Gonzales resigned.

There is a lot of turnover at the White House, isn’t there?

As I guess it’s not because of unhappy workers with meager pay, no benefits, and untenable working conditions, I’ll gather it’s because of poor management.

Management hires folks. Some folks are good worker bees, who get along anywhere, and are happy with life. Some are hard workers, who may be unhappy but will work anyway. Some people are meant to be — firemen or farmers or software designers or … and are a good hire because they love doing what they do. These people might leave, but if you treat them decently enough, they probably will stay.

Sometimes management hires the wrong folks for the wrong job at the wrong time.

I think that’s what the White House does, a lot.

I think in this case, the management might be in the wrong job at the wrong time.

In some businesses, the manager who keeps hiring people who don’t work out gets moved to another job himself. Or demoted.

Or let go. Pink slipped. 2 weeks severance, or 20 million dollars, whichever comes first.

Mr. President would most likely be Mr. Vacationinginmaine about 3-5 years ago if this was the real world.

Oh.

Wait.

This is supposed to be the real world.

Been a while…

Since I posted.

I will be posting 3-5 posts a week from now on. That’s my commitment.

I have some repetitive strain injury (RSI) that reoccurs now and then,  so sometimes I need to take a break from the keyboard, and since I work “almost” full time at a keyboard, I also come home a bit tired. So sometimes I may post 2-3 posts a day and take a 3 day break.

Poetry and politics

London by William Blake

I wander through each chartered street
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every black’ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

This was my first favorite poem. I was lucky and had understanding, fairly liberal parents–my mother bought me a beautiful edition of Songs of Innocence and Experience for my 11th (as I recall…) birthday. I discovered Blake through Joan Baez’ recitation of this beautiful, heart wrenching poem.

What does this have to do with politics?
Everything.

I heard this “somewhere” around 9-10, and not only did it influence my taste in art, poetry, song, but certainly informed my thoughts about what is important to society. What issues do I hold dear, anyway? Within this poem lies almost everything…feminism, distrust of industrial progress “because we can”, how man’s societal confines can ruin lives.

Of course, you may not find any of that, or the dozen other items I found in this poem.
But it’s out there. It inspired me. I learned a little about 18th century words, and world views, and how they can certainly be carried into, and be related to our own systems and thoughts. Certainly soldiers still cry with increasingly powerless cries of protest, to walls that are supposedly inhabited by much more democratic people than in 18th century palaces.

The fact is that we all have a whole basket of political seeds.
This is one of mine.

Poetry and politics have intermingled for ages.

Header image resources

Source of header image :
Public Domain Photos

Source of fonts:
defont

This will be subject to reworking and change.

Under capitalism, man exploits man.
Under communism, it’s just the opposite.
J.K.Galbraith

Here’s the results of the Political Compass test…

Economic Left -8.00
Social Libertarian -5.54

Trivial note– on the compass of composer’s political positions on the compass, I am “nearest” Prokofiev, who is actually one of my favorite composers.
I am obviously more social and civil libertarian than economic libertarian. I believe in a taxation system, and support public funding for arts and media. On the whole “drug war” question, I come alongside on the treatment and rehabilitation camp ‘s side, along with certain decriminalization measures.

Here are some links regarding the political compass:
Political Compass Home

Libertarian Left Books

Post the first

This is going to be a progressive political blog.
I am going to be educating myself about the issues, exploring the Democratic 2008 campaign, and in many ways, I am going to try at the fifth step at the very beginning. I know some things about politics and that world, but I know I am just a perennial beginner. I want to go beyond that, but I am going to take those first steps beyond where I am, slowly and surely.

I am also going to take this site slowly but surely.
I have another wordpress site, Normaltrouble which will be a little more
flexible in focus. You’ll also get a little more idea of what I am interested in, and what I am about there.

I just noticed I hadn’t changed the timezone yet!
I am in the PST , daylight savings, timezone. I’ll be concentrating on politics in the USA, with emphasis on the Western portion, mostly left coast, California in particular, with a special focus on Northern California, especially the Bay Area and Sonoma County.

I work in a clerical position, in a midsized corporation, and have for years. I realized just a while ago, that I need to expand my horizons, and exploring politics in and on varying levels seemed to me about one of the best ways to do so. I’ve done some light level campaigning, for John Kerry, Bill Clinton, and George McGovern. Yes, I am a baby boomer, about in the middle of that generation. I am semi-undecided about whoe to vote for in 2008. Mostly, I have to disclose that I am leaning towards Edwards.

I’ll go more into the issues that most interest me, but also issues that I need to pay more attention to and possibly don’t have as basic a background in. All my involvement has been in the most basic capacity, so as I’ve said, I consider myself a perennial slightly involved beginner.

I hope to change that.