Hiatus

It’s time for a blog vacation. Something’s not right. I need to clear my head. Maybe shutting up for a while will do it!

I’ll be around, just not posting here for a while.

Before I go, two more political links.

1. From “Beside My Sister, Facing the Enemy: Legal Theory Out of Coalition” | Mari J. Matsuda at Problem Chylde.

I could shelter myself from conflict by leaving the conversation, but I have come to believe that the comfort we feel when we avoid hard conversations is a dangerous comfort, one that seduces us into ignorance about the experiences of others and about the full meaning of our own lives.

(I picked out a sentence that sounds an attractive dissonant note to this hiatus business; I hope you’ll read the whole thing. Coalitions good.)

2. From Shystee’s Blog at Corrente Wire via Prometheus 6.

Politicians are experts at getting you to work your ass off to get what they want (win elected office) while they neglect to fight for what you want (single payer health care, ending the war, etc.).

Once politicians get what they want, the things you want are “complicated” and “unrealistic”. As we saw after the 2006 elections, it’s not a very good bargain for us.

In the 2008 election cycle, rather than making the candidates earn their support by insisting on specific policy pledges, the blogosphere and other activist groups volunteered to become cheerleaders for one candidate or the other.