Re: In Praise of Lyme Activists

a_weisman_at_yahoo.com
Date: 12/30/04 

Date: 30 Dec 2004 07:58:22 -0800

derdrittemann2003@yahoo.com wrote:
> a_weisman@yahoo.com wrote:
> >
> >"... and LymeNUT is a red state kind of place (sorry
> > der drittemann, I know you don't like the red state blue state
> > dichotomous thinking and I will admit it is not a healing mode of
> > analysis and it is a bit glib in that it glosses over the more
purple
> > kind of truth)".
>
> Yes...but to me, that isn't why I am somewhat...uh...perplexed...as
to
> why you keep doing this.

Uh, I dunno.

The devil makes me do it?

> Why antagonize people with this sort of thing? I'm a Dem from a
"blue"
> state myself...

That's reassuring. I would have guessed. But of course now you've
helped Frank narrow it down where you live. Of course, I'm still
waiting for his lawsuit to be served but, believe me, I'm not holding
my breath.

>but I know...and YOU know...that politics is a game of
> ADDITION...and there is really no point in needlessly antagonizing
> people who might be otherwise receptive to your message.

But I am way long past trying to build any coalitions with people in
Lymeland. I am just an observor now NOT a participant. The people I
care about are taken care of and that includes me. I don't need
anything from anyone and I am done giving anything but my opinion.

But I will fiercely protect my right and the right of others to do
that.

So I don't really care anymore is the bottom line. I don't really get
upset about this anymore. It is all purely an intellecutal exercise at
this point for me.

And there's a morbid curiousity too, sort of like that thing that makes
people look when they drive by the scene of a car accident.

I respond to things I find offensive, like the notsogreatclod, or lisa
or the lisa impersonators, or kathleen and her attempts to hijack the
newsgroup and mislead Lymeland about the RICO nonsense, but I'm not
trying to strike a blow for Lymeland, that's all just part of my
personal intellectual interest in intellectual honesty.

I'm here to call em as I see em, to tell "TRUTH" at least the way I see
it.

But bottom line I don't really give a ***.

I used to. I really did. But Lyme and more so Lymeland have beaten any
altruistic tendencies towards Lymeland right out of me. They win on
that count and I surrender the battlefield to them. Although I don't
really think it was a great victory for Lymeland.

But I haven't surrendered my right to comment.

> I guess I am not getting why "red state" people are undesirable...or
> what attributes you are uniformly assigning to them.

Well OBVIOUSLY when one generalizes, one sweeps with an overbroad
brush.

But I feel very strongly about and have been involved in politics for
most of my life. And I HATE to see what has happened to this country.
And I think that the Bush administration, the Reich, is dangerous to
this country, the values we stand for, and the entire world. Every day
I hear something that sickens me and saddens me and scares me.

As to the Red States, I REALLY think we should let them secede from the
Union. As to the attributes I find offensive, well it is the red neck
ignorant hate spewing bible thumping hypocritical confederate flag
waving racist intolerant ignorant violence loving gay bashing self
righteous simple mindedness that I find disturbind. It is the
insistence on shoving an extremist agenda down our throats telling us
that it is "mainstream" and that WE are some sort of fringe element. It
is the fundamentally anti american anti freedom anti democratic
theocratic bent.

And that is just a start.

> If nothing else...it's sort of..."bad form", I guess.

Well they say that it is "bad form" to discuss politics and religion
and I'm doing both.

No question about it, I am NOT a diplomat and Emily Post would roll
over in her grave at my behavior.

I'm willing to live with both those things.

> Unprofessional...politically speaking...reading between the lines,
> here, seems to me you should know better...that at a minimum, you've
> probably had a little more political experience than most here...you
> know, building briges..."reaching out"...and all that sort of
> stereotypical political "nice-nice" talk?

But since I have no political agenda here all I'm doing is expressing
my opinion and I'm not self censoring or limiting myself only to the
immediate subject matter of Lyme disease ALTHOUGH politics DOES play a
role in health care and there are legitimate issues.

And WHEN Lymeland pursues a political agenda and ultimately aligns
themsevles with the WORST OF THE WORST, like Rick Santorum who is so
damned right that he's completely WRONG and as zip zip said maybe the
worst excuse for a human being in all of Washington DC and THAT IS
SAYING SOMETHING, and Lymeland is hoodwinked and actually supports
people who are ABSOLUTELY DEAD SET AGAINST patients and patients'
rights, well that opens the door, so to speak, to some political
commentary that IS on topic.

And I just see certain parallels between the "with us or against us"
mentality of Lymeland and the Bushies so the analogy is hard to resist
for me.

As to whether I think that politically the best strategy is to make
nice with the red staters and to brook our differences, I really don't
know. I sure don't think the Dems will ever succeed by presenting
themselves as Republican light. It is so silly "well we really
understand that you like to eat Republican but we can give you
Republican with less fat and sugar and cholesterol and calories"

I think the Dems need to stand up and define themselves. Make it clear
that we're NOT the tax and spend liberals soft on defense of the 60's.

That WE are the party of small government, fiscal discipline, respect
for individual rights, family values, and compassion.

So, harkening to the Ahhhhnold (that serial sexual molestor) and his
Republican hate and hypocrisy fest speech

If you believe in fiscal discipline

YOU'RE A DEMOCRAT

If you believe in family values

YOU'RE A DEMOCRAT

If you believe in no child left behind for real

YOU'RE A DEMOCRAT

If you believe in smaller government

YOU'RE A DEMOCRAT

If you believe in compassion

YOU'RE A DEMOCRAT

If you believe in individual rights and freedoms

YOU'RE A DEMOCRAT

etc.

All the things that the republicans used to stand for before the
religious right joined up, are actually democratic positions.

So the republican light theories of Joe Lieberman and his ilk are a
recipe to disaster. The democrats need to stand up for SOMETHING and
stop being a reactionary party, develop a real agenda, OWN the word
liberal rather than running away from it but define it as what it
really is: open minded tolerant fair family value oriented believing in
traditional american values of freedom and democracy and family.
Liberal isn't a curse word though to hear ann coulter and the fox news
crowd spit it out you'd think it was an epithet. Conservative if it
means red neck ignorant hate spewing bible thumping hypocritical
confederate flag waving racist intolerant ignorant violence loving gay
bashing self righteous simple mindedness and big business protecting
halliburton enabling and rewarding enron tyco adelphia admiring well
THAT should be the epithet!

>(I mean, if it makes you feel better, and all...but why)?

Yes it does make me feel better to vent. A little better at least. It
is more comfortable to me than embracing the age of ignorance in
America OR Lymeland.

I am raging against the dying of the light.

If you dislike that, well, I'm sorry. But as a "friend" of sorts you
could permit me this indulgence perhaps or ignore it realizing that no
one's perfect.

> "Yes it is very cult like. And very bush like. I bet most of em voted
> for him".
>
> Yeah? And? So what?

Well that actually has relevance. When you vote for Bush you vote
against science, against stem cell research, against patient's rights
and other things of importance and relevance here.
It is sort of like aligning yourself with FAIM but worse.