Internet Bowel Movements And The 51% Solution To Very Little

I’m just a carpenter. When you drive down the road and admire the great amount of structures that face back at you, someone like me put their backs into them and grabbed their paycheck on Friday and washed it all down over the weekend and started in again on Monday. So chances are, you met someone like me somewhere where buildings and homes have risen. We seem to be a relatively common breed- I run into guys like me everywhere I go- and we tend to get along fairly well.

There is a class of carpenters, I’ve noticed, that has a second gear. They are the guys who are carpenters because they enjoy the physical work more than the mental, but have extraordinarily good minds that could move them into other fields. You can sit on a rooftop with these guys and argue religion or politics or philosophy or horse racing, and feel like you don’t need to grunt.

My friend Bruce is a physics and chemistry hobbyist. My friend Wizard studies music theory. My friend Leo runs a radio station that really pisses off the FCC. My friend Charles is more of an expert on forest management than any federal bureaucrat that comes around these parts carrying Washington DC dictatorial decrees in one hand and a gun in the other.

I’ve worked side by side with some pretty sharp swinging hammer-folk over the years and I tell you this because it makes a good point for me.

There is a general pool of knowledge that scampers around all over America, staying busy, working hard, contributing and living and laughing and trying to do the right thing most of the time and also trying to figure out what the right thing is some of the time.

But they have become irrelevant.

Sure, every now and then, they can make their opinions heard at meetings and forums, but their voices simply fade into minutes recorded on notes that get stuck in a file full of minutes and are shipped off to be stored in some unknown (to me) place full of other unheard voices.

And this is wrong.

The whole idea of governance “BY THE PEOPLE” is so that it remains exactly that.

My own views- whether I am a Liberal or Conservative, oppose or support the war, believe in entitlements or not, am a conservationist or a believer in free market pillaging, and so on and so forth, are now irrelevant. I no longer count. I am now too far from the source of decision-making to have any impact on the decisions that are made.
And I say that is wrong.

As a carpenter, the whole internet thing came later to me than many. I still surf around in awe of the crap that is on here. But since I am a second gear carpenter, I get engaged in the thoughts that fly by. I read too much stuff. I wonder about the relevance of what someone is crying out to say. I see the tapping of the little people, and I realize, that there are lots and lots of little people who are in second gear, in their own way, and I marvel at all the information that may or may not provoke thoughts in others that collect here, like a giant pool of rooftop conversations.

The Federal Reserve is a big topic. Who owns the Federal Reserve? Who makes profits from it? It turns out it isn’t owned by the Federal government, at all, and yet it makes decisions for the American people and earns profits from them without being elected to do so. If the word on the street is accurate, your income tax goes not to goods and services, but to pay the interest to the Federal Reserve on money that it loans to the US government. Hmmmm… There is a topic I’d like to get to the bottom of.

There is a growing movement that says that the US Constitution does not allow for tax on wages, and that if your wages are being taxed, it is not only Unconstitutional, there is no law written that requires you to do so. This movement is full of ex-IRS agents that have spent years trying to find the law that requires them to pay income taxes to the federal government. The IRS has been less than forthcoming in showing these people that law, claiming the right to prosecute without showing the actual law. So far, no law has emerged. Interesting stuff, considering what they did to people I’ve known in the past…

There is an Atheist movement afoot online. Led by some pretty heady minds, the movement has attracted nut jobs and normal folk alike. It seems they are tired of the erosion of the idea of church and state. Their big complaint is that irrational views are seeping into politics more and more. That suddenly, there is far too much religion in our government. They see that when people like Ted Haggart have the ear of the president of the most powerful nation on earth, there is something wrong. People like Christopher Hitchens are becoming You-Tube darlings because they have been logically terrorizing faith-based icons like Swaggert, Haggart Roberts and Falwell. At some point in time, one hopes the tipping point is reached where these people aren’t taking money from gullible old ladies, and I think the internet may have something to do with those times.

There is the Ron Paul political movement screaming around the internet, as well. The movement goes like this. He wins every poll taken that has online voting and yet does not do well on landline polls. His screaming frothing followers complain that he is being dismissed by the Main Stream Media groups, and they claim his popularity only exists in a small online community, though an energetic one. His message to shrink the Federal Government is resonating among the internet crowd, but it is hard to know if regular America is listening. It is like there is a parallel universe occurring. The internet users verses the regular folks who answer the phone during dinner hours. It is a fascinating battle to watch, sitting up here, where I like to sit, on the roof.

NANOWRIMO is also about to start. It has become an internet phenomenon, as well. I did it last year. Learned a lot. I wonder if I’ll do it this year? I’m still sitting on the fence about that one.

And there are other little waves sloshing back and forth across the cyber world. The usual “Conservative” blogs are still bashing the Loony Lefties, and the “Liberal” blogs are still bashing the rightwingnutjobberdoodooheads. They all get so tiresome and inane after awhile, but they continue, the way the sea continues.

There are blogs still debating the war on either side. That’s all they do. Day in and day out. No one ever wins the argument, so the arguments go on and on. After awhile, you realize you are reading the same thing you read two years ago and you feel ill and google porno .

I’ve seen more, but I’d like to hear from y’all. What other movements have you noticed while doing your bit to occupy the cyber world?