I can't wait for the bounce numbers

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday as an estimated 38 million viewers watched on television, setting a new record for convention viewership, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Mr. Obama"s speech " a historic one given his status as the first African American nominee of a major political party " reached significantly more viewers than the comparable addresses in 2004. Coverage of John Kerry"s acceptance speech in 2004 had 24.4 million viewers; coverage of George W. Bush"s convention speech that same year drew 27.5 million.

The audience estimate of 38.3 million means that Mr. Obama"s speech reached more viewers than the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the final "American Idol" or the Academy Awards this year, the Associated Press notes.

Furthermore, the four-night Democratic convention ranks as the most-watched convention of either party, Democratic or Republican, since Nielsen began measuring conventions in 1960.

I think McCain is throwing in the towel with that VP pick. I just laughed when I heard. We have 38.3 million people watching one of the greatest political speeches in our nation's history, and McCain picks a former beauty queen who used her power as governor to fire her sister's state trooper ex-husband so her sister could win a custody battle. What a party of garbage.

A Democratic Congress and a Democratic President

This morning I was sipping my coffee - ok, gulping - when the thought suddenly occurred to me that several months from now when this little rock we call home is far from the sun and we are wrapped in layers of coats and sweaters and mittens, something will happen for only the second time in my cognizance, the first time being too brief and too complicated to have any effect.

A Democratic Congress and a Democratic President.

Thank God for Bill Clinton, or my entire life (aside from my first three years of Carter) would have been spent in the mad grip of Reaganomic corporate rule. Thinking of it that way, I'd have to say Bill Clinton saved the world.

Think about what life was like then, back in the nineties at the beginning of the information revolution. Things were so good that the gops had to make up problems and impeach the best thing to happen to us since FDR. All of that wasted taxpayer money, all of the time that should have been spent focused on Islamic fundamentalists, and we were all in la la land contemplating the meaning of is. (McCain, by the way, voted Clinton guilty on both counts.)

Oh, he was hated. He was hated because he was a poor Arkansas boy who had risen to be the most powerful man in the world. He wasn't part of the silver spoon club, he wasn't a Skull and Bones man. He cared about poor people. He screwed up the neo-con plan for world domination.

Did Bill Clinton make mistakes? HUGE ones. The man admits to his mistakes on Rwanda with tears in his eyes. Enron and WorldCom and the others flourished under his watch. Health care is still a mess today. And yes, there was Monica.

But the impeachment wasn't about Monica. Heck, the wannabe Speaker of the House, Rep. Livingston, admitted to an affair during the proceedings! All of the "shady" deals the Clintons had made, all of the "scandals," those things were concocted, misconstrued, and distorted by gops to ruin Clinton.

But you know what? We like our politicians to be human. Not only did they not ruin Bill Clinton, but they created a new Democratic party. The seeds were sown by that man, and we're all grown up now, and we're going to take over the country, and we're going to run it the way it was meant to be run - by the people and for the people, not corporations.



In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected with the help of a clownish man named Ross Perot. Thank God for Ross Perot. We had had twelve years of Reaganomics, and the country's economy was in a freefall. We had troops in seemingly every country on the planet. We had had a Democratic Congress through it all. Thank God for that. But they still let him get away with too much. Two years into Clinton's first term, we lost Congress.

This is a new Democratic Party, a younger party, but a wiser one, armed with the knowledge of what it's like to be a minority party for so long and what unbridled corporatism can do not only to the country, but to the world. This is a party that is starting to free itself from the chains of special interests, a party filled with new and eager faces ready to take on the world. Barack Obama is at the helm of that party.

There is so much in this world to be excited about, so many technological developments, the interconnectedness of the world brought about by globalization, the advancement of knowledge. Just think of the possibilities of a United States run by people who know how to use a computer, who understand science, who value education, who believe that a society is at its strongest when everyone is included.

What comes after democracy, I've often wondered. A society that not only is well-educated, but one that values that education as something in and of itself, not merely a means to get a job or to make mounds of money. A knowledge society. An America with Barack Obama as President and a Democratic Congress is an America I just may start to believe in again.

