Brother can you spare a Trillion

Since the mainstream media is not doing its job and still gushing over Obama like a school girl over the Jonas brothers I feel a need to make a couple points on the 800 billion dollar stimulus package.

(1) STOP comparing Obama’s stimulus to FDR’s new deal, that is a joke. And when, when will someone mention that the real reason the Great Depression of the 1930s ended was WORLD WAR II. All of a sudden all of our factories were fired up and we were making war stuff for England, ships, planes you name it. I scream every time I hear the comparison. Plus we took all those unemployed men and stuck them in the army and sent them off to Europe and Japan, well that got the economy back on track pretty fast. 

(2) Is this really like the Great Depression? No it absolutely isn’t except in the most general way. It is the same, the way the black plague which ravaged Europe for centuries was like the small pox pandemic of 1870-1874. They are both significant economic contractions but the better comparison by far is the Japanese asset price bubble collapse and the Japanese recession of the 1990s. We have learned so much since the Great Depression of the 1930s that it is absurd to compare it with what is happening today. Get back to me when we have 25% unemployment. 

(3)  Without too much tap dancing around, something has to be done but what should really be done is a lot of people should go to jail and have their assets confiscated. Treat a corrupt wall street wizard the same way you treat a drug dealer. Sure they would get pissed off but I could whip up a trillion dollars pretty fast if I could confiscate private assets of all the wall street wizards and millionaires who created this problem and previously profited from it. They knew exactly what they were doing. It would never happen in this world though, maybe a parallel universe but never in this world as the media goes woof, woof for the wealthy elite

(4) Want a solution, how about a one-time wealth tax of 10% of overall net worth for everyone with over a million dollars in assets all over the world ? Should be global just so that they can’t squirrel it away to another country. How about starting an international financial police force dedicated to tracking the assets of the wealthy in the global world. That should take care of all the stimulus needed to jump start this global economy like a car on nitro. Watch how fast that gloom and doom CNN media watchdog would start barking that everything is actually ok if someone floated this idea in the mainstream media. The bottom line is that the wealthy don’t really spend thier money anyway, so lets kick start this global economy by confiscating 10% of all the assets of everyone with over a million. LOL !!!

Could you imagine the heads exploding all across America. But what do you call it when you take the tax-payers money and essentially partially nationalize the auto and banking industry. Yes, you are nationalizing the industry although no one wants to say it that way. Take the money from the wealthy and force them to invest in the auto and banking industry, they can own it and take responsibility for the losses, they are more likely to fix those industries faster if they are permanently on the hook anyway. 

The bottom line is the wealthiest Americans have not been investing in America for decades anyway, so lets take action, force them to. I actually am laughing as I write this because it is so absurd that I may as well be asking to realign the orbit of the earth relative to the sun to solve global warming.

The wealthy elite control the government (at least strongly influence it) and therefore even when they are the source of the problem and the solution, anything and I mean any solution that involves them losing any of their personal assets will never occur. We will see starving homeless children by the thousands in Alabama before we will see a one-time flat tax of 10% on millionaires and billionaires. I don’t even really want to call it a tax, I just want to take the millionaires money and “invest” it in the economy to make them richer – lets call it an American upper-class stimulus to the American economy – LOL

I can hear the jet engines firing and American pass-ports being ripped up as they race to Dubai.

Never happen dear readers, but it is a great tragedy that generations of working class Americans and their children will be enslaved to debt to provide a stimulus to an economy that faltered through no fault of their own parents.

The Solution to the Israel / Palestine conflict

Advice to Palestine

I have the solution to the Israel / Palestine conflict. I admit that I am not an expert, read a little but still I am privy to that little bit of the common man political sense. 

So here is the solution to a conflict that has existed since before I was born. Palistinians are you listening, good, this is the solution “SURRENDER” 

Total and complete unconditional surrender. It worked for Japan, Germany and Italy. If you held to a complete unconditional surrended and dare I say it, co-operated with the Israeli government I got a good bet to wadger here that they would invest in re-building your ‘new’ country because it would be in thier own interest to do so over the long term. Enough with this stupid bartering like you even have a position to negotiate from. Whatever is offered take it today and end the idiocy permanently, you can file claims for reparations in 2030, after 20 years of peace.

Wars are messy crap ok, messy, messy stuff that festers on for a generation. I am not going to wade into any issues here, at this point who cares. Who cares if Israel should exist or not, who cares about who gets a capital city of Jerusalem. At this point in the decades long conflict the bottom line is that militarily there is no hope of success. There is no longer a cold war card to play and therefore what is occurring now is simply idiocy in allowing for the death of innocents.  

