The Virginia Coordinated Campaign Office is NOW OPEN in the Edward Jones Building, 4045 Lankford Highway, Exmore, VA 23350.
They are looking for volunteers to help with canvassing and phone banking on Saturday Sept. 29 (2 Shifts: 10 am – 12 noon and 2 pm – 4 pm) and Sunday Sept. 30 (2 Shifts: 10 am – 12 noon and 2 pm – 4 pm). To volunteer, please contact Nathan Sears, ESVCC Coordinator at nsears@vademocrats.org or 847-400-7262.
Committee Meetings – October 2018
Accomack County Democratic Committee
Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018 @ 6 PM @ the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce Building, 19056 Parkway Road, Melfa, VA 23410. Map
Northampton County Democratic Committee>
Tuesday, Oct 2, 2018 @ 7 PM @ the Northampton Social Services Building, 5265 The Hornes, Eastville, VA 23347. Map
All Fired Up to Vote Rally – Sunday October 21, 2018
From 1 PM-4 PM @ Mary Nottingham Smith School, Accomac, VA
The newly formed Friends of Eastern Shore Democrats group will be sponsoring a vintage political rally to Get Out The Vote (GOTV) on Sunday, Oct. 21st from 1 p.m. at the Mary N. Smith Cultural Enrichment Center located at 24577 Mary N. Smith Road, Accomac, VA 23301. Click here for a map.
Doors will open at 1 p.m. and there will be free hot dogs and sodas, musical performances and socializing until 2 p.m when the guest speakers will address the attendees. The guest speakers will be Sen. Tim Kaine, VA-02 Candidate Elaine Luria and VA State Senator Lynwood Lewis.
This is a rally to inspire the Eastern Shore to get All Fired Up To Vote. Early voting is now open in Virginia and we will have tables set up and staffed with volunteere to provide information about absentee voting. They will have the required forms on site and can assist you in filling them out. Click here for more information about voting. Make your plans to join us for an afternoon of fun, food and politics.
Gale Stevens says
I am surprised Democrats are not being divorced, fired, evicted, tarred, feathered, ostracized, shunned and run out of each town in which they reside.
They have shown the entire world their true colors. They no longer appear ‘American’ to many.
Chas Cornweller says
This is directed at Gale Stevens. My first question is this: What does an American look like to you? My second question is: What true colors would those be? Please be careful in your answer here. Because if you use Red, White and Blue, you could be describing the colors of Russia’s present-day flag. Just sayin’.
I could say the same about a certain caste of Republicans. Some of whom are shameless bigots, homophobes and hypocrites. And by hypocrites, I mean they blast off at the gums about socialism and the death knell of Democracy and capitalism like they are linked at the hip or something but turn right around and eagerly accept that Medicare and Medicaid option after retirement. Even look forward to that social security check. Say you’ve been paying into it for your entire life and it’s not an entitlement? Well of course is isn’t, you big dummy. But…wait! They (Federal Guv-ment) took it from your paycheck each pay day! Really? Did you give them permission? Did you vote on that? Who lets them? So, they just took it out? No questions asked? Hmmmm. So now, you want to deny free health care or free education to the poor. That’s so special…You say you are in favor of military budget increases just at the time you want to pull back from all those stations and bases we’ve built and fosters for decades to insure we can grab at the last of waning days of oil/other resources…Say whaaaat? America first you say? Isn’t that the thinking that put us in those countries in the first place? Build a wall to keep out undesirables? Which ones? What about the cost of maintaining this nation’s infrastructure? Like the bridges you drive on, or roadways and pipelines and electrical lines and wifi? I could go on, but you get the picture. And of course, the latest debacle of the seating of the next Supreme Court Justice…tisk, tisk. Any way you twist that handle, sludge comes out. Nothing like the spectacle of an angry, middle-aged, privileged, white male accused of sexual assault when he was a young man, clawing his way on national television to vilify just about every honorable vestige of the court just to obtain the position in the seat. Do you even realize how his performance appeared to every rape victim, assault victim and nearly every thinking woman and man across this land? No, of course not. You were too busy seeing the stars and stripes in your eyes whenever he shed a tear or evoked his young daughters praying for the assault victim. Hmmm…
What does a “true American” look like to you, Gale Stevens. This American wants to know.
