Posted by Mark H. on May 16, 2000, at 10:27:52
In reply to Grip this..., posted by boBB on May 16, 2000, at 0:30:07
...and I consider him my conscience as well. I don't always agree with boBB, but I'm ALWAYS interested in what he has to say, and I ALWAYS think about it -- even when I'd rather not.
boBB barks pretty hard at me and others, but he's very civil in his intent even as he pushes the boundaries of language, and he both speaks from pain and understands other people's pain, and he knows he's a gadfly, and he's willing to tempt expulsion, but the truth is, I believe, that even when he is pissed to the gills, he's still writing from compassion, not only for the person he's defending, but also for the person he's seemingly flaming. At least that has been my experience with him, especially when I've been a jerk.
I believe that boBB deserves a special pass here, rather like the "court jester" who speaks the truth in Shakespeare, or the shamanistic wounded healer, whose dance and outrageousness is tolerated because it alone speaks for the other side in each of us. I don't know of any other person on this board who fulfills that role.
boBB's presence here is unique because he is not mentally ill, yet he suffers much of what those of us who are suffer. He consistently, persistently asks the same questions, over and over, not because he likes to hear himself talk, but because he wants everyone to consider the possibility that they are not ill either, or that if they are, it is not an aberration.
I'm so average I can hardly stand it -- I'm the perfect member of a focus group. Because I'm a boomer, raised in the San Fernando Valley during the 50s and 60s, my unchallenged concepts and opinions -- like it or not -- represent those of tens of millions of people across the country. I'm a democrat who re-registered republican in order to claim to be a "republican for" women's rights, civil rights, environmental rights. I've had it with most of my fellow democrats. I don't care who's having sex with Clinton -- I only care that he didn't produce the nationwide depression-style work for everyone who wants it corps he promised, that he let paramilitary units attack an occupied church and burn it to the ground with women and children inside when any other denomination would have been handled lawyer-to-lawyer with no physical confrontation at all, and that he doesn't get the difference between "process" and "content," allowing civil rights to be steadily eroded while increasing the absurd repressiveness of political correctness, to the great detriment especially of the generation behind us. Gore is a bore and none too bright, but he's going to be our next president, thanks to the Republicans' choice of candidate.
Whoops! Perhaps I've lost the distinction of process and content in this post! I mean to say, there always needs to be someone who says,
"Get a Grip!" and there always needs to be someone who says, "Grip This!" boBB's a nice balance to my arrogance and presumption.Much love,
Mark
poster:Mark H.
thread:33538
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000508/msgs/33606.html