What's Up With This?
Sorry I haven't posted much lately, work has been keeping me busier than usual and I have some miscellaneous paperwork issues to deal with, plus I just haven't been in a good writing mode the last few days. It happens that way sometimes, you know? I'll hopefuilly have a new post or two either later tonight or tomorrow.

PS I was awarded the "Blog Hero Of The Week" award by See The Forest website. I was going to thank all the little people for helping me to win the award but then I remembered...a am a little people! Good site, btw.

All The Things
The local PBS station has been re-running Ken Burns' The Civil War series lately, and there was a scene where Gen. Grant's advisors were talking about all the things Robert E. Lee was gonna do, and Gen. Grant finally said "I'm sick of hearing what Bobby Lee is gonna do to us. Let's start talking about what we're gonna do to him".

The GOP is controlled by a small group of vocal, aggressive people within their own party. Moderates are made to fall in line or be punished. There are a lot of moderate Republican voters who are uncomfortable with GW Bush and the GOP leadership but they've been hearing so much propaganda about Democrats that they're scared to even consider voting for one, but might if the right candidate came along. And there are very few Democrats who would seriously consider voting for George W. Bush.

So when it comes right down to it, the truth is that we have the numbers on our side, despite what the GOP propaganda machine would have us believe, and we need to fight like it. I'm tired of hearing people talk about what Karl Rove and the Republicans are gonna to do to us, let's start talking about what we're gonna to do to them.

Quick Technical Note:
FYI: I just upgraded the Haloscan account so there is no longer a limit on the length of the comments.

Letter To The Dean Campaign
Since Gov. Dean has written his own version of "Common Sense" for today's world, and since some of us (but not all) have been a little demoralized by the realization of the scope of the fight we have to face, allow me to remind you all of the words of Thomas Paine, the original writer of "Common Sense":

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

Dr. Dean is right in saying that we and we alone have the power to change things. But we are facing powerful and cunning opponents: even should we win the Presidency, that is just one small part of the greater challenge ahead of us. The Republicans, that is, the Republican leadership and their corporate allies, see themselves as Republicans first, and Americans when it's convenient for them. What happens to anyone outside their little group doesn't concern them, as long as they can control the reigns of power they are happy. They are, in their minds, the only people in the world that matter, and the only freedoms they will cede to us are the freedoms to accept their control over our lives, or to become like them.

We must see ourselves as more than just Democrats and Americans, but as Humans, that is, loyal first and foremost to the ideas that made this country great (and it is those ideas that made America great, not our military might), the idea that ALL are created equal, that the American dream has to include all of us if it is to have meaning for any of us. The people of VietNam and Iraq and Nigeria and of all nations deserve the same chances to improve their lives as any of us. If we fail to recognize this, then we will fail completely.

What Dr. Dean has done is given us a voice, and the powers that be are doing their best to drown that voice out. They are formidable opponents, but not invincible. Progress, Theodore Roosevelt said, is the constant struggle between those who have earned more than they posess and those who posess more than they have earned", and that struggle is continuing today. If we shrink from that responsibility, if we retreat from the fight, then we have failed as Democrats, as Americans, and as citizens of the world.

So let's continue the fight, in New Hampshire, in Arizona, in South Carolina, in Oregon, in Pennsylvania, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico, in all the cities in all the states across the US. Let the word go forth that we will not give in to the corporate interests that run the government and manipulate the media: we want our country back, and we shall not give up until victory is ours!

They Brought It On Themselves
Atlanta's best newspaper, the free weekly Creative Loafing had a fantastic cover story this week called White Flight, about how poor Southerners have voted Republican and will continue to vote Republican despite the fact that Republican policies have consistantly hurt them. The article, by the way, was written by the same person - Kevin Griffis - who wrote this article about my wife and I for CL. This is the letter I wrote to them, in response:

I really am sorry that the people of the rural South are doing so badly. These people are human beings, too, and they deserve the chance to make the best of their own lives.

