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A Better Future/Un FUTURO MEJOR


By danielifearn - Posted on 27 July 2006

A Better Future  

A BETTER FUTURE
Un FUTURO MEJOR (sigue)

Are people bothered enough by the lying, the spying and the dying to turn off their lights for one half hour on Wednesday nights? Will they bother to spend a little energy and flick a switch to save some money in a good cause? I don’t know.

I kicked off Blackout of National Shame campaign a month ago. I didn’t know the answers then. I still don’t. I do know that I’ve sent innumerable e-mail messages requesting groups of all sorts to participate and to help spread the word. I even sent a postcard to the International Dark Sky Association. I don’t know if it helped.

I saw my kick off article on a number of blogs and was encouraged as long as I ignored the snide responses. “Who the hell thinks up this crap!” went one so cynical remark. I did. A member of Veterans for Peace who spent eight years in the Marine Corps Infantry. I guess I’m pretty dense - I reenlisted, didn’t I.

But, I have a Sergeant’s guts and a Sergeant’s sense. And I can tell you that doing nothing, playing it cool, being cynical, while people are dying is a rum game played by mugs. And, if you don’t have the sense to know what I mean when I say those s---birds are lucky I’m not their Sergeant; you’re pretty far gone, too. But, maybe that’s my militaristic sensibilities butting in and I’m being unfair to non-veterans.

Now, are you going to turn out your lights and show your neighbors you know what’s right? Or, are you going to say to yourself “I’m not going to do that and nobody else is either” as you sink down to some so well earned rest from responsibility and care in front of the tele? Sure, watch some movies - war movies. Watch enough of them and maybe you’ll get an inkling, a smidgeon of understanding, of what words like “over run”, “surrounded”, “cut off” mean and how they haunt soldiers.

No man is an island. I am my brothers keeper. United we stand, divided we fall. Perhaps these phrases are more familiar. Understand them then, and let your understanding guide your actions. Turn off your lights and be a part of something. By turning off your lights you are responding prudently to the very real dangers of isolation. Ask your friends and neighbors to turn off their lights too and you have gained the initiative.

George Bush doesn’t care about you or your lights. But, it will be increasingly difficult for his minions to ignore the darkness. We have to turn out the lights, though. We can’t wait for some mythical knight in shining armor to save us from the dragon. Besides, it’s not a dragon that is attacking us. Our worry is a flood of epic proportions - a flood of the most foul, stinking, polluted sewage ever to exist. We are in a boat, but everybody is doing whatever they please. There is very little time and no cooperation. We must pull together lads and put our backs into it to save ourselves and our democracy from the cesspool that is the Bush administration and its supporters.

As I said, I’m just a dumb Grunt. What do I know? I know enough to turn out my lights, a cheap and easy thing that everyone can do. I’ll turn out my lights and hope others will too, so together, we can give the lie to the fictitious, hypocritical, moral majority whose “apparent majority” seems to give them the right to screw things up so royally.

Will you turn out your lights every Wednesday from 9:00 to 9:30 PM? Will you take a small step for mankind and a giant stride out your door, look up and see the stars, and read a better future there?

Un FUTURO MEJOR

¿Es la gente incomodada bastantes por la mentira, espiar y morir para dar vuelta apagado a sus luces para una media-hora el las noches de miércoles? ¿Incomodarán pasar una poca energía y chasquear un interruptor para salvar un poco de dinero en una buena causa? No sé.

Golpeé con el pie de apagón de la campaña nacional de la vergüenza hace un mes. Entonces no sabía las respuestas. Todavía no . Sé que he enviado mensajes innumerables del E-mail que solicitaba los grupos de todas las clases para participar y para ayudar a separar la palabra. Incluso envié una postal a la asociación oscura internacional del cielo. No sé si ayudó.

Vi mi retroceso del artículo sobre un número de blogs y lo animaba mientras no hice caso de las respuestas del snide. "quién el infierno piensa encima de este crap!" fue una observación tan cínica. . Un miembro de los veteranos para la paz que pasó ocho años en la infantería del cuerpo de marina. Conjeturo que soy bastante denso - alisté de nuevo, no yo.

Pero, tengo la tripa de un sargento y sentido de un sargento. Y puedo decirle que eso que no hace nada, jugándolo fresco, siendo cínico, mientras que la gente está muriendo es un juego del ron jugado por las tazas. Y, si usted no tiene el sentido de saber lo que significo
cuando digo esos s-pa'jaros soy afortunado no soy su sargento; usted es haber ido lejos bonito, también. Pero, ésa es quizá mis sensibilidades militaristic que empalman adentro y estoy siendo injusto a los no-veteranos.

