posted on February 9, 2004 08:22:35 PM new
ok, all the stuff I am hearing about Kerry is NOT inspiriing alot of confidence here. I think I want Dean back as front runner.
But fat chance of that happening.
posted on February 10, 2004 06:38:59 AM new"ah,the power of da media."
By consolidation and corporate ownership, the media is developing an increasing power to demonize and sway opinion. Iraq was demonized. Dean was demonized and Kelly or the leading Democratic candidate will be next.
posted on February 10, 2004 08:29:27 AM new
They are all too short sighted. If I wanted to really make a radical change in the political scene I would start right now forming a third party with a target of the 2012 election and aim it at the young kids that will be voting then in the form of a club more than a party. I would count on no help at all from the media and do everything online and in the form of private newsletters and web zines. This frenzy to suck in votes in a few weeks would be rolled under an squashed by a long term organization.
posted on February 10, 2004 08:36:31 AM new
Dear Mr. Vonnegut,
What genuinely motivates al-Qaeda to kill and self-destruct? The president says, “They hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other,” which surely is not what has been learned from the captives being held in Guantanamo, or what he is told in his briefings. Why do the communications industry and our elected politicians allow Bush to get away with such nonsense? And how can there ever be peace, and even trust in our leaders, if the American people aren’t told the truth?
Peter Hoyt, Little Deer Island, Maine
--------------
Dear Mr. Hoyt,
One wishes that those who have taken over our federal government, and hence the world, by means of a Mickey Mouse coup d’etat, and who have disconnected all the burglar alarms prescribed by the Constitution, which is to say the House and Senate and the Supreme Court and We the People, were truly Christian. But as William Shakespeare told us long ago, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”
And what remains the best-kept secret from the Second World War, because it is so embarrassing, is that Hitler was a Christian, and that his swastika was a Christian cross made of axes, an apt symbol of a political party for Christians of the working class. And there were simpler, unambiguous crosses on all Hitler’s tanks and planes.
Again: One wishes, for the sake of the whole planet, that the people in and around the White House nowadays truly mean it when they say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” and that they respect as children of God the losers, the nobodies so loved by Jesus in the Beatitudes, in His Sermon on the Mount: the poor in spirit, they that mourn, the meek, the merciful, the peace makers and so on.
But such is obviously not the case. George W. Bush smirks and gloats unmercifully as he boasts of his readiness to loose more than a hundred cruise missiles, what I call “Timothy McVeighs,” into the midst of the general population of Iraq, nearly half of whom are children, little boys and girls under the age of 15.
His domestic policies, whose viciousness is peewee in comparison with what he is so eager to do to foreigners who don’t look like him and talk like him, who don’t have names like his, nonetheless inflict pain on those Americans of the sort enumerated in the Beatitudes, by depriving them of decent health care and educations, and of food, shelter and clothing when times are bad. It seems quite possible that his opinion of the American people has been formed while watching the Jerry Springer Show, which is Republican propaganda of the most pernicious kind.
But America was certainly hated all around the world long before this coup d’etat. And we weren’t hated, as George W. Bush would have it, because of our liberty and justice for all. We are hated because our corporations have been the principal deliverers and imposers of new technologies and economic schemes that have wrecked the self-respect, the cultures of men, women and children in so many other societies.
It’s that simple.
What are we to do when confronted by such hatred? Respond to Code Red and run around like chickens with their heads cut off.
posted on February 10, 2004 08:51:38 AM new
We got our primary voter pamphlets a few days ago and I asked my Mom which candidate she was going to vote for. To my great surprise, she said John Edwards. Her reasoning: "I think it'll take a Southerner to beat Bush and I think it has to be someone young and vibrant to get young people to the polls."
MTV has a spot airing on cable aimed at getting its (presumably young) audience to vote, and getting them to vote for anyone but Bush, although his name is never mentioned.
posted on February 10, 2004 12:02:28 PM new
Pat, think it will ever change that young people just dont see politics as affecting their world very much??>
posted on February 10, 2004 01:11:29 PM new
I dunno, Neroter! The handful of young people I know are very well versed in current political issues and even devote some of their "live journal" (blog) time to discussing the candidates. I must say, for the most part the civility of their debates makes us (Vendio crowd) look like a pack of two-year-olds fighting over a toy.
posted on February 10, 2004 01:21:17 PM new
lol, pat.
Maybe you are right, and I am out of touch. (Seems the Dean campaign does have a good harness on the younger crowd. To me that makes him exceptional among the candidates at least in that respect.)
posted on February 10, 2004 01:58:00 PM new
I'm wondering why, since his chances for the Democratic nomination have grown slim, Dean doesn't pull out now and reinvent himself as an Independent. He could re-invigorate his once-promising campaign with such a drastic move, imo.
Otherwise, he is currently being advised about what to do with his goldmine of an email list, should he bow out of the race altogether...
