People Hurting People @ MindSay 
A big part of me's hoping that this is just sensationalist reporting, that either this happens with every major election and the media's playing it up now in hopes of generating more ratings, or that they're making a few scattered incidents sound like a lot.
I can understand being irked, perhaps even moderately enraged, over someone coming to power when their ideas don't fit with yours. I don't understand the connection on assaulting and threatening other people over it. Maybe, at a long stretch, you could issue nasty remarks to members of the Republican party if you didn't care for their candidate. But a) you have no way of knowing how a person voted unless they openly declare it*, and b) you can't bonk people and expect anything good to come out of it.
I'm also rather disheartened over the attacks on a few different churches after Proposition 8 went down. I'm hardly saying that I'm not disappointed over that one, but find a better way to respond. Please. The church said what they felt that they needed to. You can get your own group together and rally support in the direction you choose - as long as you can manage to do so in a civilized fashion, no one's going to stop you. Having a goal and pursuing it is generally an admirable course of action. Setting fires and shooting windows are not going to change the legal situation any. Focus the energy on what will get what you want.
Similary, destroying homes and vehicles will not remove a legal official from office. In general, Congress holds much more power than the president does - pour all of that excess passion into enough letters to drive your representative crazy on the issues you care about, until he just votes as you'd like him to in order to make you shut up. Much more effective. Heck, if you have leftover energy, write to people who aren't even supposed to be representing you. Or, y'know, go to the gym or something - excess rage translates well into physical activity, and the American government's been battling the American retail for awhile on trying to get us to be more healthy.
We're a relatively free nation. If you're unhappy about the way things are, you've been given avenues to alter it. You've been given avenues to pretend that you don't know what's going on and lose yourself in entertainment. You've been given the right to vote, the right to speak, the right to write - sometimes you can even do it at work or in school. Sometimes you can't. That's not a crime on the park of the school or workplace, incidentally - they're not restricting your entire lifestyle, just your actions on their premises, which could be construed as opposing their purpose. For example, actually getting some work done.
But you're not going to change anything by hurting people, by setting fires (well, maybe you'll change the landscaping), by threatening, or by anything particularly illegal. You're going to let people know that there are people who aren't happy with the president-elect - well, that's kind of standard for the course. The only country that I know of with a 100% support voting record was Iraq under Hussein. Even if you do manage to get a lot of people scared (instead of a lot of people mad, which, given our nation's response to 9/11, seems far more likely), it won't alter the presidency, or the Proposition. No one reverses laws because people are scared, they reverse them because the people have clearly voted on them.
And if you're just mad and want to talk or rant, well, I'm here. And there are a lot of other people out there who'd rather give someone the time they need to listen rather than find out later that someone else got hurt.
Am I going to change anything on this? No, probably not - I think this is a rather common sentiment on Mindsay, and I'm a rarely-read blogger. This was simply on my mind, and I needed to say it.
*On that note, sometimes openly declaring it doesn't even guarantee that you know. Friends of the family, for the previous presidential election, supported different candidates - he Republican, she Democrat. Married, had different work schedules - every night when he got home, he would change the sign in the yard to support his candidate. Every morning, after he left, she would switch it in favor of hers, before leaving for work. The husband in question was friends with someone else I know, who'd been recruited to switch the sign back AFTER she left for work. I think that may have been a rather tense month for the kids, but fortunately they were generally far more amused at the conflict than hostile.
I think it is interesting to see the reactions to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sound bytes. It is interesting to me because of what it says about people in general. They will condemn a person at the drop of a hat, based on very little information, and apparently they'll spread that condemnation around to others that have associated with them, mainly just the other person in the spotlight. He is just one of many people who have been made to seem like a horrible person for his controversial comments based on a few snippets of their life. I just love how two-dimensional we can make other people seem while maintaining our own depth, free will, and critical thinking skills.
I don't sit here and pretend that I am superior in the matter. I'm as guilty of this as anyone who is likely to read this. Quite frankly, Mindsay is an illustration of this tendency. It is a largely impersonal medium, where what we write in the moment is likely the only thing we are being judged on. One sentence that we say can be a potential hang up. I'm sure there are quite a few people by now that don't particularly like me here on Mindsay, based solely on one or two things I've said.
In contrast, our family and friends can get away with saying things that we don't agree with, holding beliefs we don't share, and we still will rationalize and justify their behavior. At the very least, we are able in some way to drop it. For example, I don't deny that I have racist family members. I don't consider myself so racist, though I also don't claim to be as free of such irrational, judgmental tendencies as I'd like to be. However, I daresay my friends and family probably think I'm a good person and love me regardless of my faults. And, in turn, I don't think that these people are bad. All in all, they are largely good, likable people.