Russia, Iran whatever other country Palestine is trying to tie its boat to at this point is using it and using it to the detriment of its people. At a certain point reasonable men must stand up and say ok, enough is enough. And when I say surrender I mean ‘total surrender’. I mean that the next time you hear some nut asking about where he can get a missile launcher you call Israel and they come arrest him. If it is your brother asking you, sit him down and tell him to stop.

Every war must end, every conflict must end for civilized people. France was conquered by the Romans, it was conquered by the British you have to know when to let it go, when to surrender. War and violence is only a reflection of the failure of politics and it is time to enter into politics in a rational and civilized manner. It rips out my heart to see the latest attack on Palestine, to see the deaths of innocents but there is nothing that I can do aside from feel the pain of it and question the intelligence of the leaders of an oppressed people who refuse to surrender. 

Often I hear the case made that Palestinians believe that the world is with them silently, that the rest of the people of the world are horrified at Israel but this is not true as much any longer in the post 9/11 world. As more and more  time has gone by, the conflict is so perpetual that although many feel sympathy for the Palestine position even more now are questioning the sanity of its leaders. I mentioned this face to face to a Palestinian and I saw such rage appear in his eyes that I had to walk away from him right away. Without knowing it, he proved my point instantly by the wild look that appeared in his eyes.  

Of course the great root of the problem is that religion is mixed in with equal or higher measure from the usual political nonsense. As I said violence and conflict is the failure of politics, in my view it isn’t even politics at this point. It is just simple idiocy on both sides of the coin. One may be able to be more coldly rational from the Israel side and one may be able to be more morally passionate from the Palestine side but that is the worst dialect possible, cold reason versus emotional morality, is there any more horrific a conflict to be physically realized in the real world than the human condition in every human heart made real.  

The White Devil by John Webster as a revenge tragedy of 1612 sums up to me the Israel / Palestine conflict today at this point for me. 

there’s but three furies found in spacious hell, But in a great man’s breast three thousand dwell

Today in the year 2008, almost 2009 it is only about the revenge in the heart of men on both sides. Nothing more, nothing less and nothing could be more tragic. A hell made real on our world for decades with the death of innocents the only result. 

But how, how can Palestinians surrender?

It is simple really, ask yourself if God would surrender to the Devil if it meant saving the life of an innocent child? Then remember that you are not God and beg forgiveness for your sin of even considering that you are…

Than go read Goethe’s Faust and note the very ending where the Devil reaches for Faust’s soul and the outcome.

Merry Christmas, 

Peace on Earth and Good Will to All Men…

Media Bias and why it Threatens Democracy

Mainstream Media Bias is the biggest threat to Democracy. Over time it has slowly increased to a point now that the Mainstream sources are becoming little more than cheerleaders rather than actual journalists in the traditional definition of the occupation.  

Now that the election is finally over, although the gushing Mainstream Media (MM) is still glowing with praise for President-elect Obama it is becoming an embarrassing reflection of a degenerating occupation and more importantly a vacuum in the both the practical and theoretical realization of our democracy.

First off lets face the fact that it is impossible for perfect neutrality in media, bias will always exist but it is the DEGREE of bias that is the issue.  

Just as Doctor’s have a Hippocratic oath, journalists should have a similar oath for striving for neutrality. It is all easier said than done though. Media exists in a competitive market and it dictates that the rapid fire delivery of dubious but entertaining content is the way to go for ratings.

I physically gagged on election night as CNN illustrated its fancy dancy ‘hologram’ technology. What really was the point of this? How does it have value from a journalist’s point of view? She could have been in the room next door or in London, England. I guess we will just take CNN’s word for it that she was in Chicago. There was very little value in her content and it was again just another layer of icing on what is becoming a smaller and smaller cake of actual relevant content. 

It has always been my view that the media’s coverage of politics should be the advanced cerebral sphere of the news. In a traditional dialectical style presenting the pro and con of an issue. The ‘for’ and the ‘against’. Like a legal trial the journalist should be lawyer putting the issue on trial and both prosecuting and defending the issue before the jury of the American people. In politics it should not be about the messenger but about the policy of the politician. The habit of bringing up cheerleaders or pundits to cheer for the DNC or the GOP a sad excuse for professional journalism. 

