Must we despair and give into gloom
when fortune’s smile turns sour?
We have raised a flag that’s white.
And from their wrath, we cower.
We copy and paste so many words.
And we pass them down each day.
We don’t speak from our own heart,
instead, we quote whatever they say.
How can our voices ever be heard
if we don’t send them down the line?
We blog because they have silenced us.
They have silenced your thoughts and mine.
If I quote from you and you quote from me
then our story, we shall tell.
There is someone wanting to know
that in fact, we are not for sale.
Who will hear your thoughts or mine
if we allow them all to die?
And when history tells our story
they will hear it from those who lie!
Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2015 Shelby I. Courtland
I wrote this because I think it’s a shame that all of us have a brain and we have eyes and we can see what is going on. But instead of spreading each other’s thoughts around, we simply post articles by Michael Snyder or Paul Craig Roberts and a host of others who are purported to be experts on the happenings of today. They already have a wide following because if the blog world is busy re-posting their articles, I am pretty sure that they’ve got their own website that gets loads of attention.
What people need to see, I think, is for those of us who are not paid writers with established websites to post our thoughts. People from all over the world come to our site, not to re-read something that they’ve seen a thousand times over, they want our perspective. But instead, what they get is the perspective of someone else and we are taking their position, even if we agree with it and running with it at the expense of all the other unsung heroes out there. There are so many of us who are gifted and talented with words and poetry and photography and we should desire to spread our thoughts and what is in our hearts all over the internet. How else are we going to counter all of the propaganda that is put out by the ‘lamestream’ media? How else are we going to become a viable entity instead of continuing to enjoy obscurity and in some cases, bemoaning it?
I quite often find myself moving on past those who simply post a short bit from some article they found somewhere and instead, I focus on reading the blogs that are posted by people who tell the story from their own perspective; from their point of view. It is always most interesting and eye opening to know that there are indeed, many of us who are in tune to what’s what. We just have a different way of saying it and yet, when we say it, it never gets heard.
In short, support each other. We all know that things are looking pretty bleak and everyone wants an audience. And for those who say, “I just write for myself.” If that were the case, you’d keep a journal beside your bed and not post it online. But be that as it may, try re-blogging someone else’s post other than Paul Craig Roberts. Re-blog the guy’s blog that you just read and found his point was solid, right on the mark or struck a chord with you. It just may strike one with someone else and so on and on it goes.
shelbycourtland 
Awesome! Should have been said sooner, but so glad it was you, Shelby. I also prefer original writings, unique perspectives, etc. How else am I supposed to connect with my people?
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Robyn, thank you SO much for getting it! I get so tired of enthusiastically clicking on a blog only to read: ‘article by Michael Snyder’. I was hoping to read something by the blogger, not a re-posted article, but an original thought. I’ve learned more from people who write their own blog posts than from those who simply go with the flow of putting up an article that has been put up, several times over. Quite often, I find the same stories showing up on my tracker and I’m like, for real?
I’ll get statistics elsewhere as in, “what is the government’s lies about the unemployment rate?”, but when I do, the piece I write about it are my own and in my own words that are uniquely mine and not just captured from another’s perspective and re-posted.
That is also why I SO love your blog because all of your posts are original and uniquely you! And you’ve always got something to say and how!
Again, thank you Robyn! I most sincerely appreciate your comment!
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It’s my pleasure, Shelby. Your voice is so loud and strong it sometimes serves as an anchor for me when I am pussy-footing around. Keep up the brilliant work, my friend, you are inspirational!
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I agree with you almost 100% – we are parrots that lack independent thoughts, and I think that was the point. I often glaze over listening to people speak on news of the day where they just repeat what the news says no matter how full of shit it sounds. But this is the world in which we live and my motivation to something about it is quickly being drained.
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Well, I’ll take the ‘almost 100%’! I love that part about ‘parrots’ because that’s essentially it. I realize that not all people want to take the time to write something from their perspective and that it’s actually time consuming to do so as opposed to simply posting an excerpt from an original article and then proceed to said article after having read the first two paragraphs of it. That is generally what many people do.
This was simply about the fact that there are so many people with so much to say who are getting no audience at all and I am guilty of neglecting to reblog their stuff and I am going to correct that as of this day forward. And in a sense, we really are, in many ways, passing on down the line what we pick up from others by reading what they write if not exactly reblogging it as well.
Thank you for your comment HLJ!
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Every voice counts and every voice is needed. Especially voices like yours, Shelby. I have long admired your courage and ability to slice away the fat to get to the juicy marrow of the matter. Thank you for reminding us that we don’t need more “experts” to tell us what or how to think on a given issue. We need to trust our own voices and listen to the voices we trust. The dominant/power culture has had enough time to tell their stories, it’s long past time to tell our own.
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Jeff I applaud you most enthusiastically because you are number one in spreading those ‘every voice counts’ because not only do you have the ‘Mic check’ series where you guest host the perspective from another blogger, you also have the Jeffster Awards’ where you recognize great blogs by others, so you are doing exactly that which I am implying would be a great thing to do. So, my hat is indeed off to you and a special nod since I always take pride in the fact of having been a recipient of a ‘Jeffster Award’ myself. I take my bow as I have so many, many times, shameless, immodest hussy that I am.
