Larry McMurty wrote this great read, Lonesome Dove. I read it in 1986 and fell in love with the characters, the writing, the story, the ideas. I loved that even kids could hunt a rabbit and fix it for a meal. Or that guys could trek hundreds of hard miles on horseback, sleep under the stars and survive storms and winters that way. They crossed rivers, fought with skill, drove cattle and horses… these lucky few were really free. Not in lack of hardship, but they had options. They had options.

As we have created our lives, seeking freedom from the mundane tasks of living, we have become prisoners. Of those who feed us and clothe us and house us. We are domesticated like farm animals. We have the mentality of our pets… forgetting how to fend for themselves, staying as kittens and puppies, forever young and helpless.

We have robbed ourselves of options. The poor in cities can’t grow anything on the concrete. Those in the suburbs wouldn’t know how to plant, much less maintain, a vegetable garden. How many of us could start a fire without a match? Or catch even a mouse (if we could force ourselves to eat it).

Do we have the option to survive outside of the very society that is strangling us? Can we even imagine it?

The left is leaving the left? This puzzles me. I’ve left the Democratic party but nobody is pulling me from my leftward leanings.

Or is this another orchestrated piece of bullshit to keep people attached to a political brand (Democrat)? Somehow the left is once again being misrepresented…

And that’s all I wanted to say. Let’s not be fooled again, guys. Let’s not hang desperately onto Democrats like we have no other choices.

We have choices. But what is it we want to accomplish? Really. What is achievable? Measurable by a wide audience? Where’s the best value for effort?

For me, it has remained thus: reinstate the fucking rule of law. Simple. Demand and achieve this: that those we elect to enforce and uphold our laws are held accountable to those laws. And then? Make sure those laws represent the very best of our values and ethics. Return law to justice. Not convenience or expedience. Not law based on fear or trying to control the things.

Get local and regional: School boards, town boards, zoning boards. Set good examples. Be honest. Be tolerant. Be practical.

We need a values change. Blame games, lambasting others, trying to derail the Sarah Palins of the world by calling them stupid isn’t getting it done… especially when we ought to understand what makes her a study in effectiveness. for me, it only exposes how ignorant and intolerant we are. Or maybe we’re just lazy. But give me a plan that doesn’t involve electing more and better democrats.

Anyway… that’s a 30.

Ho now diarist on the Daily Kos rec list, asking that the boycott either be explained or abandoned.

Really? You have reasonable questions, and I’ll give you a reasonable response: We want better. And no more politically expedient decision-making. Clear. And simple.

There’s another rec listed diary there in which progressives are chastised for … undermining Obama. I’m thinking the ones undermined wholesale would be we lowly citizens, the LBGT community, our dead and injured soldiers, orphaned Iraqis, drowning polar bears et al. There’s a whole list of the “undermined” and Obama and Dems aren’t on it.

The writer fields this question: just HOW childish and spoiled and selfish can so-called progressive be?

A double REALLY?

^{cross-posted at Daily Kos and at firedoglake}

There’s too much going on. Too many issues. Too many fuck ups. Too many know-it-alls. Far too many experts. Too much of too little.

What am I left with? Huh. It was more fun fighting George W. Bush.

^{Cross-posted at Daily Kos}

a sea of sunflowers

yawn into the light

of the great blue sky above

my eyes sweep across

bright yellow fields

splashed with

black seed centers

i look upward

sunward

into wavering radiation

melting sky gas into

an azure ocean

of windy waves

covered

in clouds of

seafoam

froth

fabulous.