¿Ahora, usted va a resultar sus luces y a mostrar a sus vecinos que usted sabe cuál correcto? ¿O, usted va a decir a se "que no voy a hacer eso y nadie es cualquiera" pues usted se hunde abajo a un cierto resto tan bien ganado de la responsabilidad y a cuidado delante del tele? Seguro, mire algunas películas - películas de la guerra. Mire a bastantes de ellos y usted conseguirá quizá sospechar, un smidgeon de entender, de qué palabras como "excedente se ejecutan", "rodeado", medio "cortado" y cómo frecuentan soldados.

No hay hombre una isla. Soy mi encargado de los hermanos. Unido estamos parados, dividido nosotros nos caemos. Quizás estas frases son más familiares. Entonces entiéndalas, y deje a su guía que entiende sus acciones. Dé vuelta apagado a sus luces y sea una parte algo. Dando vuelta de sus luces usted está respondiendo prudente a los peligros muy verdaderos del aislamiento. Pregunte a sus amigos y los vecinos para dar vuelta apagado sus luces también y le han ganado la iniciativa.

George Bush no cuida sobre usted o sus luces. Pero, será cada vez más difícil que sus minions no hagan caso de la oscuridad. Tenemos que resultar las luces, aunque. No podemos esperar a algún caballero mítico en armadura brillante para salvarnos del dragón. Además, no es un dragón que nos está atacando. Nuestra preocupación es una
inundación de proporciones épicas - una inundación del más asqueroso, apestando, las aguas residuales contaminadas siempre para existir. Estamos en un barco, pero todos está haciendo lo que él por favor. Hay tiempo muy pequeño y ninguna cooperación. Debemos tirar juntos del chaval y poner nuestras partes posterioras en él para salvarse y nuestra democracia del pozo negro que es la administración de Bush y sus partidarios.

Como I dicho, soy justo un ronco mudo. ¿Qué sé? Sé bastantes para resultar mis luces, una cosa barata y fácil que cada uno pueda hacer. Resultaré mis luces y esperanza otras voluntad también, tan junto, podemos dar la mentira a la mayoría ficticia, hypocritical, moral que "mayoría evidente" se parecen dar les a la derecha de atornillar cosas para arriba tan real.

¿Usted resultará sus luces cada miércoles a partir de la 9:00 a 9:30 P.M.? ¿Usted tomará una medida pequeña para la humanidad y un paso grande gigante fuera de su puerta, mirará para arriba y verá la estrella, y leerá un futuro mejor allí?

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It is Kosher for Israel (the country that spies on us the most, fact) to preform targeted killings of religious and militia leaders prior to Her recent invasion of Lebanon, but as soon as a militia and that is all Hizballah is from a military point of view, kidnaps two solders, It has the right to collectively punish an entire country of Christians and Muslims that just was rebuilt.
The entire world voted for immediate cease-fire, but yours truly Bush and Co., vetoed it like stem cells that are being thrown away anyway, and England and S. Korea are way ahead of us in this technology, the most profound tech health science has ever found. For those of you who do not know what stem cells are, they are the ones that grow into limbs and organs, so if you have a bad anything we would be able to grow you a new one.
It is like Star Wars Part Three and it is now, us, the USA and Israel against the entire world. Great... super, couldn't be more happy, hope we win. Well, the people have had enough of all the errors out of D.C.-- Iraq, Katarina, wiretaps, torture, lies about money and time, making us more enemies than Hitler, not to mention other Nations like Bolivia, Venezuela, Belarus, are popping up everywhere to hate us, that's not America, we are the good guys remember?
http://www.bdogmania.com a voice for generation X calls for immediate change to deal with the looming long term problems that face us now, ie. peace, the environment, and our future which is being destroyed by a bunch rich, spoiled, can't ever admit they are wrong ruining America Admin. We need a new face to present to the world that shows the good real Americans like the ones here: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org they currently see straight through all the B.S. Bush and Co. are throwing in there face, oh yeah also 400 million Arabs, 1 billion of Islamic faith, the E.U. and the rest of the world think we suck. Will the President be able to pardon Himself at the end of his term, lots of law suites he has against him now?
Also, Israel blames Hizballah for the U.S. Embassy bombings in 1983, but they forgot to mention what we discovered in the book "By way of Deception," by a former Mossad agent who was arrested when he tried to defect from Israel, that Israel knew about the bombing prior to it, and could have warned us, and prevented our boys from death. Think about it, why all the love for Israel almost as if it were an American value, maybe cause it is a democracy for Jews only when 20% of the Israeli population is comprised of Arab citizens who have like 4% of the seats in the Israeli government?

It sounds to me that your a racist against any religion that does not believe in Islam. If you want the cheating and arrogant Clinton back then go to New York where you and him can be good buddies. Personally, Bill, Hillary, and Monica can go do whatever they want to as long as it does not interfere in the lives of the citizens. Are you a legal American Arab or did you sneak across the border?

He's Christian moron!