In the news weather is for everyone, Entertainment and Sports for the less cerebral and Politics for the more cerebral. What we have been seeing is a degeneration or dumbing down of Politics. Unbelievably Sports commentators are more neutral in calling a football game than political commentators in calling an election. Take a stroll through the wonderful catalogue of video evidence on youtube from the last election and cringe at the talking heads parrot their bias to the people. Where is the real journalist today ?

I think the first comment one has to raise is so what ? The media is biased so what ? Everyone knows FOX is on the right, CNN is on the left. FOX news was created in response to what I think was a consistent slide in the media to the left. If the media had stayed neutral I don’t believe that FOX news would exist in its current form today with its right wing bias. It is cause and effect and for every cause there is an equal and opposing reaction. 

The Left is not a place that the majority of Americans want to be and although many highly educated Americans may simply be able to state that their fellow citizens are “dumb” and if only they were more educated they would see the truth. This a comment about the education system and also one that goes to the heart of democracy so we should proceed with great caution. 

Lets assume that highly educated liberal Americans are correct, if you have had the opportunity to travel this world, to see Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand you will realize quite quickly that America and the quality of life for tens of millions of working Americans is far below that of the rest of the free world it not only belongs to but leads.

So there is a case to be made here for the victory of the Democrats and the support of the elite of Liberal Americans. There is a case to be made that the “bad” word of American politics “Socialism” is really just an attempt to have the overall standard of living of millions of Americans raised to a level that is at least comparable to western europe, Canada, Japan etc…

But in a democracy the point is the will of the majority. If the majority of Americans are too narrow minded or simply prefer the struggle of the American dream. If they would prefer a society of social roulette where you will win big but with lower odds to a wining smaller with greater odds that is the American society. The media or the liberal elite should not feel obligated to pass judgement on this culture and impose itself on the rest of America.

It really goes to the heart of democracy itself and there is something to be said on the topic. We still have a political system created over 200 years ago in a much different world. In fact our political system is one of the most antiquated systems in our society. What the media by virtue of itself is starting to reveal is the limits of it.

The founders could not have conceived of the world that was coming. They certainly did not conceive that their young nation would rule it as a lone super-power. These ideas never entered their minds yet today we have a political system of the 18th century which rules over a 21st century technology, media, economics and the environment. 

The flaws of our Presidential election are revealed in what has become an almost unbearable circus of media political blitz and glitz with no substance. Is that what democracy is today? Is democracy not the will of the people in issues that impact their lives or is it a sort of beauty contest where we elect a personification of ourselves every 4 years.

Our technology, especially in communications over the internet, has vastly increased since 1776, is it not time to look at the entire structure of democracy after this election? The fundamental question really is what is democracy today?

Why the Obamamercial is a knockout blow

I started watching the Obamamercial with the highest degree of skepticism. Being familiar with media tactics, media spin and sound bite rhetoric, if anything I thought the infomercial had a reasonable risk of being too much and blowing back on the DNC. That was far from the case and I am a little surprised in reporting that this is a flawless piece of political rhetoric, an utterly professional media production and precisely focused (as it should be) on the few remaining independent/swing voters out there.

If you haven’t seen it yet and have an extra 30 minutes on your hands I highly recommend watching it, if for nothing else, for the lessons it teaches on mass media techniques. 

Full Obamamerical 

I have seen a number of these over the decades and I have seen them waffle from the bad to the truly bad but this one worked and it worked very well. Why ? It is probably best to break it down the same way you would any hollywood production. 

(1) It had solid star power. No matter what criticism you may have of Obama you can not deny his ability to orate a message and deliver what I will call a stage presence for the purpose of this post. Many a professional political production waffles with the candidate who just can’t bring the star power or the special ‘it’ factor to the production. Say what you will about Obama he brings this innate something else on film and he always has. The camera likes him.

(2) Tone was hopeful and neutral to the point of soothing: This was achieved with an excellent choice of subtle background music. You may notice it at first but by the end it is subliminal, it comes in and out appropriately and is a soothing sound for the viewer. The end of a campaign is usually when the rhetoric intensifies to the most negative and the Obamamerical avoids this trap by a country mile. To bring those last swing voters who are hesitating out of fear of voting for him, this soothing music is a direct psychological technique.  

(3) Excellent personal narrative choices interwoven: You could almost anticipate the personal narratives based on important voter demographics. Lets go through them in order of appearance:

(A) White female vote (check). This is all about the white female voter as head of the house, Obama is not targeting the white male voter so the narrative will exclude the man, which it does by mentioning him only as being sick or unable to fully provide for his family highlighting the role of the white female in voting for Obama for the good of her family. 

