I haven't written about politics in a long time, which some of you might think is a good thing. Furthermore, I doubt I'm going to start again any time soon. My politics haven't necessarily changed, I'm still the big liberal I always was. In fact, that's part of the problem. It's been a long time since I felt like the Democratic Party showed much interest in upholding any of its traditional progressive values, and I'm not sure I see things getting better any time soon. Lewis Black described the Republicans as the party of Bad Ideas, and the Democrats as the party of No Ideas.
And while I agreed that the 2000 election was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court rather than the will of the people, it was also clear to me and a lot of progressives that if not for the failings of the Democratic Party and Al Gore to capitalize on the peace and prosperity of the Clinton Administration, the election would have not only gone the other way, but wouldn't have even been all that close.
As for 2004? Another weak candidate who couldn't beat the worst president since the discovery of electricity, it seemed. It didn't make much sense, given how poorly George W. Bush had performed and how badly the war was going, but whatever. No one ever failed in business or politics by banking on the ridiculousness of the American public.
Well, turns out, the problem with the American voting public might not have been our decision to re-elect an apocalyptically bad president after all.
The problem might just have been our trust in the system and the assumption that our votes actually mattered.
Is this how the fall of Rome began? And when it happened, did the Romans actually give a damn?
8 comments:
I find that article really chilling. But why did Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decide to publish it in Rolling Stone? It's way too serious a subject to be discussed in a forum that will be dismissed as entertainment for potheads. -victoria
Victoria, I suspect the reason it went to RS is that RFKjr is perceived as one of those potheads by a great deal of the mainstream. The man had a radio show on Air America for heaven's sake, that makes him very nearly a communist in many eyes.
That said, I hope it's publication in a mainstream magazine, even one that's typically not all that political, will help get the word out.
Oh, and Rob, you might want to look into Russ Feingold. He seems like a real comer when it comes to actually paying attention to the liberal side of the story.
Here's the Salon rebuttal. If nothing else, a lot of the Salon comments are interesting in that they examine both articles.
Oo, very cool, thanks Omar!
Robert Kennedy writes for rolling stone alllllllll the time. I think he recently did a whole huge feature on mercury in vaccinations.
i may be labeled conservative by most, but still love me some RS. I'm actually a paying subscriber ... which my husband cannot understand.
now, off to drool over the cover shot of RHCP and read more about AFI who seem to be going more goth than glam.
And how many of these things are being supported by leading Democrats, Jen? How much distance have any of these issues travelled in the Congress or Senate? How much opposition to the war have we seen from the Democrats? And more importantly, how much opposition to the war did we see BEFORE public opinion turned against it?
As for the environment, I think it's interesting that the only voice we hear about global warming and the environment that has any real impact is from Al Gore.
Jen, you're so indicative of the Democratic Party of today. All righteous indignation because progressives dare to question your dedication to ideals that realistically you have been giving little more than lip service to for years. "If you're Liberal, you have no choice but to be a Democrat!" Your Nader remark is very very revealing, and sad. How exactly did Nader hurt you in 2004? Who are you going to blame for Kerry's lackluster performance, or his "Republican Lite" approach to the war?
And how many Democratic candidates will we see in 2008 that oppose the war? How many of them opposed it from the beginning? And how many, aside from Russ Feingold, have supported public financing of elections? Is that even part of the party platform?
Jen, I'm so glad you wrote, and I mean that. When the Dems get back on message, I'll be back, and that includes Al Gore, who is looking more like a quality presidential candidate than he ever did in 2000. But if you give us Senator Clinton and her opportunistic support of the war, or if you give us John Kerry or any other candidate who feels they somehow "deserve" to be president, you can expect the same sad song, third verse.
(I should point out that I really like Jen. I sounded sort of snotty there.)
A theater I belong to had a fundraiser out here in California this past weekend for a guy named Stephen Heller. He was the whistleblower in the Diebold scandal, where Diabold was using uncertified software in the CA voting machines. And, frighteningly, he has the paperwork to prove it.
But he has been charged with three felonies (felony access to computer data, commercial burglary and receiving stolen property) and is being prosecuted.
The world just seems upside-down.
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