Paul Plante says
Chas Cornweller, whoa down there, big fella, arretez, cool your jets before you blow out a vein inside your head or something like that.
You want to know what an American looks like, Chas Cornweller?
Look in the mirror, and you’ll see one looking back at you, for that is what an American looks like, Chas Cornweller – they look like you!
Yes, it is that simple.
As for the ones you are seeing who are red, white and blue, Chas Cornweller, they are spectators at football games.
That is some kind of paint they paint themselves up with for football games.
They don’t really look like that in real life.
And how come you know so much about the Russians?
What’s up with that?
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Gale, congratulations for bringing out the anti-example of an American.
The kind who can’t see the blatant hypocrisy of Tom ” I smack my wife around cuz she needs it” Carper and Pat “Leaky so muchy I actually got spies KILLED when I screwed up at the Church commission” Leahy and Diane’ I employed a Chinese spy for over 2 decades and LET HIM RETIRE AND COLLECT A PENSION” Feinstein talk about integrity or morals. Not to mention Richard “Stolen Valor” Blumenthal.
Not hard to do, but you got him to stick his vagina hat covered head up out of the sand.
Chas likes his Americans like his hero Teddy Kennedy, the only man with a CONFIRMED KILL in the war on women.
Don Green says
Congratulations, Mr. Kuzma. A perfect reply. Wish I could have said it as well!
Chas Cornweller says
Mike Kuzman, it almost appears like you’ve got your Dunning-Kruger disease under control.
Almost. But, you keep being you. Keep giving Cape Charles reasons to build that wall. Along
the north shore of the Delaware Bay. And Mike, as far as the Kennedys are concerned, Bobby
was the real hero. But, yeah, he was shot dead too…
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
“On October 10, 1963, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy committed what is widely viewed as one of the most ignominious acts in modern American history: he authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to begin wiretapping the telephones of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.”
Hero.
Yeahrightsureyeah.
Paul Plante says
Chas Cornweller, dude, and that is an honorific (a title or word implying or expressing high status, politeness, or respect), because not just anybody can aspire to dude-dom, it takes talent to actually get there, one thing is certain in this otherwise quite uncertain world and that is that nobody can do repartee (conversation or speech characterized by quick, witty comments or replies with synonyms such banter, badinage, bantering, raillery, witticism(s), ripostes, sallies, quips, joking, jesting, or persiflage, which is light and slightly contemptuous mockery or banter) like you can do repartee, and that is a fact!
Said another way for those who are more into brevity, you are a hoot, Chas Cornweller, and that is a fact.
A friend says
“honorific (a title or word implying or expressing high status, politeness, or respect)”
Insulting the readers of The Mirror again Paul?
Your submissions to The Mirror denote symptoms of The Dunning–Kruger Effect (a cognitive bias wherein individuals suffer from illusory superiority).
Paul Plante says
Why, A friend, would I insult the readers of The Mirror?
It would be quite silly to do so, would it not?
And there is no “again,” A friend, because I don’t insult the readers of The Mirror, period, which means I haven’t yet insulted them, and have no intentions of doing so.
For the record, A friend, if used as a verb, and I am sure you must know this, since it is from 4th grade vocabulary, “insult” means “speak to or treat with disrespect or scornful abuse,” as you are actually doing in here to me with this false and specious accusation of my submissions to The Mirror denoting symptoms of The Dunning–Kruger Effect, which you say is a cognitive bias wherein individuals suffer from illusory superiority.
But step back and look at exactly how stupid that sounds, A friend, and here, I am exercising extreme compassion for you – what is “illusory superiority?”
Check it out, A friend – illusory, an adjective as you well know from your grade school grammer classes, means based on illusion; not real.
