More work to do from road trip this week...

...and I know, I know- that's no excuse to pander to the Presidential campaign debacle and all the up to the minute coverage and commentary on every phony, high production values advertisement. But since I actually got this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fvvNU7fBxk from a friend and my former tech guru who I want to be involved in "getting this whole thing started" and who also believes things could be changed in time- in a minute or almost overnight- if "We the people..." get our respective and collective acts together.

In the meantime- you go Britknee; you go Paris Hilton Paris Hilton...

And oh yeah, win this thing Barack. That is not a forgone conclusion. Look out voter rolls in Florida and voting machines in Ohio. 2000 and 2004 were OJT for the Hard Strident Right "Election Mechanics." Easily as impressive as any Nevada and Texas true card mechanics of the mythological good old days of "professional gamblers."

A pre road downs lull...

... which is to be expected with the road, AC, The Shore, The Hollow Deck, and getting back to "the life" looming. I will try to get "work" done as I can. For today I will only say that the path forward has to entail narrowing the scope or at least articulating some specifics about the major issues that a fairly radical progressive grassroots solidarity movement would have to embrace in an ongoing activist manner in order for any progress toward the substantive core sea changes that are needed and being called for in our business and politics to be even remotely approachable.

Here are the ones that always seem to come to mind off the top of my head whenever I start thinking about what has to be considered in this regard. The major issues and or slash proposals that I will focus on are:

• Constitutional Ammendment Level reform of the money in politics cancer that is an ongoing worsening problem and deterrent to "our Democracy."
• The "Bipartisan" problem of "our" gridlock and incumbancy corrupted two party system. Among the first reforms related to this quagmire is to eliminate the Electoreal College altogether or- if people want to keep it for nostalgia's sake just make it be a figurehead entity by having the Electoral Votes for each state be divided proportionately and have the number for each state be exactly a function of said state's population. I am sick of my vote counting less than any other American's based on the density of the population of our respective environs. And I also think that no President should ever again be sworn in who didn't get the most votes by the people of this country. Much much more on this "Electioneering Reform" part of "the movemnt"
• Single payer national health care- a no brainer to everyone but the Insurance company and big pharma PR legions and and all the politicians in their respective but none too respectable hip pockets.
• A complete overhaul of our public education and social welfare priorities and approaches- most especially as these institutions fail in our major urban centers and fail the people and children most at risk because of the social problems and economic and opportunity inequities exacerbated critically by the dysfunctional operations of current status quo "business and politics as usual."
• The need to develop a major new Federal Project called, for lack of a better term, the "Department of Peace." Eventually this department would become equal to on funding and scope levels as the current "Department of Defense", or the "Pentagon System for a planned economy," or the "Military Industrial (and Congressional Incumbency) Complex.
• Calling for a "Brand New and Green This Time New Deal for the American People. It's possible that this "new green deal" could be part of the above "Department of Peace" and could also be closely aligned with the new kinds of "Fair Trade" and "Fair Exchange" trade and treaty agreements we need to enact in the face of climate change and "Peak Oil and Everything Else, Too" that we will all be dealing with as we move forward into our collective, local, and global futures.
• And finally, an overhail of our archaic, draconian, and failing "War on Drugs" system of drug laws, incarceration policies, and arbitrarily unjust and unequal enforcement policies.

Addressing these at length and coming up with proposals and very specific calls to organized activism around those proposals will be where this blog and www.dialogdem0cracy.org focus for the most part for the next couple weeks. On that and on occasionally lamenting the sad state of our Democracy as the Presidential Election Seasons Prime False Advertising Campaigns heat up.

Lot's of guys and gals doing it (blogging, that is)...

... Plenty of gals doing it too, for that matter. Me, I took a little time off to reflect and kick back after another apparently failed attempt to recruit even one collaborating ally from my limited pool of like thinking- though not professional political activist- real people friends. So what does that mean. I am going to proceed as the way opens with my efforts. And I am going to work on getting www.dialogdemocracy.org more functional and coherent as I plow forth.

There are, after all, central core proposals and issues that are at the heart of what I am calling for and I do want to raise money to start some of the activity necessary for any of that to be going on in the "real world." I must say I am impressed by a lot of what I find in the Progressive literature out there. Books, blogs, organiziations that are trying to fight the good fight and so on- speak truth to power and all of that rot. Yet here we sit as the pendulum swing to the right has continued almost unabated now for a couple two tree generations now. And many people really fo believe it's too late. Check this out: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45752 and read about on some of the links. And this is basically the response I got from my Soolay Brother when I ask him to join me on a co-blogger here on this eponymous blog.

