I Cogitate
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Can he pull it off?
Try all this on for size:
"...The choice we must make is as important as it is clear.and
It is a choice between looking back and looking forward.
A choice between the way we've always done it and the way we could do it if we dared.
A choice between corporate power and the power of democracy.
Between a corrupt and corroded system and a government that works for us again.
It is caution versus courage. Old versus new. Calculation versus principle.
It is the establishment elites versus the American people...
"...It's not just that the answers of the past aren't up to the job today, it's that the system that produced them was corrupt -- and still is. It's controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water. And it's perpetuated by a media that too often fawns over the establishment, but fails to seriously cover the challenges we face or the solutions being proposed. This is the game of American politics and in this game, the interests of regular Americans don't stand a chance.Just who in the heck is this radical?
Real change starts with being honest -- the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It's rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It's rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it's rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They'll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are -- not for the country, but for themselves.
Politicians who care more about their careers than their constituents go along to get elected. They make easy promises to voters instead of challenging them to take responsibility for our country. And then they compromise even those promises to keep the lobbyists happy and the contributions coming.
Instead of serving the people and the nation, too many play the parlor game of Washington -- trading favors and campaign money, influencing votes and compromising legislation. It's a game that never ends, but every American knows -- it's time to end the game.
And it's time for the Democratic Party -- the party of the people -- to end it.
The choice for our party could not be more clear. We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other..."
It was John Edwards on August 23 speaking in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Edwards certainly is saying what I want to hear, spotlighting what the election of 2008 is all about -- even more so than Iraq which is but a symptom -- the reclamation, some would say the instituting of democracy in the United States.
Edwards' is a message which has the ability to resonate and take root with a majority of the electorate. But despite the appeal to many demographics throughout this country and despite 2008 being labeled an election about change, the underlying fear factor of change and the type of change Edwards is endorsing will still need countering.
Because what will happen, sure as George Bush continuing with his lifelong pathology of lying and the mainstream media deciding on a mass presidential meme and sticking with it regardless of reality, is that Edwards, if he advances towards the nomination, will be branded.
He will be labeled as a devisive and dangerous radical who wishes to divide, not 'heal' the country. His shadow figure will be depicted as someone who will throw life as we know it completely upside down so it will be incredibly important for him or any candidate advocating such to place tremendous emphasis on the 'landing place' and why it will be better for most.
Wall Street. corporate America, the mass media, the aristocracy -- any entities who would lose power, control and profit will certainly not go gentle into that good night. Whatever the American gestapo should be accurately called, the professionals and the mercenaries, will be employed in distorting the Edwards message into one that strikes fear. Fully expect the FBI and even the CIA to also have involvement in the chicanery under the guise of national security.
It won't be pretty.
But fights over jurisdiction and direction always are.
And any bearer, not just Edwards, of such a message of heretical change will be personally demonized to lengths never before seen. It will take a special person, one who can somehow still connect with people over the hellacious and destructive 'noise' directed at him or her, in order to succeed.
So such a full-fledged change agent will need to be quite the messenger. He or she must be likeable or seen as likeable and will also need to be identifiable. That is, a majority of the electorate will need to see him or her as one of them, or a reasonable facsimile. Such is a difficult task, that of appealing to a wide strata of the socio-economic makeup of this country while receiving incoming ordnance from the elite.
Is this John Edwards?
Can he connect with enough, be likeable and identifiable to enough, in spite of the subterfuge he will encounter?
Bedtime for Gonzo
Everyone and his sister has something to say about today's resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales so I'll leave it to the two best bits I came across so far:
James Moore, in his Huffington Post piece today has a great one line summary: "It's impossible to know if there was something broken inside Gonzales from the beginning or if the amorality of the people who surrounded him in the Bush circle somehow darkened his bright American rise."
and
Illinois congressman Rahm Emanuel offers the best one-liner: "Alberto Gonzales is the first Attorney General who thought the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth were three different things.
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