Since I know that I am not superior to anyone in here, especially my dear friend and fellow American patriot Chas Cornweller, who I would say is far superior to me in more ways than I can count, to include his humility, which will have him saying a variant of “Ah, shucks, I ain’t superior at all,” proof that he also does not suffer from your Dunning–Kruger Effect, which incidentally, you are portraying in here, it logically follows that I cannot suffer from the same Dunning–Kruger Effect you are displaying here with this post of yours where you deign to chide me for making myself clear and understandable and comprehensible to the readers of The Mirror, who I greatly respect for their intellect and assiduity.
On another note, A friend, or should I call you Comrade, there is a rumor afloat across the United States that you are in reality a notorious Russian Bot whose sole purpose in life is to disrupt our democracy so as to be able to steal it from us.
Would you care to comment on the truth or falsity of that rumor while we have you on the line in here?
The candid world would really appreciate if you could do so.
Thanking you in advance for your prompt attention to that serious matter, I bid you the best of the day.
A friend says
So Paul, you think I’m a Russian Bot; hilarious! Your lack of faith that Wayne can screen such attempts by foreign powers to “invade” The Mirror is evidence of your paranoia.
Paul Plante says
A friend, let me suggest that you enroll yourself in a course on remedial reading, because from your most recent post where you say, “So Paul, you think I’m a Russian Bot,” it is quite obvious that when the subject was first in traduced to you in the second grade, either you were absent, or simply sleeping, because if you review what I actually did say, you will clearly discern that I never said I thought you were a Russian bot, as you falsely claim here.
To help you out, let me walk you through what I actually did say, which a read-back of the transcript of this conversation shows to be as follows, to wit:
“On another note, A friend, or should I call you Comrade, there is a rumor afloat across the United States that you are in reality a notorious Russian Bot whose sole purpose in life is to disrupt our democracy so as to be able to steal it from us.”
“Would you care to comment on the truth or falsity of that rumor while we have you on the line in here?”
“The candid world would really appreciate if you could do so.”
“Thanking you in advance for your prompt attention to that serious matter, I bid you the best of the day.”
end quotes
You see what I really was saying there, A friend?
It was a simple request for some much needed clarification of your status in here?
So why did you duck the question with your obvious attempt at re-direction and obfuscation?
And no, if you really were a Russian bot, I think you could not only fool Wayne Creed, such is the power we have learned Russian bots have over us, where they were even able to fool Facebook, but all of the people in America, as well.
A friend says
“Would you care to comment on the truth or falsity of that rumor while we have you on the line in here?”
Nyet!
Paul Plante says
Thanks for clarifying that for us, A friend!
The candid world which was clearly wondering owes you a debt of gratitude.
And let me personally commend you in your language skills in your native language!
And I mean that sincerely, for you speak it quite well!
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Bestowing upon someone an ‘honorific’ is an encomium, not a pejorative.
163 Stanford-Binet
160 Wexler.
If ya’ want, I can esplain that in small words.
Paul Plante says
Thanks for that, Mike.
And it is always the language usage here in America that ultimately trips these Russian Bots up and gives them away.
They learn words, but being Russian, they are incapable of thinking like an American, and here is a case in point, as you have just pointed out.
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Chas, show me ONE statement above that was not true. ONE. You know as well as I do you cannot.
Dunning Kruger indeed. You sir are it’s perfect exemplar.
ALL THREE brothers were absolute slime. ABSOLUTE. Worse even than their boot legger father. Bear in mind that Bobby your saint conspired to get his brother Teddy ” I’ma like me some waitress sammiches while I am stinking drunk as usual” Kennedy out of a MURDER charge. But you keep on worshipping those vermin. Mary Jo Kopechne is unavailable to comment on your idol worship.
Please, CC build a wall. Before it was completed you all would transfer it for a buck to some outa town developer. Or, like your quarter mil dumper, it would cost eight hundred millionty trillion dollars. But you economic genius you, you just keep on figuring out ways to impoverish your town. Cuz you loves you some poor people so much, like every other democrat you wanna make MORE OF THEM.
Tell me Chas Democrat, why do you on your side like keeping people on………….plantations, be they real or figurative?
