April 21, 2011

"But sequencing the troubles, the activism need never end."

I said that in the previous post, the one about light bulbs. I'm quoting myself because I want to quote Bob Dylan, about doors:

first of all two people get
together an' they want their doors
enlarged. second of all, more
people see what's happenin' an'
come t' help with the door
enlargement. the ones that arrive
however have nothin' more than
"let's get these doors enlarged"
t' say t' the ones who were
there in the first place. it follows then that
the whole thing revolves around
nothing but this door enlargement idea.
third of all, there's a group now existin'
an' the only thing that keeps them friends
is that they all want the doors enlarged.
obviously, the doors're then enlarged
fourth of all,
after this enlargement
the group has t' find
something else t' keep
them together or
else the door enlargement
will prove t' be
embarrassing
From the back cover of "Another Side of Bob Dylan."

9 comments:

The Dude said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
madAsHell said...

Isn't this a corollary to "Never waste a good crisis"?

The Crack Emcee said...

Replace the words "door enlargement" with "spiritual enlightenment AKA screwing somebody" and it works much, much better.

As a group even.

Calypso Facto said...

But sequencing the troubles, the activism need never end.

Oh, I thought this was going to be yet another post about the Kloppenburg announcement/allegations, as it relates to the psychology of perpetual outrage.


wv: hitiver. Bon Iver's brother?

Wince said...

Does all this "door enlargement" have something to do with the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Speaking of perpetual activism.

Ann Althouse said...

"Does all this "door enlargement" have something to do with the Americans with Disabilities Act?"

I think the reference could be to the civil rights movement. ("Don't stand in the doorway...") But it's odd to trivialize that. I always pictured some neighborhood group that had one idea, then had to go on to another and another to justify their existence as a group. The poet's observation is really that people are individuals and need to get out of the group once the group's work is done.

My observation was that if the group wants to perpetuate itself, it can sequence the troubles, even make one solution the source of the next problem. Well, you see that happening in real life. So when does the light bulb -- ahem -- go on? When do you say you're more than a component of this group?

Unknown said...

It's why the Lefties need community organizers. If all the problems go away, they're out of business, so they need "organizers" to invent new outrages for new-found constituencies.

WV "pepie" How Little Zero gets once he goes beyond wee-wee.

Milwaukee said...

So, your observation is that by requesting a recall, the leftist will have that to lather on until it is time for recall elections, and then they can lather on that until fall elections, and then they can stress about recalling Walker, because it will almost be a year then.

I say, if the recount for Kloppenburg is more that 0.5% in favor of Prosser, that Kloppenburg should then have to pay for the recount. Should the encumbent Senators win re-election, will the petitioning groups pay for those elections?

traditionalguy said...

Is the March of Dimes is still gathering its money every year to honor Jonas Salk's memory?