Your Voice, Your Vote, Your Country

It is easy to hide under your own, self preserving, rock. To narrow your vision so you only see what directly, immediately affects your daily life. I have stood on the outskirts, peering in, but have come to despise the apathy I see around me; the apathy I have spent the last few years shedding.

The War in Iraq, in my mind, is the central point to the economy’s recession. No matter the lies we were fed, the truth seems clear: we went to war for oil. However, this reason held no altruistic merit. It wasn’t a plan to help control the cost of oil until we could realize an environment friendly alternative. No. It was greed. It was contracted by people would made their money through oil, and who where being financed by those making money through oil. I do not begrudge the CEO of Exxon Mobil (Lee Raymond held the position until 2005. His parting gift? $398 million). As a businessman his responsibility to all those working for him, and all the shareholders is to make money. Is to show greed. But the instant that seeps into elected officials, those selected to serve the public, those entrusted to uphold standards and laws prohibiting dubious behavior, those who are paid by our taxes, outrage and lofty demands need to take place.

I speak not out of frustration or anger. I speak out of fear. Like most home owners (especially those who are twentysomethings) all we have is invested in our homes. My net worth is the value of my home. The price of homes was in a downturn when I bought my condo. I was able to purchase it for twenty grand less then it would have sold for earlier that year. However, I did not have the foresight to understand that the downslide was only beginning. With the number of foreclosures, layoffs of construction workers (over 150,000 last year), and an ever decrease in homes being bought over the last three months, panic, although not helpful, is justified. A recent appraisal of my home confirmed that the value had dipped, not just below what I had paid for it, but rather under the amount I owe on it. I have never felt ‘in debt’ owning my home. The equity of it I always held as a safety net. That is now gone. 

What is Bush’s idea to repel the recession? Eight hundred dollars. Now, I will take the eight hundred. But, like most “middle class” people I will use it to pay bills. Not spend at the mall or to travel. Those who have money to be frivolous with will not realize a check for eight hundred dollars showed up in their mailboxes. And for those who are counting the days until they receive it, it will merely allow us to bob our heads above water, enabling a breath before going under again. We do not need simply a quick fix. We need a quick fix followed by a plan to grow and sustain our economy. This is so complicated I can not write it all down here. There are so many components: the war in Iraq, the environment (which could create an insane amount of new jobs), immigration. We need leaders who understand, who are educated and versed, who see the whole picture, plan for the present and the future.

I am sure some would call my rage against this naïve. Those in power suffocate passion and idealism. But why can’t a voice, an independent voice, speaking against the blatantly wrong, be heard? Activism should not be synonymous with radicalism. I believe in basic human principals. Principals that are rational and open minded. Principals that are being violated daily by those sworn to protect them. A revolution needs to be sparked. Where are you JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr? Is it in Hilary Clinton? Barak Obama? John McCain? The middle class is holding on, but slipping. This is the greatest nation in the history of earth. So much potential, so much good we can do. My hope comes with this next election. I have examined both sides, concluding if a Republican wins I will change the word “revolution” with the word “revolt”.

This Tuesday will most likely decide the Democratic nominee. I truly believe we cannot afford to wait 100 days for results, for a progress report. Bush does not have the will or intelligence to find solutions to the mounting concerns of America. If we continue to slide, January 2009 will be bleak beyond reproach. We will need a President to call us all to action. Someone who will lead and inspire. It should begin in our communities and build across the nation. Let the jadedness in you crumble! Allow yourself to believe in the better world we all desire. Hard work and determination can bring about the change we crave. Go out and volunteer, break away from the selfishness and isolation that we have become accustomed to disappearing in. Let us begin transforming now, and pray that leadership and intelligence will return to the White House, and together we can bring about a new dawn.

Obama Rally

  

I left the Obama “rally” with one stinging question: if you cannot lead the origination of a rally in Salem, New Hampshire how can you hope to lead America? Failures, disarray, and extreme tardiness almost overpowered the affect Obama’s charismatic speech had.

I arrived at the venue over an hour and a half early to a crowd of at least fifty. News media from Sweden and Japan hovered around, taking picture, video and interviewing people. A local affiliate from Chicago stuck around for awhile as well. The environment was stirring.  There was certainly a buzz attaching itself to the crowd. However, issues soon arose. Staff for Obama (or if you want, volunteers) instructed us to form a “two by two” line. This is a nice idea. A better one if spoken to earlier, and better still if structured ahead of time forcing it to already be the case instead of instructing hundreds to reposition.