We have some work to do until November!

From Middle Earth

I've been stuck in Middle America for eight months now, and boy, have I learned a lot about what is wrong with this country. Sometimes I think democracy is the root of all problems. I mean, some people don't have a clue what they're talking about, yet they wave their flags and vote anyway. To say you are not going to vote for a person because of his skin color and not see anything morally wrong with your attitude, for example, well, should you even be allowed to vote?

And with all of the pomp and circumstance of the national conventions, I wonder aloud, who are they kidding? I see the blogs jump all over the DNC as "America's introduction to Barack," yet the people who need to watch the conventions the most - the ignorant - don't bother to watch the conventions. We politicos tend to forget that the average American doesn't care or despises politics.

I'm thinking about going down on Friday to see McCain announce his VP since I'm only 40 minutes away. I wonder if they'll let me in with my Obama button.

Are YOU an idiot?

Yesterday's Reuters/Zogby poll that showed McCain with a five point lead indicates that though Americans claim to dislike negative campaign ads, they work.

And why do they work?

A person of average intelligence knows that these ads distort the truth, at best. Their existence is based on deception. Attack ad creators use the same tactics as did Goebbels. Who cares about the truth when you're on a quest for power?

The politicians who approve these messages certainly don't care about truth, but apparently, neither do the American people. Or are they really too dumb to see through the ads?

I think television campaign ads should be illegal. I know it isn't possible to make them so without violating free speech principles, but free speech does not include the freedom to lie and deceive over public airwaves. Too often Americans believe that free speech means the freedom to say whatever the heck you please, but it doesn't. Through all of the "patriot" flagwaving nonsense that goes on in this country, Americans understand very little about America. But what do you expect when books are mocked, when it's cool to say "I've read two books in my life?" How can people who live in an environment that mocks reading and education be bothered to read the Federalist papers and other documents that explain what the founders of this country intended when they set up this system of government?

What is the deception I speak of? All of it - on both sides. But the one ad that bothers me right now is the McCain ad that says Obama is going to tax the hell out of working families.

Huh?

This makes more sense when viewed in light of who McCain considers to be working class. You're not rich unless you make $5 million a year, so Obama's plans that may slightly raise the taxes of those who make $3 or $4 million a year are going to put those millionaires in the poor house! (You choose to use more of the country's resources, you pay for it! Don't like it? Move to a country with lower taxes! Wait, you mean the United States has the lowest tax rate of any industrialized country? What?) Average Americans won't notice an increase in their taxes, because THERE WON'T BE AN INCREASE.

When did honesty cease being a standard character trait? When did it become despised by so many? And why do people choose to believe negative attack ads instead of doing the research on the candidates for themselves? Laziness? Ignorance? Stupidity?

Are YOU one of the idiots who believes this propaganda?

On sport

What is sport?

I've stared at that question for quite awhile. I can hear the reaction of the thoughtless, football-jerseyed ogres saying, "Duh!"

But sport is more than the games played, more than baseball, football, track and field. It's business, too. And politics.

Would you say it's art? Would you say it's science?

When Abner Doubleday (or Alexander Cartwright, depending on which baseball historian you ask) created the game of baseball, with its lines and dimensions and rules and numbers, did he create art? How is creating a game different from creating a painting?

And the science - the angles, wind factors, the Speedo swimsuits, all of that technology, the human body made into a great and glorious machine...no doubt sport is science, too.

God/Allah/Yahweh/Krishna/Buddha/Great Spirit/Insert-other-name-of-god-in-vain, I love the Olympics.

Imagine being a conscript in Napolean's or Tsar Alexander's army or Salahaddin's or King Richard's army and someone tells you that one day, it would not be warriors who are revered but athletes who compete for their countries despite political differences. You couldn't believe it. Envision a solider, call him John, stumbling across the parched deserts of the Holy Land, the stench of body odor permeating the heavy air, his shield adorned with the cross of his god, staring out at certain death in the form of Salahaddin's army with its scintillating scimitars raised under the mideastern sun. Today, John is a sprinter, his muscles as beautiful as a Michaelangelo sculpture, his body well-fed, his wallet heavy, running next to - not at - Ahmed for the glory of his country.