Based on the short clips of Wright's sermons that many of us didn't try to put into context, Wright was made to seem like an evil man that a Presidential candidate shouldn't associate with. That presidential candidate was then said to be a bad person because he associated with that man closely. Even though that presidential candidate never specifically endorsed the things they showed Wright saying, even though he pointed out that he is a real person with his own, separate beliefs like the rest of us, even though he is capable of thinking for himself just like most of us, people are using this against him.
If I had tried to use this argument with someone, I'd consider myself to be a hypocrite. I associate with all sorts of people that say and do things that I don't agree with. Some of them I look up to in many ways. I would even consider some of them very influential on me. That doesn't mean that because I regularly associate with them that I suddenly endorse their every word. It is, in fact, possible to associate with people without believing in everything that they do.
I'm calling for everyone to just be a little more realistic; to stop assuming that others are less capable than ourselves in holding our own, separate beliefs. I'm pleading with you all to join me in trying to be conscious of the fact that we all have aspects of our beings that aren't captured in a few moments or sentences.
A friend of mine wrote awhile ago that people are disposable. Or at least, that people treat people like they are disposable. I have never had a friend that wouldn't write me off or sell me out to either better themselves, or to keep themselves in they're own comfort zone. People will know your g/f or spouse is cheating on you, but in order to keep themselves from having to step out of they're comfort zone, they won't tell you.
In our country, or maybe it is just around where i live. There is no loyalty. Why is it, that people expect so much of some other people, but aren't willing to give anything in return.
The saying friends don't let friends(insert blank here). Is BS, these so called friends we have don't give a crap. They will do anything to better themselves, no matter what the consequences are of the ones they call friends or supposedly love. People sell other people out a dime a dozen. Why, what has happened to make people like that, or why am i sooo different.
Why do i feel like driving to Seattle to pick up my friend so she can make it to work in the morning.?
Why do i sleep with my cell next to my head in case someone needs me?
Why do i hand my number out to anyone i feel could sometime use my help?
Is it my own insecurity that causes me to do these thing? Do i do it for other people's approval because i never had it growing up. Do i do it because i feel like i was embarrassing to the first person i ever loved? or because i feel like i was never accepted by anyone around me, and have always been different?
Was i just born to be different maybe, to be loyal, in a unloyal, disposable world?
Why is the real question? why do i continue to put myself out there, over the line, on the line, for people i love, to get walked all over and put down the garbage disposal again?
It is the Christmas season i guess, can you have a heart three sizes to big?
I'm a one life, hopeless dirty animal baby
And I bow down to my feeble brain
Aberrated, primitive
Stay with me, stay with me
Ok everyone im gonna give you some notice right now..this blog opinion entry is gonna get nasty. If your sensitive to certain things like cursing and swearing or political views change the station.
How many of you recently watched the news and found about this writers strike thats going on in hollywood?
How many of you are saying ok so..what does that have to do with my life?
Well more then you even may realize if you enjoy watching certain shows or going to see a good movie.
No new episodes, no new movies! Actors will be out of work.
This just came out of the blue just a few days ago! No real notice just.... uh..where gonna strike today just because ha ha ha.
All i have to say to these people on strike is.
"Your a bunch of ungreatful bastards!" This is like the MLB(major leauge baseball) strikes of the 90's that hurt the fans more then the players!
Ok how much do you writer people make? Forget the royalties of dvd sales,tapes and all that extra bonus blah blah blah. I take it you at least make a respctable paycheck for the work. Hell defently more then what some reguler people make on a hard working day to day bases. These hardworking people NEED you!
Americians(or if your in another country and lets say your version of hollywood filmmakers decide to pull the plug on what you enjoy the shows you watch.) need something to take there minds off the real world issues every now and then. We need entertainment and we defently need it more then ever in this day in age!
You should be more greatful that you even have a job like this! For the passion of it not the fucking money!
I would love and appricate just having a job like this. I said it once in my blogs and ill say it again "Money is a cold nessicity" This strike sends the wrong message to people. What will happen if you do succeed and you know it will but what will be the damage? Will the stars decide oh yeah we should strike now for more royal treatment.
For god sakes while your out there pickiting your little piety protest about some money issues..there are people in a WAR! People who take the chance to just enjoy watching a live show as a recreational previlege. People who are fighting and dying for people like you to have the right to make the films we get to see today! Forget the money! Every time you pick up that pen or type on the computer about the creativty you do you should take the chance thank and think about them!
You know something..maybee its time that like glenn beck would say "We the people...." should take a stand and confront them!. Tell them we dont need people like you anymore...this is a new age! People on the net, on youtube, on myspace, or any other social website. We can be the writers! We can be the people that keep the shows going! And i know we could do it!
So to you writers on strike out there..take what i said as a serious thought. You can always be replaced by someone more hungrier then you.
I can respect your protest..but you picked the worst time to throw a "cout de ta"(or w/e the spelling is for that). Get back in those studios and start doing the right thing..get back to doing what your gift is..entertaining people. Send the best message..hell make a movie about the treatment of writers..THEN youll win the hearts and support of people.
Thats all ive gotta say im done. 