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Tantrum Politics

Aw, man.

Okay.

Listen.

I think Kyle is just having fun, partly, and, if so, Ysoie's
threat-of-bodily-harm has already answered him with apropriate laughter. 
So consider this just a general thought.

When we make big, sweeping, angry, content-free comments about politics
and American life we do manage to register a protest.  It does something.
 It's the George Carlin effect.  The gadfly thing, maybe.  But at this
stage in the mass media age, **everyone** is mastering this strategy. 
Politicians run and win elections on big, glittering god and devil
issues.  BAD!  GOOD!  Which is the kind of stuff that's been coming over
the list.

So what I wanna read is someone who really disagrees with Elizabeth Dole.
 I don't want to hear ridiculous assertions about her sexual frustration
and how that will lead to nuclear war.  Because that's hiding.  You don't
put your butt on the line when you're just pushing and shoving and
demanding that one thing is GOOD and the other is BAD.  You're just a
bully with that approach (and, so, I'm saying that most of our
politicians and newspeople and teachers and leaders of all sorts are
making bullies of themselves in unacceptable ways).  What I want to see
in this context is a real risk.  I want to see someone really say that
they see some issue in E Dole's platform that is truly odious or truly
inspiring, and I want to know why.  And I want us to look at politicians
in complex ways: we can like some of Dole's stance's and dislike others;
that's possible; that's life.  

Whenever we choose someone to vote for, it's going to be with the
understanding that we don't agree with them 100%.  We always choose the
best one of the imperefect choices, and the choices are always imperfect,
and this is not a new phenomena.  The thing about our system in the USA
is that it is designed to constantly change.  We change out our major
leader a minimum of every eight years.  In that time, a leader can only
provoke a limited number of new things--meaning they can't completely
make or unmake the system.  We have this revolutionary attitude that we
inherited from our origins as a rebel colony high on European political
philosophy.  We're all about the revolution.  Every presidential election
is seen as a battle to the death.  But come on, now.  We know that it's
just the next little piece.  Our president doesn't have to achieve
utopia, and if our system is not creating a utopia for us, that's partly
b/c utopia is not possible.  Not with human beings.  So we choose a
leader and we agitate for change where that leader is not doing things we
see as important, and we praise where they do good stuff, and there's
nothing wrong with combining a bit of unrest with a bit of praise. 
Nobody and nothing on earth is all good or all bad.  

So what I wanna see is our brains and thoughts on the line, and what I
don't wanna see is a bunch of people who smash to bits anyone who dares
to support something.  Or, rather, if you're going to tear up some idea
or someone who has ideas, please do so with a degree of self-risk.  Tell
us what you think is wrong and why and what, realistically (that is
**so** key), you think should be done.  We can whine about how imperfect
things are, or we can whine about what we would do . . . ya know?

Just thought I should speak . . . 

Fred


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