But they have only themselves to blame for the mess they're in. They either refuse to participate in government or they let themselves be conned by people they say they admire: from the pastor giving out financial advice to whatever right-wing radio host telling them what to believe, and to the leaders of the GOP.

It may be that one day they will wake up and realize what they are doing to themselves, but I don't see that happening any time soon. The sad thing is that, because of the political power the south has, the rest of the country is going to have to suffer along with them.

Allow me to elaborate more, here.

We live in a representative democratic republic. We're a democracy because we're self-ruling, we're a republic because we do not vote on issues directly (as a true democracy would), but rather we elect peole whose job it is to represent us, to write and enforce the laws we all agree to live by. It's not a perfect form of government (there's no such thing), and it's not easy, but so far it has worked well for us. We held elections in the midst of the Civil War. We had a President resign and the transition took place without the use of military force. These are all things we can be proud of.

But this type of government requires people to get involved and for people to feel that we are all part of something larger than ourselves. When people neglect their responsibilities as citizens, or allow themselves to be manipulated by the basest emtions, they only wind up hurting themselves, as we see. But the issue of community is the most important one: these people dislike and distrust anyone outside of their small core group. They are the heirs of the rebellious housewives PBS journalist Bill Moyers talked about in his speech to the Take Back America conference in June 2003 entitled This Is Your Story:

They simply couldn't see beyond their own prerogatives. Fiercely loyal to their families, to their clubs, charities and congregations – fiercely loyal, in other words, to their own kind – they narrowly defined membership in democracy to include only people like them.

And so it is with these people. They think they're the only people that matter, the only voice that ought to be heard, because the rest of us aren't as moral as they are. Southerners don't have a monopoly in this attitude, I know many New Yorkers who feel the same way (including a few of my relatives): you grow up, you go to school, you get a job, get married, pump out a few more units and repeat. This is life, this is all there is. Nothing and no one else matters, period. (I remember an episode of All In The Family where Archie met two of Gloria's female friends who were surprised at Archie's staunchly anti-Communist views, and said to him "You know, Mr. Bunker, my daddy's from Texas, and he would say that you're a Communist." "Oh really," Archie said. "Why is that?" "Because you live in New York City.")

And of course that leads to cynicism: at work on Friday, since one of our guys was taking a day off, we had someone new helping us. A nice enough guy, a good worker. I was talking politics (as I often do: my co-workers and I agree on many issues), and the new guy said, straightforwardly, that all politicians and lawyers should be dropped into the ocean. "That's the wrong attitude," I told him. I always get upset hearing these things. "Politicians are necessary and so are lawyers." The system, he argued, was so corrupt that even when a decent person gets elected, he or she invariably becomes corrupted by it. "That can change," I argued. "It was worse a century ago for working people, yet eventually they fought the system and won. I agree the system is corrupt but we can change it if we have the courage to stand up for ourselves." He was unconvinced. Victories for liberals like me, even small ones, are hard to come by these days.

I can't do anything to help the people that were interviewed by Mr. Griffis. Nothing I can say will convince them that their outlook on life is harmful to them, or that the people they are trusting to protect and to guide them are more than likely just using them to further their own causes, whatever they may be. To them, I'm just an interfering Yankee (never mind that I've lived in Atlanta for a decade) who doesn't know anything about life (despite the fact that I have lived in more places than some of these people have even heard of). Things are the way they are and that's the way it will always be. It's an argument you would expect to hear from a slave or a feudal peasant, not a citizen of a free nation. As I wrote here:

Rome stopped being a Republic and became an Empire in part because the people of Rome no longer wished the burden of self-government, and the same thing is happening here. People are too busy with their own lives to worry about what the government is doing, and so by default they cede power to people who have a vision of their own, and these people have both the skill and the power to make that vision a reality. Many of us, including myself, would have preferred not to have gotten involved, but having seen what we have seen, we just cannot ignore what's happening.