Chas Cornweller says
Settle down there, Mike, you’re slathering foam everywhere and that vein in your neck might pop at any moment. The wiretap was at the behest of Mr. (or is it Miss?) Hover…in conjunction with (false) information that the Civil Rights movement was infiltrated by the Communists. Bobby reluctantly went along after his brother (Jack) who told him to do it. Do your own research. Anyway, the one you call Bobby, my saint, couldn’t have conspired to get his brother Teddy out of the murder charge. You see, the car went off the bridge in the summer of ’69. Bobby was assassinated in ’68. Simple math kind of puts the kibosh on that theory. Besides, Mike, stay at home Republic-rat, you’re blaming me for Cape Charles financial woes is your third swing and a miss. I don’t live there. Like you, I am a distant voyeur. Looking in from time to time to watch the pulse of America vibrate. I believe Mr. Creed is doing a fine job. Don’t you?
Note: The more interesting connection is that of Sam Giancana, who started out as a wheelman for Al Capone and worked his way to the top of Chicago’s illegal gambling operations. He had many ties with politicians, including the Kennedys, and was called to testify regarding Mafia involvement in a CIA plot to assassinate Castro. Giancana himself was killed before giving testimony. The hits on the Kennedys have been “very loosely” tied to the Sicilians in Chicago.
Paul Plante says
Boy, when you are on a roll, Chas Cornweller. you’re really rolling, and that too is a fact.
And like you, I am a distant spectator, looking in from time to time to watch the pulse of America vibrate.
And yes, I believe Mr. Creed is doing a fine job.
Don’t you?
But getting to brass tacks here, Chas Cornweller, have you read “The Dark Side of Camelot” by Seymour Hersh?
But silly me, what am I saying – of course you have, or you must have, anyway, given that it is about the Kennedys, including Bobby, who is said to have been a mean son of a ***** who was procuring starlets and hookers for brother Jack in the white house, because according to Hersh, Jack Kennedy got migraines if he didn’t have sex with at least two strange women a day, something the METOO movement likely would have been all over him for if he was around today.
Anyway this is what Hersh had to say about Kennedy in the book, to wit:
This is not a book about John Kennedy’s brilliant moments, and his brilliant policies.
Nor is it a book about the awful moment of his death and why he was shot.
John Kennedy’s policies and his life contained many superb moments.
After his death, his glamour and wit combined with his successes in foreign affairs and domestic policies – real and imagined – to create the myth of Camelot.
But there was a dark side to Camelot, and to John Kennedy.
I began writing this book knowing that it would inevitably move into a sensitive area: When is it relevant to report on the private life of a public man?
The central finding that emerged from five years of reporting, and more than a thousand interviews with people who knew and worked with John F. Kennedy, is that Kennedy’s private life and personal obsessions – his character – affected the affairs of the nation and its foreign policy far more than has ever been known.
This is a book about a man whose personal weaknesses limited his ability to carry out his duties as president.
It is also a book about the power of beauty.
It tells of otherwise strong and self-reliant men and women who were awed and seduced by Kennedy’s magnetism, and who competed with one another to please the most charismatic leader in our nation’s history.
Many are still blinded today.
In writing this book, my hope is that I have been able to help the nation reclaim some of its history.
– Seymour M. Hersh, October 1997
Is that the same conclusion your studies of the man have arrived at?
Did Hersh succeed in helping the nation reclaim some of its history, do you think?
Chas Cornweller says
Paul Plante, once again, thank you for the kind accolades. Not really sure how deserving they are, but, like the hungry man staring through the plate glass window at the patrons eating inside, I’ll take what I can get. Seems, sometimes on this site, only Cold Dog Soup and Rainbow Pie is served to this undeserving commenter.
I was a wee lad when JFK had his head blown off that fine, sunny day in Dallas. By whom and for what reason, we’ll never know. But, the irony is this, just how finely tuned history is, that a lone, mixed-up twenty-four-year-old could use a cheap Italian rifle with a scope and a handful of ballistic charges and change the course of America, forever. It is interesting, if not a bit bewildering to wonder, what if he had missed? But, according to Warren…he did not. So, here we are.
