Posted by phone monkey at jerry1.healthpartners.com on February 04, 2002 at 16:35:06:
In Reply to: No offense at all... posted by Isis on February 04, 2002 at 16:10:24:
: Don't worry about that, you actually have a very decent point; I just thought you were using your personal experience to make judgments about people you don't know anything about.
: However...
: : Voting works kids, its all you got...If you dont like the way things are..GET INVOLVED...
: I disagree that voting's all we've got. If it is, then we're royally fucked and we know it. Gore was elected by a clear majority of the popular vote, yet got screwed by illicit, unfair practices in one state that swung the electoral college (an antiquated, aristocratic, rich-white-man-biased system that should have been chucked hundreds of years ago) in the direction it did -- if voting's all we've got, then we ain't got shit.
: It's quite easy to be active in one's community, there are any number of issues that you can jump in on. I think it's just as foolish to cast a ballot every four years, do no other activism, and expect things to change. We could all stand to do a little less complaining and a little more work, me included. True enough.
Right, so if you could go out and buy the socially conscious brand label drug, then it would be ok?
Look, it is unfortunately true, if you put the money in the hands of someone who is engaging in illegal acts, he is quite likely not going to be using it to finance urban redevelopment.
While it is quite true that the meth lab that burned down about a mile from my house was probably not funding third world terror, it did burn down a sweet old lady's embroidery business.... uh, which I think she was financing by renting out her attic to a meth lab.
So, I feel soooooo much better about the head shop that's a block and a half from where I live, because that's a legitimate business.
But, I find it really frightening that since they have opened, the amount of light to enter into that place is constantly decreasing. Started out w/a little sign - now you can't see a sliver through that soaped up window. Trying not to be seen? or worried about what the neighbors might be thinking?
Of course, in the spirit of urban renewal, the "will work for food" guys who sleep in the grove of trees down past the bike path one block from my househave been rousted and they are putting in a parking lot.
That's legal.
And the trees are gone, and that's legal too.