We've reached a point where the idea of self-rule is in trouble because we have failed to give people a sense of community and because we no longer trust that those we elect to serve our interests are doing so.

The plain truth is that we are going to have a form of government whether we like it or not, the question is, will it be one where we have the power to make a difference in our lives, or will it be one forced on us by people who want nothing more than to control us for their benefit? Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so too does politics. We can't just turn our backs and ignore our responsibilities as citizens and expect that everything will just continue as it was. There is no such thing as an "inalienable" right, we have what rights we are willing to fight for. Working men and women in America fought and died for the rights we have today: the 40-hour work week, minimum wage laws, child labor laws, etc. Without these laws and without the overall community that is America, the lives of these poor Southerners would be far worse than they are now. And while I'm sorry for them, the fact is that they brought these things upon themselves.

Note: I had to re-write this post because I was unhappy with my original draft.

They Shoot Candidates, Don't They?
It's remarkable to me how, in the weeks before the Iowa caucus, Gov. Dean was considered by the pundits as "unstoppable" or "unbeatable", and giving him the air of invincibility even while he was (wrongly) being derided as "angry" or "pessimistic". The nomination, it seemed, was his and there was nothing anyone could do about it. But when he came in a disappointing third in Iowa, behind Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, all of a sudden we're hearing from the same people that his campaign is "dead".

The truth is that Iowa sends 56 delegates to the national convention, New Hampshire sends 27, a candidate needs 2200 to win the nomination, that's less than four percent. But so much of this game, especially when you're discussing the American media, is purely perception, and no one knows how to spin perception like the American media. Coming in third place in Iowa is like a heavily-favored baseball team starting a 162-game season with a 2-4 record. They're two games under .500, Bob! They'll never make that up!

While I have no doubt that Iowa and New Hampshire are fine states to live in, the position they play in American politics is vastly overblown. Iowans and New Hampshire-ites are no more representative of "mainstream" Americans than are Georgians or Californians or South Dakotans. So to say that a campaign that has strong grassroots support in all 50 states and more money than any of the other canidates cannot win the nomination because they didn't come out of the gate like gangbusters is patently ridiculous, something that only has any meaning if you decide it has meaning.

It isn't enough that Gov. Dean has to contend with the most corrupt and ruthless political organization this country has ever had in the Bush administration and its corporate allies, he's also fighting the leadership of his own party and having to deal with an out-of-touch, scandal-mongering media that all too often simply makes stuff up. I saw the speech Gov. Dean gave to his supporters in Iowa, he was loud, yes, but it was an enthusiastic loud...there was nothing "angry" or "scary" about it, as the press would have you believe. Scary, you say? We ought to be scared of what might happen to this country if we have to live through another four years of this administration. Scaring the children, you say? They should be scared, because not only are they going to have to pay off the debt we're accumulating, they'll likely be fodder for the next series of wars they'll be made to fight for no real reason other than to make a few rich men even richer.

To you Kerry supporters who are gloating over Iowa, keep in mind that, should you become the front runner or even win the nomination, the same treatment is in store for you as well. Don't think that being a veteran (even a high-ranking general) is going to help you. John McCain spent years in a POW camp in VietNam and the Bush people called him nuts. Max Cleland lost three limbs in the service of his country and was compared to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. I read where the Kerry campaign was push-polling Iowans and mooning Dean supporters...I can't help but think that if he and others in the Democratic leadership had fought the Bush administration's policies with the same amount of energy, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today.

I said this before and I'll say it again: this campaign isn't about Howard Dean, it's about us. It's a movement, and regardless of what happens in 2004 it will continue to be a movement. We're fed up with our lives being controlled by a corporate oligarchy, we're disgusted by the actions and the tactics of the right wing, and we're fed up with the Democratic leadership that has forgotten how to fight. We want our party back, and we want our country back. You can shoot the candidate if you like, but you can't shoot us.