(B) Elderly couple vote (check). The black vote is locked up but the seniors vote is what this narrative is really about. Most retired white seniors in America likely have their house paid off, so this narrative fits perfectly for white seniors. By using blacks instead of whites the production sidesteps what could have come off as preachy to the skeptical elderly white voter. 

(C) Hispanic and single mom (check). The Hispanic vote was a slight question mark for Obama and he had to tighten this one up, two birds with one stone works for him here. The single mom and the hispanic community with a large family is the starting theme narrowing to the struggles of the working mother. All put together perfectly and transitioning from the large supportive Hispanic family at the dinner table to the Hispanic woman all alone struggling to feed her children as a single mom at the closing.

(D) Blue white working class (check) . This is the other big voting demographic Obama wants and this one works with a slight tone of nostalgia and the union vote. This is a harder demographic for Obama to win and likely the weakest narrative of the 4 but it is interwoven now with Obama’s own personal story to empower it more. 

(4) Last, but certainly not least, is the production’s closing narrative on Obama himself for the last 10 minutes. I don’t want to call it a infomercial anymore because of how well done it is; the soft textually interwoven message and video image overlays of Obama’s personal story are done flawlessly. Those of us who follow politics know Obama’s story and have for some time but politicos and politically active people are not the target market of the Obamamerical. The closing telling of the story through spoken text and video image overlay is really a piece of perfect political rhetoric.  

In closing the Obamamerical stands as a sort of media oasis experience after the usual harsh desert of negative campaign ads. This is a Home Run for the DNC and it is out of the park. It does not speak to the converted, it targets who it should for votes. It is professionally done, it has the star and the star power to carry it and as I predicted over a month ago Obama will be president, lets get on with it. 

Sarah Palin may have had equal or greater star power than Obama but at the end of the day he had 5 times the money and 4 times the main stream media endorsement of McCain. Lets get election day over with and move on with things. I still think the smear job on Palin is almost as historical as the win for Obama. There is a new porn film called “Nailin Palin”, sexist comments on her 150,000 wardrobe while the DNC raised and spent 3 billion to get Obama elected? Think we will get any reports on the cost of the Obamamercial, some hung her in effigy and the converse certainly could not have been done to Obama.

In essence though my real appreciation of Palin came from the fact that she turned the Presidential race upside down for a very brief moment, put the fear of God in the media elite and for a brief moment gave everyone pause that we have a real election here. I will always appreciate John McCain for doing that and also appreciate more than ever the utter power of the mainstream media…

It isn’t that Obama is not the better candidate, he very well may be for a variety of reasons but you have to win fair and square and if the better candidate loses in a election without the media pimping one over the other it says something about modern democracy itself. That is the real heart of the issue. The mainstream media is the biggest threat to true democracy, the subtle bias of CNN is the enemy of the average voter not the ally. In a new age of the internet, we have less and less need for mainstream political rhetoric for the masses from the big media entities with their claim to be neutral. Bring on the Obamamercials or the McCain infomercials, they very well may be the way of the future but both sides should be able to do them. 

Nov 4 is now more about showing the world the illusion of the changing of the guard and how America can conduct a democratic election in a orderly fashion. We’ll see though, but really is it not a amusing sidenote that those get out and vote ads have really dropped off now : ) Why ? Well, a country that has trouble handling a 60% voter turn out sure doesn’t want 90% to show up and stand there all day waiting to vote does it. How will that look to the world for the nation that promotes democracy to the world…

Congratulations President Obama, I’ll spend your entire term telling myself you would have won even without 5 times the money and 4 times the mainstream media support…

Analysis of the SNL Palin skits by Tina Fey

Who would have thought that Tina Fey (a white woman) and SNL (a old low-rated comedy show before the Palin skits) would have done more to help Obama than all the power of Oprah, Hollywood and the mainstream media combined. 

 

I (Tina Fey) crown you King Obama

I consider the SNL skits the tipping point in the election. They negated the Palin factor and were REQUIRED to reverse the momentum McCain/Palin had.

I did a brief analysis on the first one which was brilliant satire but as we are hitting SNL Palin skit 4 with Palin’s appearance, and we are sure to have more before the election, it is becoming clear that the SNL factor is something that Obama “required” to win this election. The SNL skits are a nice focal point of the media blitz against Palin which is vast and unprecedented in its bias. The original first skit even gives a shout-out to the media to “grow a pair” and attack Palin which all newspapers by a margin of 4-1 nationally have done. 

