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Pondering
King of the Jungle
Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 1512
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45degreeN
King Kong
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 2673
Location: Salem Oregon
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 Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:40 am Post subject: |
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Sorry just couldn't connect to the Village voice site. Is that the paper from "The Prisoner" TV series. That was
"The Village" you know... 
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Pondering
King of the Jungle
Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 1512
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| Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:47 pm Post subject: |
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no...apparently the flood of traffic to the site crashed it today...hopefully after the wailing, gnashing, and tearing of clothes is over...the article will be available again...
Mamet is a very successful screenwriter (the Untouchable, Glengary Glenross, among others) and playwrite. He is also a theater critic for the Village Voice....and he was a staunch progressive liberal and outspoken critic of Bush/Conservatism/etc, etc....
wikipedia entry here
and he's had an epiphany:
| Quote: | John Maynard Keynes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, "When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
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As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.
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But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.
And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it?
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I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.
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The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.
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And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations"—.....
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And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military" of my youth, .... |
anyway, please read the whole thing....
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45degreeN
King Kong
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 2673
Location: Salem Oregon
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| Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 6:49 am Post subject: |
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So this monument to liberalism is now conservative? From one extreme to another? Where's the nuance, the slowly evolving mentality?
Gone from "government is always corrupt" to never corrupt?
Corporations are always to be hated to a position where they are always to be loved?
This is a sign of a mental breakdown rather than a positional evolution.
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Pondering
King of the Jungle
Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 1512
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| Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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so....you still haven't read the article I see...
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Links of note:"Review for Doubting Christians"
Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs
“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong...You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” - Ronald Reagan |
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45degreeN
King Kong
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 2673
Location: Salem Oregon
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| Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:09 am Post subject: |
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OK, OK I finally read the article and guess what, there is no conclusion, its climax is left dangling in the wind. So what if he now has begun to re-examine his prejudices that is good for everyone to do.
Mamet never actually wrote that he changed his mind on anything.
You just hope he did, but the words are not on the screen to read, sorry they're just not there.
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Pondering
King of the Jungle
Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 1512
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| Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:06 pm Post subject: |
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First, thanks for finally reading it 
Second, I think his main point is on page 4...
From the same source...
"Prior to the midterm elections, my rabbi was taking a lot of flack. The congregation is exclusively liberal, he is a self-described independent (read "conservative"), and he was driving the flock wild. Why? Because a) he never discussed politics; and b) he taught that the quality of political discourse must be addressed first —that Jewish law teaches that it is incumbent upon each person to hear the other fellow out.
And so I, like many of the liberal congregation, began, teeth grinding, to attempt to do so. And in doing so, I recognized that I held those two views of America (politics, government, corporations, the military). One was of a state where everything was magically wrong and must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the other—the world in which I actually functioned day to day—was made up of people, most of whom were reasonably trying to maximize their comfort by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school-board meeting).
And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.
No change? you sure?
I'm deliberatly refraining from being snarky, becuase I think that would be counter-productive....but I will use popular culture once again to try to highlight what I see as a "willing suspencion of belief" from folks that refuse to see the world as it "IS"....
It's humor, but I think it's stands on its own.
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Links of note:"Review for Doubting Christians"
Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs
“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong...You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” - Ronald Reagan |
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45degreeN
King Kong
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 2673
Location: Salem Oregon
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| Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 7:10 am Post subject: |
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It might be hard to tell but I really am a centrist. I hold dogmatic opinions on very few things. I can see both sides of most issues and have argued them both also.
The problems stems from those who refuse to see both sides of the problems, who refuse to see that honest people can differ without declaring the other side evil.
Neither corporations nor governments are ideal venues for getting things done they are merely what we have presently as tools toward the goals we seek. Each in their way fails to live up to the ideal and for that we need to constantly search out better ways. Let's keep the good and reject the bad and refuse to listen to those dogmatists who insist there is nothing that ought to be done.
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Pondering
King of the Jungle
Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 1512
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| Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:30 am Post subject: |
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here here! and I agree completely
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Links of note:"Review for Doubting Christians"
Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs
“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong...You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” - Ronald Reagan |
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RevJP
Moderator
Joined: 18 Apr 2003
Posts: 7005
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:33 am Post subject: |
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45... you've posted something in this forum that I can completely agree with.
| Quote: | | It might be hard to tell but I really am a centrist. I hold dogmatic opinions on very few things. I can see both sides of most issues and have argued them both also. |
You are better than me I guess. Apparently, I am an extreme 'right wing' something or other...
| Quote: | | The problems stems from those who refuse to see both sides of the problems, who refuse to see that honest people can differ without declaring the other side evil. |
Why does one name from this board keep running through my head when I read this?
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Psa 118:8 It is better to trust and take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in man. |
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theseldomscene
Banned
Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Posts: 7817
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| Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:56 am Post subject: |
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the masses are generally centrist...they hang out and lazily do nothing until one of or both of the extreme sides screams very loud...
i have found most of the time moderates are people incapable of forming any real opinions or taking any stand one way or another either because they are disinterested or uninformed...they must be lead or driven in one direction or another to get anything done...or even better...
both directions at the same time to form any compromise that allows for improvement...
that is one reason i think it is important to keep our gov. in a well balanced state of friction...because not only do we have those who stand around in the middle doing nothing until the extremes bring up the problems, while only offering limited, if any, solutions...but they actually brag about being in such a spot...far out...
just my opinion... |
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