I am not a fan of the Kennedys. It was Jackie, the wife, that wove the tapestry of Camelot, post November 22. And every presidential dynasty has been chasing it ever since. It was fitting, if you discount the indiscretions, the foreign policy failures and the backroom shenanigans of the CIA and FBI. Would he have been a great president? We’ll never know. We can speculate and scrutinize the issues ad-nauseum. But, we will never know. He was killed before he could either screw-up or perform greatness. And yes, there was a dark side. There is always a dark side. There is a dark side to me and I am sure there is a dark side to you.
It was Bobby’s policies in the campaign of 1968 that caught my attentions. Not the politics, not the fact that he was taken out like his brother before him. It was his grace under fire. His belief that the Vietnam War had to end. He general concerns and compassion about poverty in America. He was no different on the doorstep of an Appalachian miner than he was on the doorstep of a Mississippi sharecropper. That to me, was the character of the man. Again, would he have made a difference in Washington in 1969? We will never know. Never…know. But, the legacy of his politics has stayed with me all these years as the possibility of what can be. What is possible in leadership in government. What a compassionate and caring civil servant can achieve. Call me a romantic, a fool, a naïve old goat. I still believe it IS possible. As the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lost infinite hope.” Do you believe this Paul?
America is at a cross-road. Depending on the fork we take, our actions direct the future fate of this nation and her people. You understand the problem, right? Freedom is a basic right, pursuit of happiness is a basic right, human dignity and judicial fairness are basic rights. When these are extruded from the fabric of our society, then we are left no choice. Order and freedom will rise to the surface one way or another. We are a nation founded on over-throwing Authority and Inequities. It is who we are. It would be shame if we mis-direct our ire and have a go at each other, while those who rule smile while sitting in high places and watch, as we burn down our basic rights, one at a time, or all at once.
Good to hear from you, sir. Stay well.
Paul Plante says
As to Cold Dog Soup, Chas Cornweller, Walmart’s is said to have a white wine by the jug that is said to be divine with both cold dog soup and possum – you should give it a try, you might like it.
As to Rainbow Pie, I’m not really that much into sweets, so I really haven’t tried it.
As to JFK, I was sitting I a study hall in HS when he had his head blown off that fine, sunny day in Dallas.
I still recall me and a friend of mine looking at each other when the announcement came over the PA, saying to each other at the same time, “Wow, they really did it!”
We had been talking about the high likelihood that JFK was going to get his **** blown away down in Texas in class for the preceding several days.
And history is merely history, Chas Cornweller.
By whom and for what reason, we’ll never know. But, the irony is this, just how finely tuned history is, that a lone, mixed-up twenty-four-year-old could use a cheap Italian rifle with a scope and a handful of ballistic charges and change the course of America, forever. It is interesting, if not a bit bewildering to wonder, what if he had missed? But, according to Warren…he did not. So, here we are.
I am not a fan of the Kennedys. It was Jackie, the wife, that wove the tapestry of Camelot, post November 22. And every presidential dynasty has been chasing it ever since. It was fitting, if you discount the indiscretions, the foreign policy failures and the backroom shenanigans of the CIA and FBI. Would he have been a great president? We’ll never know. We can speculate and scrutinize the issues ad-nauseum. But, we will never know. He was killed before he could either screw-up or perform greatness. And yes, there was a dark side. There is always a dark side. There is a dark side to me and I am sure there is a dark side to you.
As to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. saying, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lost infinite hope,” of course I believe that, Chas Cornweller -it is the advice I grew up with coming from the adults around me who gave me my values – adults who had grown up as children in the Great Depression and then had to face World War II.
Dr. King was merely repeating what was a common sentiment back then – he certainly did not originate that statement.
And America is always at a cross-road, Chas Cornweller, each and every moment of each and every day, and depending on the fork we take, our actions direct the future fate of this nation and her people, and it has been that way since the beginning, Chas Cornweller, so certainly I understand that reality, although I don’t consider it to be a problem.
You say freedom is a basic right, and pursuit of happiness is a basic right, and human dignity and judicial fairness are basic rights, but that is theory, Chas Cornweller, not actuality.
Those are sentiments.
What is “human dignity,” Chas Cornweller?
