It all started 10 years ago today… I opened a silly blog with WordPress as its frame. I chose the zen-ish motif that tops each post out of the few offered back then. And wrote my first piece: “Hats Off To Rebecca”… https://kavips.wordpress.com/2006/11/17/hello-world/
I was a busy person and posted occasionally when I felt like it… but I was more comfortable reading others’ posts and commenting there. Occasionally I’d get a comment and respond.
One Sunday morning I opened the News Journal and there was a picture of windmills in the far distance off Bethany Beach… It was exhilarating. My imagination was piqued. I wrote about wind, whether anyone read it or not, right up until we got the first offshore deal signed between Deluca and Carney. https://kavips.wordpress.com/all-about-wind/ Then came the crash.
After Democrats swept everything, while Obama was in 2nd month, I developed the kavipsian Economic Plan https://kavips.wordpress.com/jump-starting-america-the-kavipsian-plan-for-fixing-the-economy/ as a blueprint for the new administration. A couple of months later I had to leave the country for a mission and not knowing how to kill it, simply abandoned the blog. When I resurfaced, I learned with a smile that my abrupt disappearance through coincidence had caused some local controversy.
Then came the mid-term election of 2010. In a burst of activity on all blogs, the Tea Party sentiments were fanned into a passion and Mike Castle was replaced. Following that, every subsequent Delaware legislative session illuminated a new major Progressive moment as lifelong barriers to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”, came tumbling down one by one in our more progressive Democratic legislature rubber stamped by a Democratic governor.
Then materialized “Occupy Delaware”. Strong arguing in their favor persuaded our state to handle them with tolerance. I believe they were the longest remaining holdouts in the country and I’m rather proud of our state for standing up against corporate entities in defending that part of our Bill of Rights.
2012 marked a policy shift in our Governor as he began his new second term without Brian Selander. Immediately beginning with the privatization of the Port of Wilmington, then moving over to education, instead of glowing progressivism we began to see creeping signs of corporatism. So I fought it.
I got sucked into education when I discovered “what” was Common Core. It was the same trash I’d removed from our corporate training departments in real life. It should never be taught to kids. Pandora’s box was then opened in front of me and all educational hell broke loose. https://kavips.wordpress.com/all-about-common-core-charters-and-public-education/
I am most proud that Kevin from Exceptional Delaware https://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/ has risen and taken that issue further than could I ever have time or energy to accomplish. He was my Frodo who could carry the ring deep into Mordor, further than I ever could.
I am also quite proud of all the personalities across these ten years I have had privilege to engage. As a child, I used to watch my Dad sit with the old men in the drug store, drinking coffee and arguing back and forth about the future of their town; not as politicians but as engaged citizens who then enforced politicians to bend to their will. I like to think we all accomplished the same thing.
History will be the judge. I have always believed in the Prime Directive which forbids one from interfering directly with the internal development of how things are working… I began these writings as a thought experiment to see if thought and ideas, not personalities, could still carry in this modern world as they did when knowledge was passed on in print. My assessment is that yes, they could partly across these ten years, until the internet became too crowded. Then personalities became the drivers necessary to rise above the confusion. I am saddened that with all the knowledge of the world at our fingertips, we live in a less knowledgeable age than we did 10 years ago when the Internet was open.
I began this episode on this day ten years ago in 2006 just after the Dem’s ended uncontested Republican control of Washington, DC… I am ending it today on a comparatively depressing note as I see it coming back full circle. Things do not look good for this country over the next 3 years. As someone who built it up, watching it get torn down will be no fun. I know. I’ve lived through it twice before.
Across my time, I have seen many human beings continue after they have outlasted their usefulness. No one ever tells them. It is a crime I don’t wish to repeat.
Life is about fun. If it is not fun, then you have to fight and either die or win so it can be fun again. And it helps, if your passion for fighting is what you consider fun. For me it once was, but is no longer.
And so, one more circle gets closed. Similarly Shakespeare’s works coincided with the golden Elizabethan Age then faded as that golden age dissipated through the darkening Stuart’s reign, though he briefly returned in a late burst to write his Tempest.
From all I see, I think history will also determine that we too had a golden age, beginning and ending with a year of 6. For those who don’t yet see it as such, I believe the next few years will be the miracle that finally opens their eyes. We really, actually did. It was truly amazing…. We have entered a new age now; it needs to be written by new people. It really does… It desperately needs to be written.
From November 17th, 2006 to November 17th, 2016 a recorded log of the long view of America’s and Delaware’s progressive movement is now set in stone. For better or worse, it is a legacy of what can be done, what is possible. Events will go forward for most of you, needing your focus and energy, but I have seen a dark vision of the future and have already exercised my personal Einstein option… My only clue has been sitting in the post directly sequenced below this one……
All that is left, ….. is to say: “Thank you”……..
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kavips 