Divide or Unify?

dancepartner

**I pulled this thread back from the dead. I've edited it. Please re-read.**

It's the Power Dance of Time Baby — playing out in the one night that comes every 4 years when powerful ruling elites actually care about what we have to say.
AS TONIGHT UNFOLDS, THINK; IS IT WORTH DIVIDING OVER?
Think—how does it feel for you right now? Anxiety filling you up?

Are you rooting for Obama? Then right now, feel what the other side is feeling and think—is roughly half of this nation so wrong? All that Obama has accomplished, are you truly so certain he's got us on the right track? Are you rooting for Romney? Then right now, feel what the other side is feeling and think—is roughly the other half of this nation so misguided? Much of what Obama has accomplished will be hacked away. Are you truly so certain this won't take us two steps back—yet again?

In the Ageless Power Dance of Time, it's a divide to conquer dance move that has trumped masses time and time again. Todays update: a full week has passed since the election. Nearly every state in this union has filed secession petitions—a gathering of more than 200,000 signatures—growing by the hour.
http://www.dancingpartners.info is a budding somewhere, somehow site, to help us unify—not divide. It's count is growing by the hundreds—weekly.
As a communal species, we will eventually, consciously move, or be pulled—one direction or the other.
But right now: the middle remains impervious to the shredding going on at our flanks—a most basic, 101 dividing dance move.
While you are considering what, if any, concious direction you, yourself, will make efforts to move towards, please consider Dr. Carl Jung's parting advice: "WE must learn to move individually responsible in a mass-minded way."

I passionately believe the time has come when WE must take the adaptation jump to responsibly—do more than simply vote & then sit back and hope.

Dirtie_Frank

Beautiful post!!!!

dancepartner

thanks. Dirty Frank. I moved it to the election night one. We should do this together.

SatansFuton

No, I think we should remember the words of the great Abraham Lincoln

"Be excellent to each other....and....PARTY ON DUDES!!!!!"

joewalshdc

Fabulous post.

Cosmo

I liked the olden days... when elections were only every 4 years. And people only got into heated political debates every 4 years, rather than EVERY FUCKING DAY!!!
We would start to see the bullshit campaign ads on our televisions about 2 weeks before Halloween... and they trickled in, couple here... couple there. By Halloween there'd be a bunch of them and people would complain about the political commercials because the Volkswagen Bug commercials were so much better.
Then, that First Tuesday in November... we'd vote.
By that Wednesday... either our guy won or their guy won... but, we accepted whomever won as our President.
...
Yeah... i liked the olden days... when we used to be Americans, not Democrats or Republicans... Liberals or Conservatives. Just plain Americans who were looking forward to the coming Holidays... NOT the next mother-fucking bullshit laden, lie fest campaigns of the coming Mid-Term Election.
...
What happened to us?

dancepartner

Cosmos; whatever has happened is in the past. We need to go forwards—TOGETHER DAMMIT!

brianlux

First rate, dancepartner. Good show!

dancepartner

Brianlux. You are a peach. One I'd like to meet some day.

brianlux

dancepartner wrote:

Brianlux. You are a peach. One I'd like to meet some day.

Next PJ show?

dancepartner

I'd guess it's high time. I mean hi-time!

brianlux

dancepartner wrote:

I'd guess it's high time. I mean hi-time!

:thumbup:

dancepartner

Okay, same post as the election thread though I do want to say, I had a good time tonight—poking my head into my office and flinging off a quip now and again in this PJ election forum. (Man, gotta whatch my typos tonight!) So! After tonight, will you guys still hang out together? If so, wanna get together under another specific thread tomorrow?

Cosmo

dancepartner wrote:

Cosmos; whatever has happened is in the past. We need to go forwards—TOGETHER DAMMIT!

...
Oh... you mean like in the olden days... when we all used to define ourselves as 'Americans' first... political party affiliation twelfth? The olden days when after the election... we respected the votes cast by our people and accepted the winning candidate as our President... even if we didn't vote for him? In the olden days when we didn't spend our time, energy and fanatism on trying to make him fail... because we understood that his failures would result in our nation's failure?
...
Yeah... I guess those days prior to 1992 really must have sucked... when we used to all be Americans. Even though, I still liked it better when we are all Red, White and Blue... instead of either Red or Blue.

dancepartner

I pulled this thread back. Here's why.

A) from the thread "what I've learned on AMT" I've learned: 1) We are not so divided. 2) You guys feel AMT had better interaction when Ten Club was open to the public. 3) The intention for this moving train is for respectful, thoughtful dialogue geared towards current-day events—political mostly. 4) This group comes well armed with all of the above. It's a smart, entertaining group filled with people interested in talking about all things not superfluous.

I want to conduct a unity experiment. Will anyone participate?

brianlux

dancepartner wrote:

I want to conduct a unity experiment. Will anyone participate?

What's involved? Sounds interesting.

pandora

Yes we can't go back, there is good and bad in this though.
Many positive changes on the horizon.

I understand the divide when two teams are at play like in the political arena.

But in times as we have had with the Hurricane I see the social unity of pulling
together on personal levels, the every person everyday that counts.

This is human unity, it is worldwide, humanity and this is what counts.
This I believe is our future and hope lies here.

JonnyPistachio

dancepartner wrote:

I pulled this thread back. Here's why.

A) from the thread "what I've learned on AMT" I've learned: 1) We are not so divided. 2) You guys feel AMT had better interaction when Ten Club was open to the public. 3) The intention for this moving train is for respectful, thoughtful dialogue geared towards current-day events—political mostly. 4) This group comes well armed with all of the above. It's a smart, entertaining group filled with people interested in talking about all things not superfluous.

I want to conduct a unity experiment. Will anyone participate?