Can you define it?
And what about judicial fairness?
How is that a basic right when it doesn’t exist?
You say that when these are extruded from the fabric of our society, then we are left no choice.
No choice about what?
We always have choices, Chas Cornweller, each and every moment of each and every day.
You either endeavor to persevere, or you fall by the wayside.
And will order and freedom will rise to the surface one way or another?
Or will it be chaos and anarchy?
So say we are a nation founded on over-throwing Authority and Inequities, but that is not really true, Chas Cornweller.
What we overthrew was tyranny.
That is who we used to be, but no longer are.
And of course it would be shame if we mis-direct our ire and have a go at each other, while those who rule smile while sitting in high places and watch, as we burn down our basic rights, one at a time, or all at once.
That is why I don’t burn down my basic rights, although I really don’t have any, that thanks to Sonia Sotomayor, who is a liar, nor do I burn down your basic rights, assuming you have any.
And yes, Chas Cornweller, it is good to hear from you, sir.
Please, stay well.
Paul Plante says
Freedom is a basic right, Chas Cornweller, and pursuit of happiness is a basic right, and human dignity and judicial fairness are basic rights so long as you have the money and right political connections to buy them with.
If not, tough luck.
Paul Plante says
And Chas Cornweller, when Kennedy was killed, it did not “change the course of America, forever.”
Nothing changed, at all.
The sun went down that evening.
The sun came up the next morning.
People came home and ate supper and got up the next day and went to work, or school in my case.
Life went on, Chas Cornweller, without a break.
You attach a lot more emotion and drama to the event than I do.
Just another day in America as I saw it then, and as I still see it today.
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Wrote Bobby, meant JFK. I see you at least had the lumps to not defend Chappaquidick…..
A ‘hero’ resists unethical acts. Vile slime perform the unethical acts. Nice try blaming Hoover.
Your location is irrelevant to the ideas you push that will have the effect of impoverishing more people.
“Republic-rat”. I’m sorry, but why is calling me an active member of civic society an insult? Yes, I am a citizen in a representative republic. Tell me Chas, why do YOU wish to destroy this representative republic and change it to something it never was?
Why do you hate America, Chas?
Chas Cornweller says
Mike, Mike, Mike…oh, Mike. Why do you think I hate America? This is the land in which I was born. This is the country in which I was raised. I have lived, loved, learned, lusted and lost here.
Everything I possess is in this country. Would she be invaded (unlikely), I would muster up with the best of them (even at my advanced age!) and defend these lands to the death, if necessary. I love the soil on which I walk. I love the people that I work with, grow with and commune with. I love her music, I love her foods, I love her art, I love her ideals. I love everything about America, except that which governs her. Blind fools and vipers make up the ruling class today. I ask you…which is greater?
The gold or the temple that makes the gold sacred? Which is greater? The gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Answer that Mike, and you’ll have your answer. Have a nice day.
Chas Cornweller says
While we are on topic, a few quotes about the illustrious game of politics, if you will.
“The more corrupt the state, the more laws.” Tacitus
“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” Aesop
“Democracy must be built through open societies that share information. When there is information, there is enlightenment. When there is debate, there are solutions. When there is no sharing of power, no rule of law, no accountability, there is abuse, corruption, subjugation and indignation.” Atifete Jahijaga
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.” H. L. Mencken
“Leadership by deception isn’t leadership. It’s fraud. When you’re dealing with frauds and liars, listen more to what they don’t say than what they do.” DaShanne Stokes
“Worse than a corrupt government is an incompetent one, not least because having the second characteristic does not exclude the first one.” Victor Bello Accioly
“The USA is a beautiful country…when you take the corrupt corporations and their government minions out of the equation.“ Steven Magee
“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not Guilty’.” Theodore Roosevelt
And this from America’s literary bard, Mark Twain
“Public office is private graft.”
“Yes, you are right — I am a moralist in disguise; it gets me into heaps of trouble when I go thrashing around in political questions.”