Still, it's the old dilemna: arms (or action anyway) against a sea of troubles or making our separate peace as Rome burns- or the polar ice caps melt at any rate.

So now it's Obama playing the race card...

... mainstream media coverage of and mainstream political reaction to the new turn in the tit for tat Presidential campaign blathering is truly maddening. Where is and was the under the microscope coverage of the Republican party's racist card playing capture of the once "solid Democratic south" when they pandered shamelessly to the Wallacite working class as well as the old plantation south's modern day ruling hierarchy? And the gutless Democratic party has never really stood up to it as a major national party should because they were afraid of losing even more ground to the crazy assed new breed Neocons lead by the likes of Karl Rove and Jack Abramoff. More on this later

Open Source Internet is vital to any hoped for Re-Democratizing...

... effect that "new media" and blogging and Internet activism in general might have on the many debilitating consequences that mainstream business, politics, and media have on our lives, culture, carreers (or lack thereof), health care (or lack thereof), or quality public education system (Ibid.), or civil society with reasonably egalitarian opportunity structure (and again: Ibid.)

This truly is a cornerstone issue for any kind of Progressive Democracy Solidarity movement in the U.S. and the rest of the "Western Market Democracies" to be truly vocal and uncompromising about and is going to be my main area of investication and linking as I get started on my own efforts to take what I'm doing to that proverbial "next level". Anyway, for now check out and link around: http://www.virtualhosting.com/blog/2007/the-top-80-charities-for-open-source-and-open-access-advocates/

Jerry Brown interview of Noam Chomsky...

... well worth checking out even if it's a little dated and soooo, you know, like `90's:
http://www.wtp.org - I don't know if this link will work to the article I intend but if it takes you to the "We the people..." Web Site just click archives and it's the first article link on that page. Jerry Brown was a good politician and Governor of California. He was ruined by mainstream media and right wing smear as being Governor Moonbeam. His biggest sin was that he supposedly flip flopped on Prop 13 (incidentally a watershed occurrence in the hijacking of American Democracy by the hack kneepad Tories that have lead us to the Rove-Bush Cheny and their cronies regime) because as governor of California when it was rammed down a hoodwinked and property taxed to ruin middle class's throat by a well funded media ad campaign Jerry Brown then tried to make state government and services work as well as possible in spite of the devestating effects of the Bill. (he had of course opposed the Bill as it was making it's way eventually to the ballot initiative that ended up making it the law of the Golden State)

One of the stories that circulated in the aftermath of Prop 13 was that the year before it was enacted Bank of America was the largest property tax payer in the state of California. In the year after it passed BofA's tax bill had allegedly plummeted to a mere $0.00. So... anyone out there have the truth of the matter.? Might have just been colloquial populist hyperbolization, I know- but one way or another the anti tax-dereg-get g'uvnment off our backs "Big Boys" had bullied a huge win and gained a lot of momentum that only continued with the Reagan "states rights" oriented win of the Presidency the following year- 1980.

From Gonzo warning to the mainstream press gone wild for that maverick hero John McCain...

... A great review in a recent issue if the Cleveland Free times by Pam Zoslov (a tremendous writer on "the kultchuh" if ever there's been one) of the recent film about Hunter Thompson includes this quote:

“The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America has its roots in the clubby/cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists — in Washington or anywhere else where they meet on a day-to-day basis. When professional antagonists become after-hours drinking buddies, they are not likely to turn each other in.”

Check out the complete review at http://pamelazoslov.blogspot.com/

Which leads to this link this article by Eric Alterman & George Zornick titled "Loving John McCain" in the June 19th issue of The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080707/alterman

Which leads to the inevitable hopefulness that all of this crap with McCain as the impossible heir to the Bush Family/Neocon Debacle reign in American national politics will be moot if only Obama wins in November. But while I find my own hopes hopelessly rising like a schoolboy's crush throughout my naively willing to believe psyche I know that even an Obama victory will only be a small step toward what needs to be accompished for a legitimate new Progressive Renaissance to even be on the radar screen of what's possible.

So despite the fascination with the sporting event styled competition with its high profile jousting ad and spin campaigns I feel the need to do more than just join the pro or con side of either of the mainstream "bipartisan" choices.

Ultimately I may "work" for Obama in one or another of the door to door GOTV campaigns. I know he represents the best hope for the possibility of the needed progressive pendulum swing that is needed in American politics, economics, and throughout Society to finally counteract and roll back the horrific consequences of the 40-60 year right wing backlash that "has my head spinning," (see http://dialogdemocracy.org/what_and_whom_we_oppose.htm for more detailed commentary) just as deposed Nixon Attorny General John Mitchell supposedly said it would as he was leaving Washington in disgrace some 35 years ago.