Joe's Rules For A Good Workplace (Part 2)

Part 2: Management
In order to best demonstrate the qualities (or lack thereof) that, in my opinion, determine what makes a bad manager and what makes a good one, I am going to use two wholly fictional examples, specifically, television characters.

In the first season of her TV series, Roseanne, her sister and her friends are working at a plastics factory called Wellman's. They do the kind of work a lot of people do in assembly-type jobs do, assembling parts or pulling pieces from a plastic mold, etc. And like most jobs of this sort, there is some sort of quota to make, a certain amount of items that need to be done by a certain time. The working people, being the ones who have to actually do the work, know what they are and what they are not capable of producing in a given day.

In the episode in question, a new manager raises the quota to a level above that which the working people know is realistic, forcing everyone to work more hours to achieve the goal, and generally wreaking havoc on their lives. The man (played, ironically enough, by Fred Thompson, now a Republican Senator helping to pass legislation that makes the jobs of these managers easier at the expense of working people: I can't remember the character's name so let's just call him Fred) isn't interested in hearing the worker's excuses...this is the quota and that's that. I'm sure many of you have experienced the same thing at the workplace.

Roseanne (in the show) is kind of like me: she doesn't take management or managers very seriously, and she doesn't have a lot of tolerance for what she percieves to be bullshit. She confronts Fred about the quota, and he offers her a deal: if she'll stop being such a smartass, he'll lower the quota back to what it was before. Reluctantly, and more for the sake of her friends than for her, she agrees. A couple of weeks later, Fred raises the quota once again, infuriating Roseanne, who once more confronts him in his office. His attitude is now this: I broke you, now you'll do what you're told just like everyone else.

The shame of it is that Fred is not that great an exaggeration, actually he's pretty realistic as far as TV characters go. Any of you out there who have worked similar jobs know exactly what I'm talking about. Fred is controlling, manipulative, and completely unconcerned with the lives and welfare of the people underneath him. Whether he's motivated by a desire to control others or he's afraid that if he doesn't crack down on these people is immaterial because the result is the same: the workplace becomes a miserable experience. In the show, Roseanne quits on the spot, as do many of her friends, but a lot of people, especially in the current economy, don't have that option. You could make the argument that your life is better if you just quit that job (and it probably is), but if you have bills to pay and a family to feed that decision is a horrible one, and one that shouldn't be forced on people. Actually, my current supervisor is a lot like Fred, he is motivated to produce as much as possible, the realities of the workplace nonwithstanding He doesn't have to do the work (he does very little actual work at all, and he has never done what he asks us to do) so he doesn't really care about the pressure he puts on his workers.

My other example, the good manager, comes from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The episode in question involves a character called Mr. Barclay, played excellently by Dwight Schultz. Barclay is a good enough worker, but nervous around people, and lacking in self-confidence. First Officer Riker and Chief Engineer LaForge (who is Barclay's immediate supervisor), go to Captain Picard to see about getting him transferred, but Picard won't have it. "The man has made the same commitment to Star Fleet as we all have," he tells the two, advising Mr. LaForge in particular to help give Barclay some confidence.

It would have been easy for Capt. Picard to have just gotten rid of Mr. Barclay, whose sub-par performance could be detrimental to the smooth functioning of the ship. But Picard was trying to do something more than just run the ship, he was actually concerned about a member of his crew and also wanted his senior officers not to take the easy way out of a problem. By keeping Barclay on he was hoping to give him a real chance to improve, not just the quality of his work, but improve as a person. And he also wanted to improve the quality of his officers as well, because all too often we tend to take the easy way out.

A good manager is concerned with the people he is responsible for, and while the bottom line (in the case of private business, profit) is important, it's also important to foster a good working environment. Too many managers just enjoy having power over people, and in my eyes that's counterproductive. The needs of the company are more complex than a profit margin, and a tense workplace can mean less production (and this, less profits).