There is relatively little satire of Biden and Obama and when they do appear, they are rich with Palin commentary or juxtaposed with Fey playing Palin.

First, lets establish one fact, McCain would have no chance whatsoever without Palin. Media red herrings that suggest McCain should have picked someone else is simply a way of distracting the public from the media smear job on Palin. The media is trying to cover its own tracks at this point because of the absolute intense bias and unprecedented attacks on Palin as the VP candidate. Never before in history has the main stream media revealed its bias in such an extreme manner on a VP candidate. They have succeeded but now they need to cover their tracks or their ass as they back away from the car wreck they created by running Palin off the road in dramatic fashion.

“Oh a different driver would have had a different result etc”, Actually no elected politician in this day and age can survive a media blitzkrieg like the one Palin has been subjected to, it would end most political careers. (But I have a feeling she will be back because the bias is just too blatant, with time I think this woman will be back to “meet the press” in an era of the internet and citizen journalists) It is hard for the average person not to see the smear factor on Palin when compared to Biden’s free pass.  

Palin was by far the best choice for McCain not only because she energizied the Republican base but also for her ability to connect with people if given a chance to speak directly to them through television or on the stump without the media filter. For a brief few weeks she elevated McCain ahead of Obama in the polls, that is an amazing accomplishment against Obama who has 5 times as much money and 4-1 mainstream media endorsement. How is the election even close at all with that massive war chest for Obama and the media doing most of his dirty work by undermining and attacking Palin ? 

Biden with all of his 30 plus years of experience has actually made FAR more speaking misteps in the election than Palin. Imagine the SNL skit if Palin had asked a paralyzed man to stand up at a stump speech ? Imagine the SNL skit if Palin had said Romney or Huckabee would have been a better pick for VP as Biden did in saying Clinton would have been a better pick for VP than him ? Imagine the skit if Palin said McCain will be tested by an international crisis and implied doubt about his ability to handle it ? And that is only what we know about, I assure you given a little experience in politics, that Biden has likely said much more but only friendly ears have heard it and they have chosen to ignore it.  

It is a simple fact and no matter what your politics are, you have to admit the media has pretty much given Biden a free pass in this election. The media bias for Obama has been consistently in place since he won the Primary against Clinton. The election should “always” have been a landslide but it wasn’t and it won’t be because of Palin. Obama will win but that will be due to Fey and the media bias, the election very easily could have flipped if the media and SNL had gone after Biden and ignored Palin or even just ignored the both of them and let them deliver their own message without spin. 

Hmmmm, imagine an election where the media is not allowed to report it and only to present direct interviews and the debates ? Imagine an election where the voter is expected to research themselves the platforms of the candidate instead of having it spun for them by CNN or the media…

Bush is one of the least popular Republican presidents in history but STILL Obama needed a historical stock market collapse AND media bias for him AND unrelenting character attacks on Palin to win. Think about that for a moment, the real question in this election is WHY could Obama not seal the deal long ago and WHY is it even close at all ? A change candidate and different party, it should have a been a reflex election and a landslide, why wasn’t it ?

The Obama bots and blind supporters aside, Obama is not being passionately endorsed by the American people. Despite his victory it will be won on millions who will vote for him while they hold their nose or sigh sadly.

The media and SNL got those votes for him because now to vote for McCain/Palin means you are dumb, it means you aren’t with the cool kids, it means you don’t get the joke of Palin and it means that everyone should laugh at you, just like they laugh at Sarah Palin. That is the bottom line and that is what millions of voters will vote on when voting for Obama.   

Why was Fey and SNL required to win the election for Obama and act as the tipping point?

Well, even with the widespread media bias of the NY Times, CBS, ABC etc they were largely speaking to the converted. The media has been for Obama since he beat Clinton so nothing really changed on that front. What is amazing is that Obama failed in the pre-Palin time frame to build support against a GOP candidate that lacked support within his own party, was 72 years old and should hardly have given him any kind of fight for the white house. The fact that McCain did is really what is amazing.