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. Look at the tyranny of party — at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty — a snare invented by designing men for selfish purposes — and which turns voters into chattles, slaves, rabbits, and all the while their masters, and they themselves are shouting rubbish about liberty, independence, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, honestly unconscious of the fantastic contradiction; and forgetting or ignoring that their fathers and the churches shouted the same blasphemies a generation earlier when they were closing their doors against the hunted slave, beating his handful of humane defenders with Bible texts and billies, and pocketing the insults and licking the shoes of his Southern master.”
So, in conclusion, you boys who are still rolling around in the muck of your political discourse and self-serving ways, bloated and high on expectations of greatness and the capture of the American Dream for your own personal gain, wake up and smell the coffee. The precipice you are looking over is the long fall at the end of the road. And unless you truly understand just how screwed we are as a people and a nation that once was the beacon of the world, you will continue to bleat and wail and moan just how unfair it all is. The inequity comes not from some unleveled field you perceive, but from the very system you have placed your faith and divestments in. Think your pockets are empty now? You ain’t seen nothing yet. In the immortal words of Leonard Cohen: “Everybody knows the fight was fixed, the poor stay poor, the rich get rich, that’s just how it goes, and everybody knows.” Have a nice day.
Chas Cornweller says
What is human dignity? Can I define it? If that I could eloquently state what lies within the human condition that separates us from the “Animal” kingdom and gives us the light to see that which is not only “All around us” but that which is within us. What makes us human? The species to which we belong (ALL modern human beings) is known as Homo sapiens or in the Latin vernacular “wise man”. Whether we live up to that definition is on the shoulders of time and our own singular destinies. I would venture to guess that “human dignity” would play a large part in this, though I will never know in this lifetime. I have seen (and read) too much of man’s history to believe that we are neither wise nor dignified. By all intents and purposes, man is corrupt, greedy, violent, crafty, wasteful, self-serving and easily swayed by nature herself. We believe in a faith we can neither prove nor dis-prove and spend tremendous energies on perpetuating those beliefs, whether forcing others to cow-tow to these beliefs or building incredible shrines to that faith, both wasting time and resources over something we’ve never even seen, much less understand. We waste even more resources on perpetuating or convincing others that our way of living is the correct one and they will be destroyed for following their belief system. Just think of the amount of iron and oil sent to the bottom of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, not to mention the number of human lives taken, in the name of protecting Mother Democracy seventy plus years ago. Choices? Did sixteen million young Americans have a choice in 1941 thru 1945? No, of course not. But, that path was laid out long before they were born. Just like the road laid out in front of you was paved long before your birth, Paul. And you ask, will it be freedom and order? Or will it be chaos and anarchy? I guess it falls back to your question of human dignity.
Honor and respect or the state or quality of being worthy of…that is the definition of dignity. I think of the word integrity and when I think of that word, a lifetime appears before me. A lifetime of respecting others, respecting one’s self and respecting the space in which one lives. What truly is a shame, so many of us cannot and will not abide by this simple concept. Without getting all preachy (I know, too late!) I find it interesting that nearly every religion has the precept of a Golden Rule. So, what is human dignity, Paul? It simply is this…treat others as you would want to be treated. Do unto others, as you would have done unto you. Love one another as you would be loved by others. By that very faith and belief, we’ve placed in the higher power, we have been commanded, over and over, that this is the one rule that shall not be broken. As I have said before, we have expended trillions and trillions of man hours building temples, shrines, cathedrals, churches and mosques, not to mention the amount of resources to build, maintain and defend these halls of human dignity. Yet, here we are…one. simple. rule. All it takes is each human being to follow this rule. But, that would mean we’d have to incorporate the second part of our species’ name. And I just don’t think, as a species, we are there yet.
Does this answer your question, sir?
Paul Plante says
DO NOT do unto others, Chas Cornweller, that which you would not have done to yourself by them.
And dignity must be earned, Chas Cornweller.
The fact that somebody was born means absolutely nothing because everyone is born.
It takes more than that to EARN dignity, which I have as “the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect,” as in “a man/woman of dignity and unbending principle,” or “a composed or serious manner or style,” with synonyms such as stateliness, nobility, majesty, regality, courtliness, augustness, loftiness, lordliness, grandeur, solemnity, gravity, gravitas, formality, decorum, propriety, or sedateness, or “a sense of pride in oneself; self-respect.”