As long as my nipples aren't hooked up to shock treatment equipment again, I'm in.
I like your ideas and threads dancepartner. You bring back the feeling of face to face respect.

riotgrl

dancepartner wrote:

I pulled this thread back. Here's why.

A) from the thread "what I've learned on AMT" I've learned: 1) We are not so divided. 2) You guys feel AMT had better interaction when Ten Club was open to the public. 3) The intention for this moving train is for respectful, thoughtful dialogue geared towards current-day events—political mostly. 4) This group comes well armed with all of the above. It's a smart, entertaining group filled with people interested in talking about all things not superfluous.

I want to conduct a unity experiment. Will anyone participate?

Can you tell us what's involved? I'd be willing to participate

hedonist

brianlux wrote:

dancepartner wrote:

I want to conduct a unity experiment. Will anyone participate?

What's involved? Sounds interesting.

Perhaps the willingness to participate is the experiment itself

BinauralJam

I know you've taken it in the teeth out there, but the first guy through the wall. It always gets bloody, always. It's the threat of not just the way of doing business, but in their minds it's threatening the game. But really what it's threatening is their livelihoods, it's threatening their jobs, it's threatening the way that they do things. And every time that happens, whether it's the government or a way of doing business or whatever it is, the people are holding the reins, have their hands on the switch. They go bat shit crazy.

Scene from Moneyball, John Henry Quote, owner of the Red Sox.

This is whats happening to the U.S.A. in my opinion

comebackgirl

dancepartner wrote:

I pulled this thread back. Here's why.

A) from the thread "what I've learned on AMT" I've learned: 1) We are not so divided. 2) You guys feel AMT had better interaction when Ten Club was open to the public. 3) The intention for this moving train is for respectful, thoughtful dialogue geared towards current-day events—political mostly. 4) This group comes well armed with all of the above. It's a smart, entertaining group filled with people interested in talking about all things not superfluous.

I want to conduct a unity experiment. Will anyone participate?

I'm open to it

dancepartner

Okay!
brian, pandora, johnny P (no shock treatment I promise), riotgirl, hedonist (yes, it most definatley is part of the experiment), comebackgirl. That's 6 and that's a start.

To unify: to begin somewhere, somehow.
This is an interactive experiment meaning: we can alter it however we damn well want! I'll put up a game plan. Any alterations from there are decided by majority.
1) We choose a handful of specific topics. Criteria: ones the majority can easily find common unison on.I.E. not abortion but easy topics such as: 1) Super PAC's selling our democracy, 2) insider trading rules on capital hill, 3) fair tax.

To begin somewhere, to find common ground, I think will be easier than we think and that's the experiment.

So, I'd say there should be 3 parameter guidlines, 2 of which we already have in the bag.
1) We all already understand we must do more than vote to then simply haggle over everything politicans do or don't do.
2) We already know we want respectful dialogue (humor allowed).
3) All we have left to do then is figuring out how to specifically stick to the damn criteria!

So for this experiment, here's some thoughts to consider. For instance, if we take above mentioned 3 topics for this first round of consensus building, then: do we stick to only 1 at a time or 3 at a time? Do we decide on a time frame for each topic (a week, maybe two) and then after discussion is closed, do we have a closing arguement before voting for best option?
However we paste this together, I think it should end per each round with all particpants abiding by this criteria upon final vote: We choose a night which most of us can show up for and we begin a 'round robin' by voting for someone elses' closer—not our own. The rounds then whittle down to the best consensus we can come up with!
Just think, winter is coming on where many of us are more inclined to stay inside so why not give it try?
The experiment concludes: we can easily (or not) come to a consensus on topics which should easily give our unity a platform to grow from. Then, if we want to go another round, the winner comes up with the next 1 or 3 topics. I'd say if we start with easy ones, this could go on thru the winter before we hit any walls.
So, whatcha say?

hedonist

I'm game to take part where and when I can, but for various reasons, I don't visit these forums on any kind of regular schedule and am not really looking to do so.

(also, I'm not sure that "fair tax" would be considered an easy topic )

JonnyPistachio

Damn, I signed up for homework! I'll take the nipple clamps instead.
haha, just kiddin...sounds interesting. But I agree with hedonist too -- some tough topics...fair tax is going to get some folks frazzled..

riotgrl

I like it but have to agree that I cannot be here at a specific night and time. How about 24 hours of closing arguments that way we can all have a vote? I think 2-3 topics is fair to tackle. What about Congressional term limits as a topic - surely we all agree that lifetime tenure in the House or Senate is not necessarily a good thing.

riotgrl

Oh and can I say I like the idea of coming up with a plan of action or some sort of resolution. Makes me feel proactive and empowered, regardless of the ultimate outcome.

dancepartner

Okay. No fair tax, replace it with term limits. I agree—ALL of us can surely agree on this.
No scheduled night, but a 24 hour closing time. I would probably be the one who couldnt show up for a specific time anyway, but I do think the night before, or the 24 hr window thereof, might be nice for an interactive round for the ones who can?
How long does it stay open? 1 wk, 2 weeks? When do you want to start?

Yeah, this excites me! (oh God, I just realized my night life sucks) But! my days are grand!
The empowering experiment of 6!

dancepartner

Oops. posted this twice....

brianlux

I'm still in but I have to tell you, I don't know much about super PAC's, I don't know or care much about insider trading and have mixed feeling about term limits. That leaves me with little to contribute which is kind of sad because I like the idea of the experiment. Maybe I'll have to hold off sign up for phase two of the experiment.

Meanwhile, I'm very OK with shock treatment. In fact, gimme gimme shock treatment-- I wanna wanna shock treatment.

comebackgirl

Count me in and I'm on board with the discussion on term limits. I can't come on at a certain time. My posting will be sporadic over the next few weeks until work slows down...but I will make an effort to spend some time on this thread.