One thing I have learned to love about waiting in these sort of lines is the interaction with the people around you. I talked with some die hard Obama supporters, but most there were undecided. There were a few groups of college kids from New York that had made the trip down to attend as many candidate events as possible. The main conclusion reached was that out of the seventy or so radius of people I came in contact with, a spare few were actually from New Hampshire (including myself). I found this odd, and a little wrong, as this was suppose to be to influence and/or inform the voters of the NH primary. The auditorium seated 600+ and, per the fire marshall, there were 1500 that showed up. The rest of the people were sent to the cafeteria of the school with a live audio and video feed.

Along with the conversation with people around me there were also different organizations floating about. A web site called, “divided we fail.org” was handing out hats made in China, and the Sierra Club (which concerns the environment) was handing out stickers made from non-recycled material. I asked the girl handing out the stickers why they weren’t – she had no answer. I am not sure who, or even if, clearance was needed to allow these groups to be there. But the hypocrisy was apparent.

At 3:45pm – the time we were supposed to be inside – the group started chanting, “3:45, 3:45”. This did not last long, which was the theme to all of the enthusiasm of the event. Just before four we finally were let in. Inside it was mad dash for seats when we let in. At first everywhere seemed full, but we were able to find seats a row behind the media (which extends 6 or so rows in the middle of the auditorium.) This kind of annoyed me as I thought it was a chance for the voters to see and hear Obama and the feel inside was much more like a photo opt. To the extent of us being yelled at to not hold up signs because it would block the view of the cameras. To be fair this was first started by the camera guy himself, but it was upheld by someone in the Obama camp. I leaned back and asked some media members in the row behind me, “what are they going to do when we stand up?” The cameras were going to be blocked then. This enraged me. The campaign Obama is running, all his words anyway, contradict the way the event was run. The wait inside was close to 2 hours. The group got antsy with nothing going on to inform and no one around knew what was going on. It was so poorly put together I seriously thought I could have put this on light years ahead of where it was. There were two college age girls who were credited with organizing it, and there failure spoke loud to me. Are these the people Obama is going to have around him? The machine around someone counts a lot and Obama’s machine had a lot lacking. It even got to the point where people were not allowed to leave the auditorium to go the bathroom. We were in essence quarantined in the auditorium for our almost 2 hour wait. During this time there were a lot of teases. About 20 minutes before Obama showed up the lights went out and the crowd geared up for an entrance. Only to have the light come back on and a brief chorus of boos echoed throughout. Over an hour into our wait a voice without a face announced to us that Obama was on his way and would be here soon. This insighted more boos and a chants of “when”. 

When Obama arrived the mostly college age crowd, who was dulled by the wait, was still more the ready to explode. He was obviously exhausted and his voice was horse. He was charismatic, articulate, and stirred the group. However, after an initial jolt of excitement my mind became more objective. It was in these moments were I saw that this was suppose to be a rally. He repeated his catch phrases and power points, but offered nothing to back them up; giving zero explanations of how he would get these accomplished. His repetition of the word hope seemed to blur into hype. In total the crowd waited over 3 hours and he spoke just over thirty minutes.

Afterwards I struck up a conversation with a guy from the web site earful.com. We went over a lot of issues comparing and contrasting them, Obama vs. Hillary. We also went over how the event was organized and our ideas that would have improved it. He was  probably in his forties and it was clear, in a subtle way, he saw a passion and wanted to encourage me to volunteer (which he said a few times). After talking we found on of the main organizers and spoke with her for awhile. This is one of those times, as I am offering advice on how to produce a better event, where it hit me I should not be able, or feel the need, to have this conversation.

It was an eye opening event. My first political event. I just wish it did not seem like a student council/sports rally

Reimagined Inauguration

After high school the internet’s luster drained out of my imagination. I had been there since the first version of AOL (and when NetZero was still free) and did not see any uncharted forums ahead. In 2003 a childhood friend introduced me to Friendster (which I never fully got involved with until 2004). It wasn’t until the beginning of summer 2006 that the novelty and innovation that Al Gore brought us regained the feeling I had for it in 1995 (for now youtube, goggle, and myspace rule the fiber optic wires. I was able to connect to authors, musicians, directors, actors, people in Sweden and Australia.) The concept of ‘The World Is Flat’ now applies to everyone.

 

This is the first cog in what will be an exciting 2008 for me. In early January I will launch a web site dedicated to promoting me and my writing. I choose to have my blog home here, with a link to it on my web site. This was mainly because I dig the format and, honestly, it was easier. Curt Shilling’s blog home is here, so it is good enough for me.

The title of my blog is, “Until The Noose Breaks My Neck”. I thought it fit because, although it holds a very specific meaning to me, it can be interrupted in many different ways. I hope to parlay this into something of significance. Please stay tuned while the muse is summoned….