The Blog of toussaint

There is a great documentary called " The F Word" that i would recommend for all the politically minded out there.  It is very thought provoking.  It is about the protest in New York leading up to the Republican convention to re-nominate Bush.  Did you know that a million people came out to protest all that week?  i am guessing not because the mainstream media did not cover it.  Most of the people out there were protesting Bush and his war but there were people supporting Bush as well.  The guy interviewing people was a radio talk show host who was being shut down by the FCC for violations of the new obscenity laws that come with fines that most small broadcasters can't afford to pay.  This has the affect of putting people out of business for their first violation.  Obviously, he said the "F" word once and was being shut down.  The movie takes place on his last day on air so he was really letting the powers that be have it.

In one interview, a guy on the street said, "In this country we are taught to vote against people instead of for people because our choice is usually between bad and worse."  He is so right and it made me think back to all the votes i ever cast and i realized just how right he was.  It seems as though every time i go vote it is to stop some heinous proposition or to stop Bush.  Tell the truth, how many of you were voting in the last election to stop either Bush or Kerry?  i voted for Kerry but i assure you that i was holding my nose at the same time.  In that election, he was bad and Bush was worse.  i wonder who will fill the bill this time, Hillary and Rudy?  With the Democrats (or masochists),  and the Republicans (or sadists), one would think that the average voter must be into bondage. Unfortunately i get no pleasure from either one.  Maybe one day we will get candidates that we can really believe in and feel good about our votes but i would not bet on it because we keep accepting this crap.

An even more disturbing thought hit me while watching this flick:  it is getting more and more difficult to affect change in this country unless you have a boat load of cash to give a candidate or use some form of violence.  Did you know that the largest protest in human history happened just before the war?  Millions of people all over the world peacefully protested against the war in Iraq and nobody paid any attention to it.  The media at least mentioned it, but they did not cover it extensively as you might think they should. It seems as though the only way to force the media to cover something is to own the media, or to blow things up, have a riot, and kill people.  This is a very dangerous precedent we are establishing.  If we don't start paying attention to peaceful protests, the disenfranchised among us will be forced to take more drastic action.  Do we really want more planes crashing into things or have car bombs going off in our major cities?  We had better take heed before it is too late.