to write I can't check any other google accounts, kind of sucks.

The other reason, I am really trying to write, and I'd like feedback, and I just don't seem to be getting it here.

However, this site is so much more user friendly, and WordPress seems to require a little more time to figure my way through it.

Will see, so for the time being I am thinking I will cross post to both blogs, and see which seems to be more popular.

Class Warfare or Propaganda?

"All great democracies have committed financial suicide. Somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded"

Google came up with about 400,000 hits, most of them the same variation. This has been making its way around the web in a variety of formats. I cannot find who started it, nor does anyone actually put any kind of reference so facts can be checked.

It basically states that historically we have hit the time in which we have more people living off the system than we have people paying for it. It ends with this:

"A Nation of Sheep Breeds a Government of Wolves!

Let’s take a stand!!!
Obama: Gone!
Borders: Closed!
Language: English only
Culture: Constitution, and the Bill of Rights!
Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before Welfare!
NO freebies to: Non-Citizens!"


Seriously? I was speaking with a friend this morning, I told her the number of people spreading hate and fear was really starting to concern me. Then I see this.

Facts folks!

Great Democracies?? (insert snicker), really, please name ONE!

You can't. Because there are none. (1) Not even the good old US of A. We are a Republic, something made clear. Inconsistent much?

This is the kind of fear inspiring, hate mongering propaganda that I despise. It solves nothing, and places the blame for a very complicated situation on people who have no power to fight back. So they are easy targets. They are nameless, faceless, so it is so very simple to just 'other' them. Make them less than human. Drains on society. Someone we can hate.

Here are the faces of the people getting free stuff:



1 in 4 American children go hungry every day.


The population of the United States, according to 2010 census, 308,745,538. That is over 300 million people in the US.


In 2009, 50.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households, 33 million adults and 17.2 million children .

In 2009, 57 percent of food-insecure households participated in at least one of the three major Federal food assistance programs –Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly Food Stamp Program), The National School Lunch Program, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

1/6 of our entire population received some kind of assistance so they could eat.

Please lets take their free stuff away!

And if you have never applied for food assistance, you need a state issued identification, social security card, proof of residence, proof of income, and a couple dozen other things to prove you need to eat.

By all means, lets stop the free stuff!



In every case the percentage is no where near the majority in any state. Numbers don't lie. Oh, you can manipulate them to say what you want, but as soon as anyone with a modicum of intelligence follows the numbers they'll find out for themselves what you did.

So much better, like this new chain letter, no just not state any facts that can be verified. Instead just post innuendo and incite more fear.

My faith in my fellow humans is diminishing more and more every day.


1. List of countries by system of government