can i humbly beg your attention for 3 minutes, as these quotes speak for themselves?

[Jeffersons Ghost]

While not a stock analyst, or even very sophisticated in those matters, I constantly hear about how an active market is somehow benefiting the average American. According to MSN, the DOW is down 73 points but at 12,090 shares, it still looks wild to a guy who used to set a benchmark at 10,000. I often hear of boycotts, here at DU. While most people agree that a few individuals not buying a product will have no impact, other than, perhaps, a momentary good feeling - one person, acting alone DOES have impact. Maybe inaction also has merit.

I hear Rove style spin and then try spinning it back but he spins with the nuclear missiles of media and I only have a rubber-band. Maybe, there IS a ripple effect and butterfly CAN flap against a vulture on certain calm days. If not it still makes me feel good for a moment.

"Mahatma Gandhi brought a new dimension into our lives. When he spoke of nonviolence, he meant not merely the avoidance of violent action but cleansing our hearts of hatred and bitterness. He unveiled the spiritual political power of illiterate and humble have-nots and pointed out that the only programs worth preaching were those which could be translated into action. He said that every decision and program should be judged from the viewpoint of the poorest and the weakest." Indira Gandhi

When Gandhi began a boycott of British salt, a friend and journalist, Glorney Bolton, wrote; "And there was Gandhi, walking along, with his friends round him, it was a sort of terrific anticlimax. There was no cheering, no great shouts of delight, and no sort of stately procession at all, it was all... in a sense rather farcical. However this great march had begun... here he was, quite happy, with people round him, on the whole very quiet, but now and again you heard Gandhi... break out with that wonderful boyish laughter of his. He didn't know how the march was going to end, but nonetheless, there I was, seeing history happen in a strange sort of... way; something completely un-European and yet very, very moving." That act was to end Britain's dominion of India. Such a simple act - yet far more powerful than acts of violent terrorism or the use of any bomb.

Margaret Bourke-White, an American Time/Life photographer who was with Gandhi just before he was shot, writes, "As we sat there in the thin winter sunlight, he spinning and I jotting down his words, neither of us could know that this was to be perhaps his very last message to the world... Gandhi began to probe at the dreadful problem which has overwhelmed us all. I asked Gandhi how he would meet the atom bomb. Would he meet it with nonviolence? 'Ah' he said. 'How should I answer that? I would meet it by prayerful action.' I asked what form that action would take. 'I will not go underground. I will not go into shelters. I will go out and face the pilot so he will see I have not the face of evil against him.' He turned back to his spinning."

Before going back to my spinning, I will ask only this question: What did you buy today and how do you feel about it?