my rant was about people on JU whining.  I doubt that if MLK was in todays world that all he would do is get online and complain.  If he had online means, he would set up websites for people to join- he wouldn't just log in to some chat site and write articles that only a few would see.  He would use the internet to organize people and to get people of the same ideals to meet up and work on a solution.  He would still rally people and travel and speak to people.  He would work on getting his words out to the masses.  People who hide behind nicknames and post on websites that are funded by somebody else can no way be put in the same terms as people like MLK.

I doubt that if MLK was in todays world that all he would do is get online and complain . . . People who hide behind nicknames and post on websites that are funded by somebody else can no way be put in the same terms as people like MLK.

Jess already mentioned this, but how do you know that these people aren't doing more than just complaining online? Did MLK personally provide the funding for every venue that he spoke at? Haven't a number of JU users revealed their real names?

What am I allowed to write about anyway? If I decide to sit down for five minutes to write an "article", will the world be better off if I write about my last vacation instead of social security? No? Should I then never write anything at all? Should anyone ever write anything?

how do you know that these people aren't doing more than just complaining online?

Because the kind of people that are complaining online are also the kind of people who would be the first to toot their own horn and tell us all what they had/have done.  They have in the past.

What am I allowed to write about anyway?

Write about whatever you want to.  I am thinking that you haven't read enough on here to know what I am ranting about.  Dharma, however, seems to "get it". 

MLK did not fund everything.  But, he did head fundraisers.  He also devoted his life to what he was doing, and people knew what he was doing.  There is no way that you can compare the people who have changed history with the people that I am ranting about.  they aren't even in the same league.

true

One thing I believe is..... in America only the people that bothered to vote have any right tp whinge about the govermnent

Jess

Jess, very true.  I wish that was law, though!

We have compulsory voting but even if we didn't I would still vote.

If you don't care enough to vote ....then you have no right to complain about the government.

If you don't vote against them ..you may as well have voted for them

Jess

Wow, you've discounted a lot of people and a lot of discussions. May I ask why there is a referral list to Joeuser? May I ask why you think there are writers? Magazines? Newspapers? So when someone writes that the war in Iraq is fundamentaly about stopping terrorists and we should support our troops, unless they are actually fighting in the war or a member of the Homeland Security, their blog should be called whinning and discounted? Or is it only the ones that see problems that they think should be fixed that are whinning?
Do you know how many interesting things I've learned while reading some of the blogs on here?

Wisefawn, you obviously do not understand what was discussed in this blog.  But, I really don't think that you will be able to understand.

There's a big difference between sitting on your ass, picking holes in everything the government does, not being satisfied with anything that's not done your way, basically, as Brad said, being a lamer.....

....and getting off your ass and doing something to fix what you perceive the problems to be.

Actually, I think the owner of this site said it well in one of his comments on https://www.joeuser.com/forums.asp?MID=3&CMID=38&AID=16038#57458Karachi, 2008, Nuclear Terrorism.
By: Muggaz

"I don't agree with your political positions but not only do I choose not to have you killed, I tolerate them by giving you a vehicle to express them to thousands of other people."

Maybe there are people here that feel that along with doing what they can on a personal level, writing about things that feel strongly about is another way of doing what they can on a larger scale.

I agree WF

Getting the point across to people is important too.

I'm sure there are alot of people on here that get off their arse and do their bit.

And I personally think the Government should do more for health care.

Jess

"Feed our starving but only tax those rich bastards who can afford it." Okay, it's not the tone--simply uncalled for ranting. 

Empty complaints are worthless.

Martin Luther King didn't just speak out. People don't just speak out, guys. The do things. And part of doing means putting together a plan with a specific goal.

It's really straight forward actually:

1) Identify the problem

2) Identify the solution to the problem

3) Come up with a plan to get to that solution

4) Execute on that plan

The people who strike me as lame are stuck at phase 1. They love to write about the problem without any feasible solution.

Let me give you an example from the other day. We're concerned that the next version of Windows won't have the kinds of extensibility APIs our software needs to do its thing or at the very least APIs that would let us create new software to extend Windows in new ways.  I wrote about that here on JoeUser.  The solution is to ensure Microsoft does have those hooks.  Therefore, to get there, I need to work with our Microsoft reps, set up meetings with developers at Microsoft, fly there to demonstrate what we're do and see what we can do to work together to make sure Longhorn can be extensible.

Identifying that problem is pretty easy "I'm worry we won't be able to do cool stuff on the next version of Windows." Now, if I just wrote it on JoeUser and did nothing else, that would be pretty lame. Am I expecting (hoping) that someone from MS is going to read my blog and magically make everything all better? It's going to take effort to get to our goal. We'll need to make sure they a) understand what issue we're talking about convince them that this is an issue c) convince them that it is worth it for them to address. 

That's just a day to day example of what people who do things have to do. Microsoft is not the world's most successful company because they sit around thinking of things. They're the world's most successful company because they have people who identify problems and then come up with solutions along with the plan to create the solutions and execute on it.

Whining is easy. Doing something meaningful about it takes work.