A manager's job, in my experience, is to make sure the working people have everything they need to do their job, and to assist them whenever possible. They're not there to do the whole job themselves but that doesn't mean they can't be around to put out the occasional fire (figuratively, that is). They should be knowledgable about the area they work in and observant enough to prevent problems before they become serious. They should be very clear with their people as to what is expected of them and what they can expect from him or her. And they should not be afraid to let them do the work they are meant to do. Micro-managing only scares newcomers and pisses veterans off. Let them do their jobs, but be there if they need you.

Managers that do nothing more than stand there and tell other people to work are a detriment to a company, not an asset. There is no reason at all to foster a confrontational atmosphere between labor and management, yet this atmosphere exists in far too many workplaces in America. It's pointless, it's counterproductive, and it's often simply the way things are. And the problem only gets worse the higher up you go in the chain of command, especially in really large companies. I should point out, lest you all think I'm being too negative, that not all workplaces are like this, some really require competent, if not excellent, management due to the nature of the job itself.

A good working environment requires a good balance between workers and management. It should concern itself with the practicalities of the job at hand and avoid these immature, petty power plays and politics that we so often get involved in. If working people work together and management knows when and when not to step in, the workplace can be someplace you look forward to going to every day, rather than something you dread. And life for most people will be so much better. And isn't that what we're all striving for? To make for ourselves a better life?

This Just Occurred To Me
Since we gave Saddam Hussein status as a POW, he is probably receiving better and more humane treatment than the US citizens the Bush administration has imprisoned, often without any solid evidence, as "enemy combatants." Just food for thought...

Joe's Rules For A Good Workplace (Part 1)
Over the years I've had a lot of jobs, and a lot of different jobs, none of them particularly high-paying (I've never made more than $23,500 a year). Now, I'm the first to admit that I am not the best worker in the world. Yes, I work hard, but I have never been able to handle the politics of work, that is, the day-to-day dealings with co-workers and supervisors. I tend to talk too much, am too opinionated (and often in disagreement with the mainly conservative workforce), and for the most part, have a low opinion of supervisors in general and the entire heirarchy to begin with. The American workplace has gotten steadily worse over the last twenty-five years or so; people are working a lot harder for a lot less money and far fewer benefits. But rather than get into the politics on why that is (a subject for another time), I thought I'd put out my rules for what constitutes a good workplace.

Part 1: Workers
The word I most like to use as far as us regular working slobs is concerned is professionalism. It's something I take very seriously but very often is impossible to act upon for various reasons. For example, where I work, in a sheet-metal shop, my main job is to take assorted painted parts off a constantly moving conveyor belt. Depending on the type of part it is (from large metal boxes to small L-shaped brackets), I have to arrange these parts neatly on a palette or in a steel basket. In a perfect world, I would have the time to take the parts off the conveyor belt and stack each item neatly where it belongs. This isn't due to an obsession with neatness, sometimes the parts need to be laid out a certain way so they don't fall, and since falling sheet metal can be very dangerous, this can be a very important thing. But the conveyor belt is an unforgiving thing. It does not stop and it does not always allow me the time to do this. Very often there are too many parts hung too closely for me to do anything more than toss them wherever they go as neatly as I possibly can.

But when I have the time, I can get pretty compulsive about doing things the right way, because I feel it's important to do the best you can, and I wish more workers shared this attitude. Unfortunately, many do not, and I sometimes have to look at a basket full of parts that I began laying out neatly but which now looks raggedy (and is sometimes unsafe) because the person on the next shift just didn't care as much as I did. Or, worse, someone else started it and I have to fight like hell to make things squared away, and since it's impossible time-wise to disassemble an entire palette and start all over again, I have to try to build a square tower on a chaotic mess.

