Dear Friend and Reader:
Quite a few times this election campaign season I’ve had to explain to people why I think that hope is not enough. I can make it really simple: does hope motivate you to do anything? Or does it motivate you to, well, hope some more?
 |
Hillary Clinton’s speech last night, though widely revered as being the reprise of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, to me seemed more like a high school political campaign presentation calling for school unity. Meanwhile, the principal and the school board do whatever they want.
It would be nice if we had a different political system, one slightly less prone to being totally sold out. But paraphrasing Donald Rumsfeld, as I am fond of doing lately, you don’t go into an election with the political system you want, you go in with the one you have. And the one we have reduces the game to this apparent battle of the Dems versus the Pubs. There are significant differences (particularly where Supreme Court nominees are concerned), but they don’t surpass the limits set on the evolutionary stage of humanity. Given the choice, most people will opt for something they perceive is in their self-interest rather than in the collective interest.
“I want you to ask yourselves: were you in this campaign just for me?” Clinton said. “Or were you in it for that young marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage?”
Yes, this sounds good. But she’s still personalizing the issue, to herself. It is not big of her to support Obama and it would not be big of her husband to drop his apparently sizable chip on the shoulder and do the same. It is common sense; that is what we need to do. If we really believe that the survival of our species is at stake on some level — and I don’t think we really believe it, we just wish we did — the issues would be a lot bigger than this.
Where, for example, is the rage at the Bush administration getting the country not into one Vietnam, but rather two of them? Well, to admit that, the Dems would have to take some responsibility for not having done anything to stop them. Where is the rage at not one but two stolen presidential elections? To express that, the Dems would have to buck up a little adult awareness and admit that they didn’t fight the complete subverting of even the illusion of our electoral process.
And what guarantee do we have that it’s not going to happen again? Hope? Who exactly are we hoping is going to do what?
I think we have to work to get the most possible votes for Barack Obama. Elections are easier to steal when they are close. They are theoretically nearly impossible to steal when it’s a landslide, but hey Nixon proved that point wrong in 1972, the most impressive stolen election of them all (that was Watergate). Yet we need to work for a lot more than that.
The most difficult thing to do in politics is to see yourself as a meaningful part of the process. Voting, which is emotionally driven and being sold to us as such, is satisfying like a pacifier. Justice, externally dramatized, is a never-ending struggle against an adversary that is merely self-interested. You can appease yourself by “caring” but that does not give you a sense of justice in your heart, or even the authentic thirst for it.
Yours & truly,
peacewell, thank you for these recommendations. I was very inspired by Kucinich – how sad that he could not last in this campaign. And I believe that listening to Arun Gandhi has given me exactly what I didn’t know I was looking for – and it couldn’t be more right. For this I bow to you.
Blessings and Love
I heard two amazing speeches yesterday. One was from Dennis Kucinich at the DNC,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4EN7ibO1ec – about 6 minutes
the other happened in 2003 at Grinnell, Iowa, but was rebroadcast on Talk@12 radio August 26. If I may plant this seed, I implore you to listen to this one hour forest of peace by Arun Gandhi, the fifth grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kuni/local-kuni-749959.mp3
Peace Well and Much Love!
Dearest Eric:
THANK YOU!!! Catching glimpses of the Democratic Convention from network and cable news one would think that Obama and Hillary were having hourly brawling shouting matches, while Bill and Michelle were engaged in tit-for-tat racist remarks.
Last night Hillary was gracious enough to provide what looked like enough support to Obama, and the reports from the convention floor (I am an AVID Daily Kos reader) say that the majority of Hillary’s supporters are for Obama and will vote for him in November. Will they work for him? Hard to say. Bill can be even more magnanimous if he cared to and rise to the occasion. I think he better wake up to that point—he has no choice. I fear the damage done over the long primary season that there’s alot of walking Hillary has to do beyond last night’s speech.
The press coverage of the convention is horrible. AP news bulletins that appear on our Yahoo pages are pure Republican talking points. Ron Fournier, AP’s Political Editor put his resume in to McCain’s campaign and once told Karl Rove (during a Congressional investigation) to “Keep up the good work”.
A blogger on DKos, who’s also a reporter by trade called out AP’s bias and gave hints as to what to do to get AP back. He was found through internet research and someone from AP notified his job that he was doing this. (Fortunately, the guy is leaving that job). He is also changing his screen name. Welcome to the digital age.
Several friends of mine have called in to report on their despondency over the convention converage. I asked if they’ve been watching network/cable news. They said yes. I told them to please stop. Watch C-SPAN for convention coverage and get yourself psychically cleared. Stop watching TV. The MSM is desperately working to program us morning noon and night. And creating despair amongst those who are openly hopeful about 2008 politics is very easy. Just bust the bubble that gives you room to believe that change can happen and the rest falls away. Including your own sense of self-empowerment. Believe it.
My African American friends totally expect this treatment. They know what Obama is really up against. And, as Eric says, IF WE DON’T FIGHT on the tangible plane–registering new voters in your own state, in neighboring swing states, and making sure people start taking responsibility for the news they are feeding themselves with, and doing some research for credible news sources on politics and discussing them with freinds, neighbors, undecideds–we are NEVER going to win this thing.
The powers that be aren’t going to give that up easily, if the recent spate of crud from the media indicates–they are not going to tire of trying to tire us out. Obama already knows that as a black man in America, he has to be ten times as good to run even against a mediocre white man. So, in that spirit, we need to be twenty-times as politically involved to get someone WE want into the White House.
Work.