Now without Palin and the SNL skits, Obama might still have won but I am confident that it would have been much closer. The SNL cheery was needed on top of the media cake to bake this election for Obama and to counter the Palin factor…

Congratulations President Obama but doesn’t it feel a little hollow to beat a 72 year old war vet and a woman this way ? Its kind of like you paid off the ref in the football game, it just doesn’t strike me as fair and I think you could have won without the paid off ref or press and if you couldn’t, well you didn’t deserve to win, that’s democracy…

Hillraisers head for McCain Mountains

As the Obama team does spin control on the latest defections, I personally see it as an indication of a wave that is going to build to November. Both John Coale and Lynn Forester de Rothschild are serious Democrats. Fundraising over 100,000.00 each for the lost cause of Hillary Clinton.

Lynn Forester de Rothschild CNN Link

It is not that these defections in themselves are going to bring thousands of people along with them, as much as they must be sending a ominous message to the DNC. If these prominent party members are flipping, the individual thought process is likely the same with hundreds of thousands of other DNC members.

47 days to go and a virtual tie in key states, someone tell me how the Democrats are going to recover ?Obamania is last years fashion and Palin Power is all the political hipsters are talking about. I would hate to be a Democratic strategist because they just had a political tactical meltdown equivalent to Waterloo and seem paralyzed and unsure of even how to conduct the rest of the campaign…

Democracy – the Cynics

The bottom of the barrel, for me, far worse than Dembots or Republicanbots is the person who doesn’t vote. The person who has given up on politics altogether. And about 40% of Americans didn’t even bother to do just that, only about 55% voted in Election 2004.

It upsets me because millions died for the Democracy we have, millions of not only Americans but soldiers from all over the world. To me voting is about respect for them, acknowledging the political system that they died for, although far from perfect, it is still better than any other political structure in the world. Voting is a duty, a responsibility and an acknowledgment of the cause of Democracy itself. If there is only one time to vote each 4 years it is the Presidential election. 

Those who have given up in frustration over the Democrats and Republicans have third party candidates to choose from. There is always a choice. It is a small amount of time taken on election day to pull a lever, to cast a ballot and it should be out of respect for the millions who have died for you to have the freedom to do just that. 

“But it doesn’t matter!” the cynic responds, “nothing changes, there are no real choices.”

Why should I vote when right behind me is someone who is going to cancel my vote by voting for Sarah Palin because they like her eye glasses!” How ridiculous is that in canceling my vote which is a result of hundreds of hours of my own time carefully reading the policies of each side, analyzing them and making an informed vote on what I think is best for America. Why should I vote when this happens ?

The answer is that voting is not about you. When I vote it is not about me, in fact it has very little to do with me. I make the decision of course but I long ago realized like many others that who the President of the United States is or is not will have very little impact on my life. Maybe a little tiny bit but certainly not a lot. I will get up in the morning on Nov 5, 2008 no matter who is President, and I will still work, I will pay my bills, I will pray my family has good health, I will pursue my dream, I will pursue my happiness and every once in awhile I may stop and even realize that I am happy for a brief moment. 

I do not vote to pick someone to change my life or improve it dramatically, no ultimately, I think that is up to me and always has been but I do vote out of respect of those who have died for me to do so. To me election day is about freedom to pick our leaders who in my view are not much more than the personification of our nation to the rest of the world. I also do not think the American people have ever gotten it wrong. Even election 2000.

Many people forget how hollowed out and stiff Al Gore was compared to George Bush in Election 2000. This is of course long before his famous film. Many people forget that George Bush with all his numerous flaws and gaffes won votes largely because he listened to certain groups of Americans and spoke for them. Now we may not like those groups or be a part of them, Christians, the NRA, Pro-Life advocates but what did Gore do ? He essentially ran a safe campaign free of any blatant gaffes, aside from that claim to invent the internet. He didn’t take risks and I think he rightly lost for running such a bland campaign and America rightly decided that George Bush, although flawed, was still more of a representative of our nation than Al Gore because he was not as bland. America is a lot of things but it is not a bland nation.

Who you vote for and why is your business and you have the freedom to not even vote but that to me is the only wrong decision. Millions of young men fought and died for our right to vote along with our other freedoms. 

Those who are cynical of our democracy do nothing but dishonor them. Democracy requires the participation of the people and again the more cynical you are, the more I think you are obligated to get involved and to make a difference. Sarah Palin may say a lot of things in this election but the one message that should ressonate loudest to everyone is her political story of entering politics in 1992 at the PTA level and rising to national VP Candidate in 16 years and she is no ivy league graduate.

That can only happen in America and it could happen to you as well. So before you become cynical about politics and say you won’t even vote, take a look at this and ask yourself why you couldn’t do the same thing as her ?