Yes, I know, it's not really important in the great scheme of things, I mean the parts still get where they need to go and there are always more behind them and you're not going to get anything out of it (like a raise) from those above you anyway (see part 2), but I still have this thing about being professional that makes me cringe when I see sloppy work. It's just me, but I wish a few others felt the same way, or that the whole work environment was geared towards that. Unfortunately, in those places where they do care about that (the places that pay real money) they're far more compulsive than I care to be: compulsive in a way that detracts from the whole objective of the particular workplace (like following procedures for the sake of following a procedure or an overly strict policy on dress and grooming). For me, being an unadaptable schmuck, it makes for a tough life at work.

Working people should be more helpful to each other and not compete over who will work the hardest or the most hours. Not everyone wants to work their butt off 8 or more hours a day, and unless you're in a high-stress profession, that's not necessary anyway. When workers compete like this it works against them: those who can't keep up with the hardcore types feel frustrated and sometimes stop trying, often they lose their jobs. And of course the upper management loves the hardcore types because all too often they're willing to do all this work and not ask for more money (and how many of you out there work in a place where management wouldn't do that anyway?). To the hardcore types, I have a wakeup call for you: there are people in India and VietNam and China and Mexico who are willing to work even harder and even more hours than you are, and for a fraction of the money. If you're the type that sneers at your less-enthusiastic workmates and votes for politicians who pursue policies that make it easier for the company to move overseas or find ways to pay you less money, you're just cutting your own throat. It's one thing to be professional, it's another to be downright stupid.

On the opposite side, if you're the type of worker who screws around as much as possible all day, remember that your job isn't so secure either, and less so, because the company is bound to let you go before Mr. Hardcore, though Mr. Hardcore will be pushed out eventually anyway. There's a good middle ground to be had if the two of you would care to see it. The only way working people have any power is by sticking together, and the only way you can do that is to support politicians and policies that will help your working brothers and sisters in all those other countries as well. All companies care about is the bottom line, period, and they will get as much work out of you, for the least money they can get away with.

But regardless of job security, working people should strive to do a good job and help each other out, if for no other reason than to take pride in the work you do and to make the working environment more pleasant. Despite what you may have been taught. work doesn't necessarily have to mean drudgery, and money shouldn't be the ultimate goal. If you're happy doing what you do, and if you look forward to going to work every day, and if you are reasonably secure that it will continue long enough for you to retire comfortably, then you are living as good a life as anyone could want.

Next: Management

The Increasingly Irrelevant "Professional" Print Media
It's come down to this: David Brooks, the latest right-wing apologist for the once-mighty New York Times, has been forced to publicly explain hmself over his recent column which in essence says that anyone who believes the people behind the Project For A New American Century have any real influence over the current administration is a "full-mooner", among other things. Other sites, like Atrios, have dealt with the article in great detail already, so I won't bother going into that business, but I wanted to stress on a point made by Media Whores Online:

Prior to the advent of Internet activism, were the news media so isolated from criticism and shielded from accountability, that they now talk about learning curves as though they are first year journalism students, relying on ordinary news consumers for instruction in how to be professionals?

The fact that Brooks, a well-paid, supposedly well-educated professional pundit, has had to defend himself from responses by unpaid amateurs speaks volumes about the increasing power of the Internet and the increasing irrelevance of the so-called "professional" print media. Years ago, they might have had to endure a few letters, but little of these exchanges became publicly known, and the pundit could continue on his or her merry way. Now, the exchanges can be made available to millions of people instantly, and that number is growing daily. For the most part, pundits can and still do spew nonsense, but with so many people out there capable of doing research, they're finding it harder and harder to back up their ridiculous claims.

Brooks, for example, was trying to ridicule anyone who was making a serious and accurate comment about the role of "neoconservatives" in the current administration (PNAC's membership includes people like VP Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, hardly bystanders when it comes to governmental policy), and equating those who spoke out against neoconservatives as being anti-Semitic ("Neo" Brooks said, is code for "Jewish". He claimed it was a "joke", just as Ann Coulter claimed that her desire that Timothy McVeigh should have blown up the NY Times Building was a "joke").