@least Clinton had 8 year of relative peace and prosperity and amused us with his love life- none of our bizness! this is scary with real ramifications, I'll take Clinton any day of the week. Where is Ken Starr when you really need him?

For all you folks that think Clinton was the bomb you're living a lie. During his administration we did NOT get Kyoto, but we did get GATT, NAFTA and the Telecommunication Act of 1992. The result of these three things show themselves in more dependence on foreign oil, outsourcing of millions of jobs and the consolidation of television, radio and print media which is also why we are reduced to stupid campaigns against this current idiot in the white house.

Post Below: He calls you a racist, and then in the next sentence calls you a wetback. psh.

I hate to be the fart in church, but which 9:30 is that? 9:30 Eastern, 6:30 Pacific?

I spent my time in the military, 1969 - 1972 and I can tell you from my experience the American public is a heartless beast, ruminants seeking new grass to chew and above all avoid thinking. The American public always chooses blood and is against peace unless the blood in question is theirs.

The American public is the monster under your bed, and, in case you didn't think the monster is real... The American public is absolutely ecstatic to be able to hire its military... with this hired mercenary force, the US can let blood loose anytime, anywhere without the least pang of conscience.

It seems to me that the way to manage is for people in each time zone to turn out their lights at 9:30pm, causing a rolling blackout, in effect. Besides, at 9:30 the east would be dark, but not the west.

Terry1865 and Resonator and Everyone Else,

Yes, a rolling blackout is perfect. One of the purposes of this action is to promote local - neighborhood - action. Remember now, though George Bush isn't listening to anybody but the voices he says are God; your mayors and council members and all your local officials will listen if you tell them to turn off the city light, too.

Just think of the tax savings.

Contact me if you like at aldermn@earthlink.net. The key is under the mat even though the spam control is on. Mention the blackout and I'll answer.

Semper pacificus,

Dan Fearn

Sorry I didn't know this last night, but you can be sure I'll join you from now on - at 9pm wherever I am. I'll pass the word, too.
Thanks for the Great Rant!

I have one room + bathroom. At night, I do just fine with light from computer monitor and three candles, all grouped together (they are arguably a lot easier on the eyes than electric light anyway.)

I will commit *minimum* 1 hour each weeknight.

It's not much, but as they always say: it's a start.

Thanks, Daniel.

I have an addon idea. What if we had a site where we could login and enter somehow the estimated amount of wattage we saved. It would display both individual history, and total site user savings for any given day.

We would be doing two good things at once. Lessening our overconsumption of energy AND protesting the shame at the same time!

The Watt Counter would simply be a positive affirmation; something tangible, something real that we can see and graph.

We could see in real time the exact amount of energy millions of Americans gave back to the planet that night, simply by NOT flipping a switch.

A tracking website would tangilbly show that if we all pitch in, what a big effect we could have.

NOW THAT'S AMERICAN: victory by inaction (J/K)! I love it!

I bet with a little php hack job and adding a few new tables to MySQL the ADS Drupal engine could be modified to include the counter.

>> The Point of Data Entry could be on "my home screen": a single textbox, or dropdown.

>> The unit of energy could be 1 lightblub hour.

So if you turned of 5 lights for 2 hours, you would enter "10".

>> Then php would just run SQL like:

$sql = "INSERT into shame_savings VALUES ('username', DATE(), $lb_hours)";

this would populate the table shame_savings with the user, the date, and the 10 you entered (which is stored in $lb_hours).

>> Then we could add php to extract the data, so it could be viewed. (a bit tricker, but not hard)

Not hard at all, really. Simple.

The Genius of Daniel's idea is that it combines two things seemingly disparate but extremely important ideas into ONE COURSE OF ACTION. Alone the two ideas are individually strong, but have trouble focusing.

With Daniel's idea, you can say to yourself something like: "I'm So FUCKING MAD Right now, I'm not EVEN using the playstation."

Somehow this makes a deep, profound kind of sense, even if it's a little weird. Weird solutions for weird times.

AThe power comes from combination, and where better to see it "come to light" than ADS?

This is the best idea I've heard in a long time.

Kudos Daniel!

--Resonator

And I've Got $25 to donate toward the hackup.

So far on Thurs. & Friday I was able to meet my commitment of "at least one hr." of darkness, to protest the shame.

This is why a tracking program is important: IT REMINDS US TO KEEP IT UP!

A related note: I am a programmer, and could probably write the tracking application with no problem. But this is bad "feng shui", if you will indulge me on that. It is like voting for yourself.

Calling all PHP geeks! maybe you could write the little app I'm talking about.

This would be a far greater affirmation than if I wrote it myself.

Finally, I wish David would put the "BlackOut of Shame" Graphic off in permanant slot on the sidebar, so that it does not get lost between the cracks:

This is something that has relevance EVERYDAY, so the sidebar is a perfect place (with or without the watt counter.)

David?

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