Boy have we made some progress in the world.

But we still have a long way to go.

There is beauty. The Olympic Opening Ceremony was beautiful - incredible - perhaps the best one I have ever seen, maybe the greatest ever. From the drums to the lines of lights to the awe inspiring lighting of the torch, I felt my jaw drop several times. THAT was art.

Then there is bullshit. The Chinese almost fooled us into thinking they weren't an authoritarian regime with gross human rights abuses, a disgusting environment, and rampant poverty (while they spent $300 million on that ceremony alone.) And I hear from some Americans "leave the politics out." That makes me sick. You want to sit there and ignore the suffering of millions of people so you can continue to sit on your couch in comfort chanting U-S-A! and not have to think? That is equivalent to the actions of the Chinese government, while it continues to support the atrocities of the Sudanese government in the name of oil, while it continues to arrest journalists who dare criticize its actions, while it continues to sicken its citizens by dumping toxic chemicals wherever it is convenient, while it continues to oppress Tibet and the Uighars, while it continues to torture its prisoners, so many of them political, while it continues religious persecution - REAL religious persecution, not the faux variety claimed by some evangelical Americans.

How can you not think about it? How can you sit there knowing thousands of people lost their homes so the Olympic village could be built and not think about it? If you are religious, how can you not pray for the Chinese who suffer at the hands of an authoritarian communist government? Are we not living in the same country that proclaimed the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire?" Are we not the same ones who destroyed people's lives in communist witch hunts? Did we not skip an entire Olympics and ruin the dreams of our athletes because the games were held in a communist capital? And yet because we are able to buy cheap products from China, it somehow makes their authoritarian communist government ok?

How can you not think about it?

So we watch these games and we marvel at the ability of countries to get together and play games, not war, and we see the pure joy on the faces of the athletes, and we see the three athletes from a small country we may have never heard of with no chance for a medal and we smile, because we see the joy on their faces, and we see their dreams, and we realize their dreams are the same as ours. And you know what else is there? Hope. We ARE capable of getting along. We are capable of putting aside our differences to play games together. Games! Not war! Why do I love the Olympics? Because hope is transformed into three dimensional people and podiums and medals and pools and stadiums. Hope becomes something visible, and that makes it more real.

So we can watch, and think, and keep our eyes on the Chinese government and tell our politicians to stop pandering to China. We can cut down on the cheap plastic junk we don't need. We can choose not to buy the products advertised at the games. And we can do this all while still enjoying the Olympics in the ancient and modern city of Beijing. We can do all of this with hope. We can look at the progress the Chinese government has made and we can hope they will continue down that road. We can push them. We can change this world - we already have. Hope.

Freedom fighters vs terrorists

Freedom fighter or terrorist? This has been a left vs. right question in the United States for some time. A lot of it is unthinking rhetoric spewed from both sides, more of that Limbaugh Chomsky garbage that passes for discourse in today's American political climate.

We have all heard the "terrorism is a tactic" explanation. Well, it is, that much is true. And the Uighar separatists who suffer under Chinese Communism are terrorists by this definition - they use it as a weapon in their fight for independence. So did the American colonists. Ever heard of Swamp Fox? Mel Gibson played the role in the movie The Patriot, and sadly, that's probably the only way to ring the bell of the masses.

The right doesn't know itself. It runs around screaming about evil communists, but accepts China with no problem. A group trying to break free from the chains of communism in China is labeled as evil terrorists because they are Muslim. Never mind the oppression from which they suffer at the hands of their evil communist government.

The Chinese government is using a separatist bombing as an excuse to round up these pesky little freedom fighters who want to break free from their chains, and the gov is doing it while it has the international spotlight. The government has also denied Olympic speedskater Joey Cheek a visa to attend the Olympic games because of his human rights work in Dafur. China supports the oppression in Sudan.