Of course, the battle between the Internet and the print media is a battle for second place: most people get their news (when they even bother) from television, which is a vast wasteland of garbage pretening to be informative. It's remarkable to me that 24/7 news channels add nothing to public discourse about the news, they either overplay the same meaningless stories incessently (Steve Irwin) or condense important issues into 30-second sound bites, making it impossible for anyone to really know what's going on.

But the problem is that you can only go so far before people just stop believing what they see. Sooner or later people will begin to realize that the reality of their lives and the reality that is shown on their TV screens are two completely different things. In the old Soviet Union, Pravda was widely ridiculed (under their breath) by Russians. They knew it was a pack of distortions and outright lies, though there wasn't much they could do about it. I'm feeling like that's becoming more and more true here.

Update: Internet Said to Gain as Source for News:

People are turning increasingly to alternatives like the Internet for news about the presidential campaign, shifting away from traditional outlets like the nightly network news and newspapers, a poll found.

Mad As Hell
I watched the movie Network last night, it's been ages since I'd last seen it, and even though some of the dialogue is a little over the top, there are some remarkably brilliant points that still have relevance today. Sometimes I do indeed want to go to the window and yell "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!," and I wonder how many would join me.

I think Howard Dean has tapped into that kind of anger and for the most part has focused it. But the networks, the so-called "professional media," live in their own little world where the thoughts and deeds of working people like myself mean nothing. Since most of them are well-paid (especially on television), they have a lot of difficulty understanding the problems of the people who, for example, come in to clean up after them, or who work in the restaurants they eat in, or the supermarkets where they buy their food.

I wish I could think up an event that would shake them up, something along the lines of the "mad as hell" thing, but bigger. Millions of people marched against the war in Iraq, more even than marched against the Vietnam war, but it was all passed off as trivial. If we want to get their attention we need to do something more drastic than that. Nothing violent, because that wouldn't accomplish anything. But something that would really affect them and their corporate sponsors. An idea I had a while back was a consumer strike, where we refuse to buy anything but the most essential items for a long period of time, like a month or longer. Mass cancellings of cable TV. Something that hits them where it really hurts, in the pocketbook. But I'm just this guy with a blog, so what do I know?

The Lesson Of Ed Gruberman
As some of you out there already know, I'm a supporter of Gov. Howard Dean in the Democratic primaries, and should he win the nomination (as appears likely at this point) I will vote for him for President in November. For the record, I will vote for any Democrat who wins the nomination, and while I am a Dean supporter there are other candidates that I like as well, in fact I like all of them except for Lieberman and Gephardt, the two primary examples of Democrats who fell all overthemselves trying to please George W. Bush for their own political reasons. To them, more than any of the other candidates, this election is all about, well, them, as you can tell by every answer they give to questions. I will do this, I will do that, etc. Dean's message, as his standard stump speech says, is that we have the power to take America back. There's no white knight who will solve all of our problems for us, it's up to us working together. If there's a reason the Dean campaign is doing so well it's because that message is translated into real action: the Dean campaign does not micro-manage its supporters, they are allowed to do what they do best, whatever that might be.

This is pretty upsetting to the other Democratic candidates, who don't understand what's happening in the Dean campaign and are desperate to derail it. And in my opinion, any sense of entitlement they might have been able to claim in the past is now gone because of their own irresponsible leadership. So, knowing that not a single one of them could defeat Dean, their attitude is get him! and naturally, the Dean campaign is dishing out numerous boots to the head in response.

But while Dean may be the Master in the Democratic primaries, he (and whoever wins the nomination) will face a far greater opponent: the Bush administration, the hundreds of millions of dollars of direct financial support they're going to get, and a so-called "professional media" with an apalling double-standard, dissecting every word any Democratic candidate says while giving Mr. Bush and his administration free reign to do anything they desire. It's an unbelievably powerful alliance that, frankly, I don't know we can overcome because Americans, it seems, have turned into Ed Gruberman.