Of all places...

Arkansas?

These days, I rabidly seek good news whereever it might be. Every small step in the proper direction keeps a spark of optimism alive in me.

Honest Abe knew in 1864!

The cover story in this month's issue of Ode Magazine, "This Idea Can Save The Planet" speaks to calling for more corporate moral responsibility through changing the economic rules so that corporations are no longer protected by "limited liability."

In reading through the article, I was especially struck by a quote from a letter attributed to Abraham Lincoln, one hundred forty years ago! (from Ode's article:) In a letter written in 1864 Abraham Lincoln warned that “corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow …until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed.”

Corporations are a funny conundrum.... under corporate power, so much progress, so many gains... but less and less accountability, social responsibility.

So little old me - I try to make sure my pittence goes in the right direction... I live in very blue Vermont and support the local economy and small independent businesses at every opportunity, but even good-hearted efforts at operating a business in a socially responsible manner meet with "messy realities." What to do?

It's mindblowing... every time I peek around an internet corner, I find affirmation of what I believe.
The question becomes how to take all of these voices, all of this passion, and turn it into the kind of political clout and power that can start to move this country in a direction other than the one it is headed in?

Oh... and maybe I need to read more carefully - I just clicked on the link on the Blogger home page to 10 Things We Learned About Blogs and then jumped back when I realized (duh!) that it was Time magazine - the same Time magazine that, oh well... I just should have read more carefully!

Blog of the Year

Unfortunately, the same issue of Time Magazine that all but heralds 2004 as the year of the blog also names George W. Bush the Person of the Year (may require a subscription). Clearly, the year not only produced an oil shortage but a dearth of admirable people as well. To be fair, Time doesn’t require admirability in their Person of the Year. Perhaps they figured that winning the election (sort of) with so many failures on his record was the most remarkable achievement of the year. Daily Kos sums up the topic rather neatly.

On the blog side, Power Line, the blog of John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson, unofficially gets Blog of the Year, theirs being the blog that began the questioning of Dan Rather’s sources on the forged Bush memo. In the end, their “investigative journalism” merely led them to wondering if the forged memo came from the Kerry campaign.

I think (meaning I have no proof or sources, just a feeling in my gut) that the forged memo came from the Bush campaign. In the spirit of Deep Throat’s advice to “follow the money,” I can think of no one else who had more to gain than the Bush Camp. No one but the most devout of Republicans believes that George W. Bush actually served all of his time in the National Guard. But here was this forged memo and there was Dan Rather, too excited to do due diligence, and then the story became about Dan Rather’s dereliction of duty rather than W’s.

Brilliant, Karl. Really brilliant. You probably should have been chosen as Person of the Year.

I Wanna Blog

Not to turn this into a blog about blogging, but I think that one of the greater purposes that blogs can serve is in providing a place for people to keep talking about the things that need saying. The things that bear repeating, until they fall on the right ears or enough ears for change to occur. And not just any old change. Directed change. Meaningful change. Change that makes the world better, and no, not just for some but for many.

For example, the corporatization of America concerns me; heck it frightens me. (Enough to use a word that isn’t a word yet.) It can’t be good for the country (or the world for that matter) to have unaccountable entities having so much power. According to the Corporate Accountability Project, “Of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are now corporations and 49 are countries.”

This week's Sojourners article is about two corporations: one that enhanced it’s community and one that sucks the life out of them.

With their money, corporations are able to lobby and buy our representatives in a way you and I never could and consequently have more say in government than we do. The First Amendment rights of corporations eclipse the First Amendment rights of the people.

That's cause for fright. But I think there are things we can do, or not do as the case may be. For starters, we could not shop at WalMart. We can make a point to buy the things we need from local merchants. In fact, we can make a point of buying the things we need and even the things we want but definitely not the things we don’t need or want.

I’m looking forward to reading John Perkins’ book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. I heard an interview with him on Air America Radio and both he and the book sound interesting.

That’s a start.

Not to get Blogged down in the details

Blogging, like the internet itself, gives voice to all. Certainly better than the voice of a few being forced into our eyes and ears, but is blogging the pendulum swung to the opposite extreme?

More information also means more misinformation - how, pray tell, to sort through it all and separate the wheat from the chaff when we are already bombarded constantly by more than we can possibly take in? Blogged or not, what can we believe?

The internet and blogs allowed Vermont's former Governor, Howard Dean, rise from obscurity to familiarity - but it was more than blogging alone - it was meet-ups, too. Face-to-face in many a place, but still he could not win the race (ooops - slipped into Seussism...)

Where were the grassroots voices pre-blog? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

Hey - is it time to head north?
Canada - the country for blue-staters?

The Blog Estate

Apart from love, Blogging could be the new Killer App.

Have you been wondering why so much news goes unreported or uncovered by the major media outlets lately? Media ownership is in the hands of seven (that’s 7) major corporations, according to Who Owns the Media. (In case you’re interested, this topic is also covered by the NOW Foundation, TurnOffYourTV.com, and the Columbia Journalism Review among others.)

Since corporations are in business to make money (even though they let bigotry stand in the way of revenue by refusing to run an ad from the UCC), it’s rather naive to imagine that these corporate interests have anything in common with the public interest. Whether you want to attribute the demise of the liberal media to a right-wing conspiracy or to corporate synergy, the public still loses.

Enter the Blog, the grassroots tool to catch the news and opinions that would otherwise fall through the cracks. At their best, Blogs can give everyone the opportunity to share their findings and opinions with everyone else, providing individual-level forums for discussion and argument (in the philosophical sense). Furthermore, we can learn about an issue, explore its subtleties and nuances, and allow our opinions to evolve instead of dispensing the usual red team/blue team knee-jerk reactions. In the end, we may still disagree with one another but our disparities might be based on thoughtful reflection and consideration on an ever-widening pool of available facts.

On the other hand, I could just be an idealistic, naive sap. Television failed to live up to its potential and became a vast wasteland. The Internet is certainly following in its footsteps. Any day, Google (owner of Blogger.com) could be bought by Rupert Murdoch or GE. It could happen.

Some things change, some do not

And so, some twenty years later, the world has changed, technology has changed, and Phyllis and Sophie have also changed... but with all that changes, some things remain the same.

Before "The DishRag" and the keyboard and the monitor (and dare I say, the bass amp,) there were scores of yellow legal pads and pencils - mostly sharp, sometimes not. The intent has always been to examine truths, however painful they might be. Certainly, today's world is (over)ripe for such examination. Blogging takes the place of staring over shoulders and unseating the typist.

Thanks for the invite, Sophie. Let's Rant. Let's Rave.

Phyllis

Long ago in a not-too-distant land...

Two young women ran a gay newsletter named The Dish Rag out of a basement. Coming out was not yet in vogue, so the two labored in near secrecy; only a handful of people (or two) knew the real identities of Phyllis and Sophie.

One of the more popular features in The Dish Rag was the Ranting & Raving column, in which Phyllis and Sophie would explore a topic, tongue in cheek (most of the time), until they'd arrived at a conclusion, or not. Here's how it worked: one would start typing into the keyboard while the other stood behind, staring over the typing-one's shoulder, at the monitor, chomping at the bit, until she could stand no more. Then she would literally push the other off the seat and continue typing where the other left off. This volleying would continue until the topic had either reached a conclusion, been exhausted, used up its allocated space for that issue, or some combination thereof.

So, two decades later, the real people behind Phyllis and Sophie are out and still only that same handful (or two) know who they are and someone invented Blog technology (but I don't know who).

So, we're back. And given the plethora of topics available today, not a moment too soon.