Did some more reading last night and today, and I’m halfway through, and still reccommending Joe Trippi’s book The Revolution Will NOT Be Televised.
I found myself feeling the pain all over again of having Dean’s campaign get buried, and it’s really because people “don’t get it” about politics, and about the power of the Internet medium to carry community vibes in dramatic and powerful fashion. The Internet is not community, but a “Community of Communities”, and a “channel” and “enabler” of community. It doesn’t CREATE it, unless you consider how many “communities” are spawned out of clusters of people who wind up in the same “blog circle” or forum, or “meetup”.
I was thinking of how big it could be to get another Dean-like campaign going on the Kerry bandwagon (which for many, is more about getting Bush out than getting Kerry in— maybe that’s a terribly cynical sounding thing, but the issues at stake are nothing less than ethics in several key areas, and how we need to get rid of this buffoon who knows nothing of the environment, of Christian socail ethics, of the economy, or of scruples in his blatant selling of political favors to people likle “Kenny Boy” Lay. America needs a “regime change” and quick. Another four years wil certainly carry us to unholy levels of national deficit, as Bush’s buddies get rich on the things he’s delivering to them. Isn’t it enough that Bush’s biggest financial supporter is a criminal? Apparently not. The Bush propaganda machine keeps rolling , with the help of the Religious Right, who are shoving into the far reaches of unconsiousness the Biblical message for an “American Way of Life” that our children and grand children will have to pay for. Gee, am I anti-Bush? You betcha.
Hey Dale–long time, no type. Hope all is well. When are you going to start up a Christian IRC chat about the emerging church? 🙂
Anyway, I hear what you’re saying about Bush Jr, but is Kerry going to be any better? I cringe when I read that the Kerry campaign is actually about getting Bush out of office–isn’t that why we voted for Bush in the first place? To keep Algore out of office? After our previous conversation about a holistic pro-life stance, I heard Kerry on NPR denounce the war at–get this–a pro-choice rally. Com’on, Kerry: abortion kills millions of children a year, and here you’re going to decry a war that took tens of thousands of Iraqi and USAmerican lives. Now, I’m not placing a value judgement here on how tens of thousands of lives are better than millions (and it is notable that abortion is STILL being performed under the Bush regime), but isn’t it just a touch naive to rally against one ethically dubious issue while at the same time showing firm support for yet another?
I don’t have the answer of which candidate is worth voting for–they both look bad to me. I’m half-tempted to give my vote to the Green party this time around and see if we can’t create another multi-party race like we saw in 1992. 🙂
Ken,
I too am pretty disgusted with the lack of choices. I can’t bring myself to latch onto a candidate merely on the basis of what they SAY….in fact, the abortion rate went up from the previous “pro-choice” admins under both GW Bush and Reagan, even though they campaigned on the pro-life stance…..which Sojourners points out is anindicator that the root causes have to be addresses, and not just put forward an “I”m against it” campaign. The root causes (ie. poverty, etc.) are NOT being addressed by the Republican party. I am also sick to death of the absolute cowboy mentality of the Bush team. I am seriously concerned at what four more years of them will bring this country. I have NO confidence whatsoever that their approach is a deterrent to terrorism; in fact, it’s been , and will continue to be just the opposite. Attacks have increased since occupation. The terrorist approach is NOT going to cower in response. We’re just creating more of them.
The Bush regime is hell on the environment, turning back the clock on just about every advance that’s been made in the last 30 years.
Right now, I think we’re in grave danger (and the Bush admin is now obviously contemplating exapnding this thing into Iran — I can see all the similar signs —the “mentions” of how Iran is helping them. I shook my head in disbelief at the report of how Iran let the terrorist “pass through” and on into SAUDI ARABIA before coming to the US. But they did go into …..what was that SAUDI ARABIA, and then got let INTO (not THROUGH) but INTO the United States. And yet Saudi Arabia is not under scrutiny, even though all but 2 of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia (the other two from Egypt)…. and then WE let them in. There just deosn’t seem to be much at all in the “security” that shows much experise at all, if not just plain downright incompetence. And all of this “wordplay” and accusation is all designed to get us to go along with Bush’s plan all along (get control of the Middle east— not just Iraq, but the middle east)
If people want to emphasize abortion, then lets’ look at the way that the rate went DOWN under Clinton (not that he’s a great guy or anything….but his party places more emphasis on social uplift programs, while the Republicans emphasize tax breaks while cutting these type programs , driving up abortion rates….what is better for the abortion issue; “talking the talk” and seeing the rates go UP, or actually producing “LOWER abortion rates”?
I also don;t think that there can anybody more “in this for himself” and his “business partners” than we have in GW. Who were his biggest financial backers? Enron and “Kenny Boy”. It’s scary how many “government posts” were given by the Bush administration to oil execs, financial supporters (like people closely aligned and in cooperation with Saudi Arabia, like the entire Bush family. Ever wonder why NONE of this anger and resentment and revenge was directed at Saudi Arabia after 9/11, even though all but 2 were from there. Why didn’t we demand they give them up? We simply believed them when they said “we don’t know them”? We’re not about tto give up our oil relationship. I’m not saying that oil is not a BIG DEAL. That would certainly hurt if the oil prices got out of whack (even more than they are), but do you think the American people would stand for it if it REALLY WAS about oil? When you look at how “scot free” Saudi Arabia is is spite of all this, it’s scary.
I just read Joe Trippi’s book “The Revolution Will NOT Be Televised” (he was Dean’s campaign manager and pioneered the use of blogs and the Web for getting people involved, and it is a fascinating story.) The Bush campaign very narrowly escaped having to face Dean (thanks to some pretty dirty coverage of Dean and his “yelling” (which was actually to yell above the nopise of the crowd that was responding to him and getting louder and louder, requiring Dean to yell louder — and all this crowd noise was filtered out by his extraneous noise filtering mike — but the puclic never heard this until later, and way too late and too little. Dean wasn’t even exactly what you would call a religious person, but he believed in a democarcy owned by the people, and he LIVED and inmplmented that philosophy by using the Web to LISTEN to the people , and enable them to sound their concerns. One would think that every other political adminstration would see this and imitate it…but the Bush campaign wants none of it. There are no comments on their sites. All top-down stuff. They couldn’t operate their stealth hijacking of democracy with that much openness. They simply sell privleges to the higherst bidders. I am convinced that they are the most cynical and greedy administration we’ve ever had, and it makes me sick that they are the “darlings” of the Religious Right. I see that as nothing short of absolute compromise and denial of the Jesus they claim to follow.
So , yeah, we really couldn’t get anything worse than Bush has been. He scares me , because of the power of MONEY. Bill Moyers says that “Our Democacy is in peril” (see http://www.sojo.net)
Dale