Midget of Political Thought

I finished Thoreau's essay, Civil Disobedience, today, and i am, admittedly, unmoved. I know i really ought to utterly stop supporting, even passively, all causes for which i have no support or motivation, and as such i should refuse to pay taxes of any kind, but, you know... Thoreau's just so hard to fully buy.

I am a big-time fan of Walden, love the nature, love the thumbing of noses to the daily grind, but i really cannot get behind Thoreau's desire to utterly remove himself from society. Take for instance rssl's C.L.O., which presumes to separate cali from the rest of our sorry state, and would so, if it could so, in a very Thoreau-lian way if it could, i'm sure, but I sadly think that the more folk that step out of the way of "the state", the more the state can just pretty well do whatever the fuck it wants to.

Tonight, Brooke and i went to a club that may or may not be called "The Max" in Omaha. It was a rather gay club, by which i mean i estimate 35%-45% of the folk were gay and the other 55-65 percent straight... (not unlike the present day Gay 90's scene in Minneapolis). Whatever the percentage of man-loving-men or lady-loving-chicas, i would estimate that 99% or more of the folk there were gay friendly, young Nebraskans... --a situation that seems hardly worth mentioning in many parts of the world, but in Nebraska is quite a rare sort of place to find-- Simultaneously, i would estimate that less than 15% of those present were registered voters, even though simply taking the folk there tonight they represent a sizeable voting bloc in the Omaha congressional and local districts... go green, go Esch ... The fact (or guess, rather) that none or few of these folk are voting even though they're motivated (or ought to be) to vote out the right-ist government in Nebraska sets me a-thinking.

--Hello, it's me, morning-after sober joel. Saturday night after coming home i had a mind to go on a drunken political rant and it was moderately cogent so i present it here, unchanged (except for double-dashed commentary)--

Incramental vs. major... 3rd vs. through the system... nathan's 'progressive' work... --These are three notes i scribbled to myself before deciding to putter off to bed. The arc of argument i had in mind saturday night was really quite grand, with a mind to cover the problems of taking baby steps toward a better world vs. revolution, the constant argument i hear from stolidly (does stolidly just mean solidly, but more rigid?) democratic friends about sticking with the party rather than voting green or something else, because it's the best chance we have & my good friend nathan's company that runs around the country helping folks put together sophisticated, interesting campaigns and winning unlikely elections (Ned & Kinky to take just two).

But this morning i have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself (which is to say my windbag has run out and my drunken soap-box broke). So, i'll leave it at this point, and let this be a plot of fertile thought soil instead of a jungle of political rantings.