SouthJaw

The mainstream media are still too busy grooming themselves - or whatever they do instead of digging up and reporting news - to get with the real story on the streets: that most of the country agrees that Bush should be impeached for illegally wiretapping US citizens.

Well, Southjaw is always up for a good impeachment hearing - soooooooo much more interesting than the totally predictable Supreme Court nomination hearings, which are like watching the same show over and over and over again.

If you want to see this discussion move forward with the powers that be, I'd say do all of the below:

• sign the petition
  
• call and write your congressional representative
  
• contact all the local and national media outlets you know of and ask why they are ignoring the story about the national desire for Bush's impeachment.
  

That ought to keep you busy for a little while.

After a nearly two year abscess absence, Southjaw is back and working up an attitude for blogging. Keep yer eyes open, citoyens.

- SJ

Friends:

What do Isaac Newton and Jay Van Andel have in common? OK, not much on the surface ... but their ideas and legacies have a real impact on this year's presidential campaign. Let me explain.

First, on Newton's laws of motion: the longer Dubya's numbers stay more or less where they are now, the harder it will be to keep him to one term. The sooner his opponents can turn his momentum downward, the easier the fight (for us on the good side) will be when it gets down to the wire. A body at rest - whatever the party - won't go anywhere without a little shove. And right now I just don't see enough shoving going on.

So much for the Newton piece of things. On to Van Andel and pyramid marketing schemes.
(That last link goes to a long story, but I recommend reading all the way to the bottom where you get choice info about how cozy the "MLMs" are with the Republican party. One of the schemes mentioned there is Equinox, which has a special place in my heart: as a jobless young man just back from the Peace Corps in 1995 and living in Atlanta with friends, I responded to an ad Equinox ran in the paper - thinking I was getting involved in a company that provided environmentally friendly merchandise. One of the creepier experiences I have had in life - to be fleshed out in a later note on the connections among the Republican Party, the Religious Right, and a number of other cults.)

But I digress. What do honest, hardworking Republicans have to do with pyramid schemes - other than accepting bucketloads of campaign money from their founders and speaking at their conferences? Well folks, this year the GOP has adopted the pyramid model to take over the exurbs in battleground states like Ohio. And this brings me to the crux of the matter.

With Newton's laws of motion, with pyramid marketing, with organized crime and with politics, the inherent qualities of the actual product don't matter one bit. What does matter is the force applied to move that product, or body, or candidate, in one direction or another. I'm interested in moving one body out of the White House and a different one in.

Over the past week or so I have heard a number of progressive-minded friends bemoaning the fact that in John Kerry we don't have a really compelling, inspiring candidate who can take the fight to Bush. To that I say this: Dubya did what he did in the election of 2000 not because he was particularly compelling or inspiring as a candidate, but because the GOP leadership mobilized the field organization to turn out the right wing vote - and keep their opponents from voting. It worked, and you can bet they are going to try hard to do it again in 2004.

The question is this: What will progressives do differently this time around? Will we get into the same passionate email exchanges with our left-of-rational friends who still want to vote for Nader? Pick up a Kerry bumper-sticker in August? Yell at the TV when we see the disingenuous campaign ads paid for from Bush's gazillion dollar war chest?

Or will we actually open up our own wallets and pay to change things? Will we get out in our communities and make sure people understand the reasons to vote for Kerry, and against Bush?

The momentum is ours to create. The inertia is Bush's to lose. Now is the time to act.

Tonight, at the Philadelphia film festival, Mrs. SouthJaw and I watched "Orwell Rolls in His Grave" (www.orwellrollsinhisgrave.com), a documentary film about the eerie meeting of illusion-fueled Republican political ascension, deregulation-fueled media conglomeration, and ignorance-fueled passification of our society. I was moved and profoundly disturbed. It was everything a religious experience should be.

Keep your eye out for a few features of this blog ... am learning my way around so it may be a while, but I will try to keep a running tally of voters I have registered, as well as a few other "civic engagement" lessons learned. While I am a firm believer in - and fervent advocate of - the blogosphere, I also am fairly confident that there is a bit too much mutual intellectual stroking and a bit too little real-world political engagement in the blogosphere. Call me a heretic, but that's my take on things for now. Hope it changes.

Please join in the conversation, but adhere to a few simple rules:

1) Keep it clean - no nasty words unless used in a very clever way. The proper use of profanity is an art form, and its place in the lexicon is threatened by those who throw around four-letter words willy-nilly. Think before you blog.

2) Try to stick to some fundamental debate principles. Feel free to impugn motives - but only after you have addressed and dismantled arguments. "Gotcha" debate is for losers and smirking chimps.

3) No cheap jokes about hillbillies marrying their cousins. Something a little less 19th century would be a better showcase for your sharp wit.

Other than that it's a free-for-all until I make up more rules. Thanks for stopping by.