I am a student of Buddhism and the lack of "right speech" in this society is overwhelming.

So many TV shows are violent and competitive, losers get humiliated in front of others and are expected to take it without crying.


Movies are full of violence and no human connections.

They don't understand why I called them out on hate speech. They have no idea what they are reading or passing on. I hate that I cannot get through to them. I think of him like a little kid saying "Oooh, pretty snake!" and being unaware that it can bite him and that it is dangerous. The hate speech is the snake.

Hubby and I decided that they have no critical thinking skills. They don't look at hateful stuff and say "Is this true or is it lies?". They don't evaluate it, they just pass it on. He doesn't watch TV but he is just like a Fox news viewer.

His wife said I was like what her dad said was the problem with liberals. I don't know what that is. I don't give a Rattus norwegicus' ass about her dad. He is rich and makes money and thinks he is too good to pay ANY taxes. He writes off way too much stuff. The daughter runs her own business and his too. She warns him that the IRS will come after him some day and he won't listen.

I'm not apologizing to stepson because he IS naive and the shit he put up is rightwing horseshit. His father said so as well.

rude manifestor. I don't like having my posts called crud. If you had a bad day, do not take it out on other people.

I never saw them.
I was not talking about you. I was talking about the stepkids.

You are NOT the stepkids. Comprende????

was in the response position to my post, not a general response, and this:

"is there any astrological connection or is this just the usual crud?" <--since this sounds like something related to this board and not your relatives, I received this as personal. I deleted my posts--after--your response so I know very well you saw them.

But I am a very forgiving person, and did extend a hug to you initially.My post was commiserating that I had experienced similar stuff from my life too. I think you were still fired up from your interactions with other people, and as usual, I got caught in the crossfire. This happens to me and I am learning about this right now.

I know a lot of bad stuff is going around and do not wish to be a part of it.


Peace~~Felix

--this is what I believe:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1220&pid=8768

I recently discovered--and last night on this thread was another mirror for me--how my adrenaline system IS burned out. I am admitting this here--and--I'm looking around and noticing it's going on everywhere.

I think this world is going to get a lot worse--economy, world changes, Fox news amping up the stress programs, and it doesn't look like it is going to stop. I have the same thing going on in my family

Peace~

Spends lots of money on prime rib, lamb, etc. and then stuffs it in the oven and goes out to the garage to smoke ciggies and drink wine, and then comes back in an hour later and wonders why it burns.

Best way I've found to clear your soul.

Encounters like that just muddy us all up.

Been reading comments on news articles and at other sites (I have not done that much in the past but I want to see the decline in discourse others report out there) and I am amazed at the things people post.

The "liberals are responsible for everything bad" meme is thick with a few folks. They never explain themselves or seem to have any logic, merely this creepy, dark loathing for "liberals."

And you just know every one of them is probably surviving on some program a "liberal" made sure they had.

And the racism is unbelievable. The racists are out of the closet and just loony. Apparently they believe there is a war on white people and the media is covering it up. Fear is rampant. The media are only telling "us" about white on black/hispanic crime, according to these paranoids, and whites are in serious danger.

But they're not racist.

You can't reason with people who are full of fear, and who use bigotry to try to soothe it. Most of them really are afraid. If they would get afraid of the right things, and direct their venom toward what's really threatening them, they could be a force. But they would rather choose to focus on skin color and whomever their TV/Radio tells them should be the enemy today.

In your situation the son humiliated himself. "If you say it, own it." If he can't defend his beliefs, no use blaming you. He should go eat his burnt pork chop and hush!

Venting is good for blood pressure.

It would be one thing if they offered reasoned arguments for what they say, but that's not what's going on here. Kids are not taught to reason even in the best public schools. If they're lucky, they might get that in college. Then again, fi they go for career training, such as medicine or computer programming and so on, they also won't be taught critical reasoning skills. And that's with all due respect to doctors, nurses, computer programmers, and all such wonderful and necessary people in our society.

The right kind of philosophy classes teach critical reasoning, and maybe law school.

I think all the idiot "libertarians" need to be reminded constantly that Somalia is a Libertarian Paradise. And that Saudi Arabia or Iran or theocracies.

Keep in mind, you had little or nothing to do with how they were raised, and you can't cure them of that.

You are not obligated to stay in a house whose conditions you find bothersome, like the cats and dog. It's a shame their child is being raised in these circumstances, but unless things are so bad that you can legitimately call Child Protective Services, all you can do is keep quite. Maybe offer a mild suggestion or two, but nothing more.

Suggest you meet somewhere else, a sort of neutral territory, when you visit since the animals affect you so badly. You're not asking them to get rid of the animals, just that you can't be there.

I was ever taught was in Nursing School. It's at the heart of the Nursing Process. Becoming a nurse has trained my mind to evaluate social and political issues better than I've ever been able to comprehend them before.

My spouse has a computer engineering degree. He has the best problem solving skills of anyone I've ever known. He has advanced well in his career because of his critical thinking skills. I don't think he had a philosophy class, but he can see through a fallacious argument faster than any lawyer I've known.

I've found descriptions of all the false logic arguments on the web and that has been very helpful.

I could not believe his wife was defending him. She's allegedly a liberal and her father is one of those guys who watches Fox and thinks he is just too good to pay any taxes. She argues with him a lot but was defending him too!!!

I think I will stay out of the state for at least the next year.

defend him if she perceives you are attacking him (I don't mean that you were) in his absence to her or your son-in-law. She feels protective of him.

I'm chocking up the poo hitting the fan action in families now to the rough Sun/Pluto opposition right now. I've noticed extreme strain happening every year when the Sun transits Cancer, sign of the home and family. (Also the sign of the United States, and this is why some stress takes a political/governmental form.) The effects can be painful, if there are many family conflicts to resolve, but the effects are usually temporary.

Less temporary are the effects of Saturn making its last pass through Libra, sign of relationships (including those with family members.) If there are people not meant to stay in your life after this fall, when Saturn moves into Scorpio, they will probably leave for good (sorry.) Saturn is hard to boss around.

In non-astrological terms, the ignorant rightwing freaks are continuing to freak out, I think, because of the continuing political, ideological and economic pain their kind are in, with parties who have no answers for their fears. (I'm seeing a lot of this on the left, too, frankly, though I would not, repeat, not compare our behaviors to those of rightwing Republicans.)

I think these might be family ties you will have to reevaluate, if they are making you feel this awful. Here's hoping it get better.

And our darkness is being purged, meaning for many that it must come up, manifest in our own behavior and in mirrors through others', so that we may say "oh" and release it.

I don't care for it either

I went to law school and have a law degree. I think I'm pretty good at explaining myself. It drives me nuts that these people are gullible and easily led. They don't deal in facts and figures. They never learned critical thinking in college. They believe anything as long as it's rightwing horseshit.

They do not understand anything i say, no matter how often I repeat it.

They don't know anything about critical thinking.
The stepson has a BS in accounting from a pseudo-college.

And people don't listen to me on subjects where I know what I'm talking about. Except for Dear Hubby.

I don't tell stepson how to program, for example.

We just have to become comfortable with its reality and move on, I suppose.