That answers my question.
I asked you because I value your opinion, although most of the time, to be truthful, I disagree with it and refuse to accept or adopt it, because it clashes with my own value system, and I was curious as to how you would see it.
Thank you sincerely for taking the time to put your thoughts on the subject in writing so that the candid world, which needs to have these points of view to consider, can indeed have them to consider.
Afterall, their opinion should not be required to be my opinion, n’est-ce pas?
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Chas, I am happy to see that you included Tacitus in your reply. Hopefully this will be the bridge that allows us to better understand each other.
It is Tacitus’s very words that ignited the fire of loathing in me of the Democratic party, that insists on legislating every. single. aspect. of our lives. Cass Sunstein gave away the left’s position on coercion nee ‘nudging’ years ago.
I see in your reply a nascent ‘laissez faire’ proponent. Let’s work on getting YOUR fires burning!!!!!
A good week to both you and Paul. Paul, I’d love to know how the garden made out this year.
Paul Plante says
Been wet up this way, Mike, quite wet, actually, and it was hot, so I had a lot of rotten squash this season, which was a disappointment, but as the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, we must accept finite disappointment, in this case the rotten squash, but never lose infinite hope, so such it was and I will just have to endeavor to persevere, or fall by the side of the road, and wait for the coyotes to come.
On the other side of that coin, the rain has really helped my butternut squash to grow, along with my sweet potatoes, and regular potatoes, so things kind of balance out, anyway.
I have some African Blue basil that has done great, as has the parsley and chives and the mint.
Thanks for asking!
Paul Plante says
And dear friend Chas Cornweller, and yes, fellow American patriot, and lest I forget, dude, let me assure you that I have no ire towards you, personally.
And actually, I am far too old and experienced with life and my own human frailty, to be wasting my time with ire.
Being emotional needlessly depletes one’s energy and vitality, Chas Cornweller, leaving one an empty, burned-out husk.
Let me assure you, Chas Cornweller, there is no future in that for me, anyway.
It is your points of view put forth that provoke my responses, Chas Cornweller, and many times, I think you take the positions you do as a devil’s advocate.
In that, you fulfill a necessary and valuable citizenship role in our society today.
Keep it up is my thought.
And do try that Walmart’s white with the cold dog soup, Chas Cornweller, you’ll find the bouquet to be a real palate pleaser, and if you have some left over, try it with some possum and I think you too will be raving about how divine it really is.
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Well, I don’t know about all that. but I had stewed goat for lunch.
With pineapple lemonade.
Besides, I’m more of a red wine man myself…….goes well with venison, or possum.
:0
Paul Plante says
You are our resident gourmand here at the venerable Cape Charles Mirror, Mike!
You’re not going to find anyone at the effete New York Times like yourself who knows what wine to serve with possum in a nice piquant sauce, and whether the wine should be chilled or at room temperature.
Those city boys probably don’t even know what a possum is, let alone how to serve one.
So no wonder they are failing.
No surprise there, at all.
And by the way, Mike, Walmart’s also has a nice red by the jug that is said to be a great gustatory compliment to a bean burger.
You should give the combo a try and let us know how it tickled your educated palate!
Mike Kuzma, Jr. says
Long and low heat, gotta render the fat out of the possum………use strong herbs……and a jug o red for braising juices…..serve over rice……….not bad at all. Squirrel is better, but less meat.
Had a veggie burger this summer. Sorry Paul, while it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever eaten, it was still too grainy for me. But I gave it a shot.
Was better when I put on ‘mater(Joisey, bien sur), some nice butter lettuce, red onion and a little homemade garlic mayo.
And red wine……
Believe it or not, the NYT USED to have an outdoor section that sometimes covered hunting, and game recipes. Back When they wanted BOTH SIDES to buy their paper. I would sit there with that section, and the NYT review of Books and just LOVE my Sundays.
Lemme know when deer season starts up your way, I’ll come take care of your garden pest problem!!!