But la de da America doesn't care. They say get politics out of sports. Translation: get politics out of sports so we can continue to ignore it, because it doesn't affect our strip mall lifestyle. The Chinese give us cheap junk and that's all we care about. Human rights are for those dirty libruls!

Led by NBC, America could step up and condemn Chinese human rights abuses while the world watches. But NBC is a company owned by the GE Corporation, and would the GE Corporation risk it's profits in the name of what's right?

Never.

The world will continue to turn in the same wobbly manner as it has been and the Chinese government will continue violate human rights while the corporate world turns a blind eye, because there is money to be made from these Olympic games!

Trying to reboot

I am starting to get those butterflies, those who flip and flutter about the gut in excited anticipation of an upcoming presidential election, one with real hope for change.

I have matured greatly since the last debacle we suffered, when a nation blinded by ignorance and foolishness defeated the promise of progress and chose to fall further behind the pace of the rest of the Western world. I've never really been an echo, but I never had the intellectual maturity to win a debate. I was like a jammed M-16, dangerous because I could explode and hurt myself while hurting others, too, but having the potential to hit my mark if only I could clear that stuck round from my rifle.

Over the last year, I've become obsessed with the interconnectivity of history. People seem to think that history is history, that once it happens, it is over. But history is a living, breathing organism that has been shaped by its life experiences. It makes choices based on what happened to it in the past. It sometimes learns from its mistakes; it often does not.

Most people live only in the present and do not realize that this life, the way we live right here, right now, is not the end all. Somehow I feel I've always known that was wrong. I have my suspicions that this insight into the way the world turns earned me a lot of department scholarships in college due to a paper I wrote during the first semester of my freshman year proclaiming Francis Fukyama's End of History essay as bullshit. At the time, it was the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I think it still may be. Here is a supposed intellectual as blind and foolish as an uneducated Joe. He has since distanced himself from the whole neo-con movement that proclaimed there was nothing beyond free market capitalism. How a whole supposed intellectual movement could believe that history stopped is beyond me.

People are starting to wake up. Yesterday, Greg Anrig of the Washington Post wrote a column about the end of the neo-con movement.

But now, seemingly all of a sudden, conservatives are the ones who are tongue-tied, as demonstrated by Sen. John McCain's limping, message-free presidential campaign. McCain's ongoing difficulties in exciting voters aren't just a tactical problem; his woes stem largely from his long-standing adherence to a set of ideas that simply haven't worked in practice. The belief system and finely crafted policy pitches that enabled the right to dominate the war of ideas for the past 30 years have produced a relentless succession of governing failures, from Iraq to Katrina to the economy to the environment.

History never stops. Before there was corporatism, there was capitalism. Before capitalism, there was mercantilism. Before that, there was feudalism. Before there was communism, there was no communism.

So why is this presidential election different than the others? Why do I think that this time it matters?

We're moving into a transition phase in our country and the world, a world tired of unbridled corporatism, tired of being ruled by special interests and ready to press the play button after thirty years on pause. Or rewind?

Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress, one filled with a lot of newbies, have no ties to the dinosaurs of the Cold War era, the Cheneys, the Rumsfelds, the Feiths. The neo-con dinosaurs are dying out, both literally and figuratively. Unbridled free markets don't work - you can't have this giant invisible hand governing people. People govern people, even if they are working for corporations. Yet corporations exist for profit, and human history is littered with the misdeeds of those in search of money. That is why we need government, one that isn't dominated by profit seeking whores.

Yet the Democrats will have to be careful. Instead of working against big business, they need to work with them. Instead of engaging in neo-isolationism, they need to engage in the world in a non-warring manner. But they know this, these new Democrats. The tired old Limbaughesque rhetoric that proclaims all liberals to be communists Stalinists is already being mocked by those who once sympathized with it.

Electoral-vote.com, my favorite website every four years, is looking promising today.

We'll see if I can get this old blog up and running again, get back the readers, start writing about things that matter.