And you are so right! They have had many chances and more than ‘enough time to tell their stories’ and so I would dearly LOVE to read ours!
Thank you SO much for that comment and for all that you do to make every voice count and be heard!
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Your kindness is matched only by your hussiness, Shelby. 😉
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Good point. I’ve thought about this often. Thanks Shelby. I’ll try.
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You just keep doing your thing Lou! We get more than enough from you! And what would I do without all of your ‘alien conspiracies’? Why, I now find myself quite needing all up and down on some alien other world antics every now and then. It gives me hope that aliens are indeed, monitoring the fickleness of man and that those nice little green men will not let us blow the planet up!
Thanks Lou!
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Oh baby, I like what you say, let’s save this silly human race, ya?
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I say, “YA!!” LMAO!! Lou, you are too much!
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I have not started yet baby…I am learning.
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You raise an excellent point, Shelby. I sense the main reason people reblog the posts of so-called experts relates to the stress and pain many of us have experienced when our original work is attacked by vicious government trolls. Perhaps the best way we can support each other is to establish an anti-troll patrol – some way to alert each other when a troll attacks someone’s blog so we can go after them.
I understand there are ways for people with IT savvy to identify trolls through their ISP. Getting one of them into an anti-troll network would be extremely handy.
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And you also raise an interesting and important point, as usual Dr. Bramhall. You are so level headed, you are! Ah, those pesky, nasty trolls; what’s a blogger to do about them, eh? That is why I had to do away with comments for a minute or two to throw off the spammers, trolls, etc. Since this blog was formed, 22,740 spam comments have been caught and I don’t think that number includes the ones that have gotten through and I’ve had some nastiness come my way. When I see a comment held in moderation, I can pretty much judge whether or not it’s genuine or not and of course those that are flat out nasty, never see the light of day. We are of course, not going to make everyone’s day with our writings and we do expect knuckleheads to pop up, every now and then and I can’t abide them anymore than the next person, it would just be a shame to have the trolls win and we lose out on some great posts from the heart because of the ugly, little bastards.
Well, I don’t know what the answers are. I just know that we’re not going to win the battle if we don’t get more people to hear or read our side. I want people of other countries to know that I am in no way, shape, form or fashion of the mindset of this hypocritical and corrupt government called the United States of America and I want my readers to know that there is a personal perspective straight from me when they come to my blog. I’ll just have to fight the trolls or spammers off and try and keep telling my story from my heart and my point of view.
All of you have something to say, so I am just hoping that you will say it!
Thank you Dr. Bramhall for sharing with us your wisdom, your thoughts and your journey thus far through life. You will always bring relevance to any conversation. I certainly hope that your voice never gets silenced, by trolls or anything else! It would be a pity!
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I agree with every comment here. It’s been my experience, over the last eight years, that when I write something that is strictly my view of things, it rarely gets a hit. But I still write anyway, if I am led to do so.
For me, there are articles I run across, like yours, Shelby, that put into words what is on my mind and heart, or is on a topic I feel is important to pass on to others. But I never try to “parrot” another writer, or, as you’re pointing, just reblog after reblog without ever writing a single comment of my own.
And I also agree that we need to support each other, since, by far, we are a minority.
Great points as usual, Shelby. After I finish up these last few drafts that have been sitting around, I have some ideas I’ve been thinking about, but have been putting off.
You know what I have been running into? I have been running into information overload. It’s almost like I can’t relax, because I feel like I must write about this and that, and yet I feel overwhelmed by everything. Does this register with you or anyone else who comments here?
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What we engaged in just recently is what I am talking about Sojourner! Articles of yours, from your heart just as articles of mine from my heart touched a chord in each of us and we re-blogged and ran with it. We got more hits because of our writings with their so very obvious and deep meaning; people were drawn to both blogs and read what you had to say about my thoughts and vice versa. We kept the momentum going because not only were people interested in what you had to say, they were interested in my response to what you had to say.
I am not suggesting that we can always engage in such, I am merely pointing out that we are fighting an uphill battle as it is and we need all the help we can give each other. It is sickening enough that dissent is being silenced and that a certain etiquette is being touted that we should follow; i.e., no cuss words or swearing; that sort of thing, especially when that sort of thing is what I constantly practice as I’m not an amiable person by nature. And I’m sure I’ll get no argument there! I feel that there are so many, as I say, unsung heroes out there and they are speaking to no one because many of us are busy redistributing the already overly distributed and the guy waaaaay over there in the corner behind the dumpster with the light bulb on over his head, brightly lit is feeling a bit, forlorn for lack of readership.
And sometimes, there is just no rhyme or reason why one day we get so many hits that even WordPress has to unbend and send us a ‘shout-out’ that our stats are booming and then there are other days when barely 10 hits are accomplished. But one thing I do notice is that if I put something up that so obvious shouts that I am passionate over an occurrence or whatnot, say, ‘the U.S. military’ or ‘racism’, it gets viewed. And sometimes, the things I write about surprise me that they receive so much attention because I had not thought that it was my best writing. So, who knows what really captures the attention of many.
Just keep doing what you do and take care!
Shelby
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