i'm swimming in marleyland today

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Sorry to abandon you, but I had some meditation and lots of chores to take up my spaces so far today. I scored another Bob Marley lighter in the middle of it all and so that, of course, is something very solidly in the rocking out category.

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I live on the coast, very close to the Oregon border. When I have to go to town, I usually have my choice between Crescent City, California and Brookings, Oregon. I gotta tell you that it's scarier'n heck the difference in town personalities between these two places. Everyone in Brookings smiles and chatters amiably. Everyone in Crescent City scowls and avoids eye contact. Even addressing someone directly is most apt to get a dirty look or a grunt where a reply might have been assumed appropriate.

Today was a Brookings day, a day where the temptation of a new Bob Marley lighter is too great to pass up sometimes.

A fellow postal customer even gave me a pen this afternoon.

Everyone says the sour town personality problem on the California side is due to the proximity of the prison, Pelican Bay, and that Brookings is mostly retirees and Crescent City mostly rednecks and destitute people, that Del Norte is the last bastion of the unyuppified California Coast, while Oregon is still, mostly, really plain old Oregon. We have a huge Hispanic population because of all the lily farms and dairies and the prison. It isn't just migrant workers, but whole families of gangbangers waiting for their fathers and brothers and sons to be released. And the homeless gig is out of hand... well... fairly IN hand because there is little disruption from them... but out of hand in terms of sheer numbers for such a backwater. Both towns, insofar as anything political ever comes up, are predominantly Republican.

Almost everyone I speak with is of a conservativish bent. Yet I hear no one bitching to drive out the homeless. Everyone I've asked is pissed off that we aren't getting Single Payer. Some who never would have uttered The N Word in public are doing it, sotto voce, when referring to our president... because they are pissed off about this betrayal on healthcare reform. Many of them even held their noses and voted for him, despite his party and his race. I remember there being a general sense of enthusiasm about him right after the election, even from those who didn't vote for him, and he lost by a lot less than Democrats historically do here. So I know they are genuine in their stated reasons for being angry with him.

It was the big consolation prize for conservatives, even the ones who either sat it out or voted for McCain, that we would finally get healthcare reform. All of the ones I've heard on this subject wanted Single Payer, but would have settled for something that strongly headed in that direction.

Too many people are dazzled by the media -- including internet -- hype behind these manipulated protests. The anger -- on the left and on the right -- is definitely for the most part about this fascistic feint they only call "healthcare reform". All the psychotic squealing from the noise boxes will simply keep up until we are simply too exhausted in our vexation to pay attention anymore. That's the drill.

I have to put up with political ideas that seem outright Neanderthal to me in order to engage in conversation with these people, and damned if just a little tolerance combined with a little deeper probing doesn't get right down to cases. Bottom line: In their hearts they don't care what color he is... despite long lives of conditioning not to trust it... they just want him to do a good job, keep his word, get us out of the million unAmerican messes the last fascist puppet got us into.

I'm almost dead of putting up with the ceaseless polemicizing over at The Bane of My Existence Blog, and trying to convince my beloved friends at Danny's place to quit the right/wrong-left/right-dirty/clean-insane/sane-good/evil-up/down-in/out-light/dark-true/false frenzy and get out there and commune with the supposed opposition instead... find out they AREN'T the opposition. The government is. The corporations are. This is NOT Mouseland... this is MARLEYLAND.