If you don't care for personal blogs, Universal Theme blogs, strictly non-political blogs, be warned: this one ain't for you.

If you've never faced the Dark Night of the Soul, either for yourself or for humanity, or your brothers and sisters in far-off lands: this may not be for you.  You may not have considered ending your life in response to the Dark Night, and you can take this song in different ways, but passionate, it is.  No matter; we all face the future with different attitudes, and many of us have developed coping mechanisms; some of us don't feel things as strongly as others; that's okay.

I have been incredulous about the varying responses to the possibility of Josh closing the Reader Blogs section of the Café.  The categories of responses speak to who we are as people; chronicling them would have made a fascinating blog in itself.  But alas; I didn't clip the comments!

But the thing that really has me buffaloed is the degree to which many of us have already departed; have seen JMM's decision as already written, even while sometimes trying to control things by establishing New Rules based too often on bloggers' own biases or sense of what content mattered most, or which bloggers were to blame!  Feh!

It seems impossible for too many to take Josh at his word: It's the cost!  I, too, want him to heed my cries that the Cafe needs to remain intact, since we have needs to express ourselves, and believe our ideas can spread outward to help our nation recover.   We are smart, we say, and good-looking to boot; our blogs could enhance the site, not be a financial drain.

But we are leaving, it seems, in droves; getting almost too ready for our own demise.  If Josh is watching, what sort of messages are we sending?  We are saying our goodbyes, swapping email addresses, winding down...Announcing that: "this is my final blog".

I ask you: Which covenant with ourselves are we breaking in so doing?  Did you want ease and plenty?  Did you not have a higher purpose here?  Do I post stories here, as some of were accused of, "in hopes of being discovered by some editor in the blogosphere, and getting a writing gig somewhere?"  No.  Do I research for a blog for days for some ego-gratification or other?  Do you?  No.  At least most of us don't. 

We care about our nation, and folks suffering in other lands, often from the deeds and policies of this nation, and we don't want these things done in our names any longer.

We hate it that we seem to be losing the war against laissez-faire Capitalism, and we want to devise group efforts to start winning it.  We can't abide that we spend trillions on war, and it looks probable that our Social Security benefits will be cut, or that SS may be at least partially privatized, and dependent on Wall Street for value; that we are spending less and less on education, on infrastructure, on green energy initiatives...you can go on and on.

We argue about who or what's to blame, but we also get the word out from this site JMM envisioned years ago.  We talk philosophy, and food, and books...tell stories, and read poetry...just as we would at a real sidewalk Café, as Josh envisioned years ago.

All is politics, as far as I'm concerned.  Every innocent who's killed by American drones; every babby who goes hungry; every old person who gets put into a Crap Nursing home that her meager SS payments will afford; every kid who can't afford college, or will never pay back his exorbitant student loans.  Every vet with PTSD who doesn't get the proper care...every vet at the Café who tells his or her story, in comments or poetry: it's all politics to me.

And I am flipping out that we seem to be walking away from all this so easily!  Show me I'm wrong; please!

And another plea: take the time to listen to this song; it inspired me to write this letter to you all.  Take the four minutes...please.

Don't Give Up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01FE9cPXE3M