And rightfully so...
Recently there has been a congressional endorsement, a number of landmark speeches addressing the real problems America faces, a couple of magazine covers and a movie, to be released next month that promises to be the next F911.
And now Mr. Neel...
On ML King Day he was blacked out by the MSM, but he still reached millions via CSPAN, the Internet and the blogs.
I purchased the speech on DVD from CSPAN and it took 3 weeks to arrive, leading me to believe it was popular.
I am not a kid, nor am I disposed toward tilting at windmills. I became a political junkie at age 12, in 1968, my baptism of fire being the Chicago Convention which I attended asa young page from Oklahoma. Suffice as to say that the "bug" lives here...
In 2000 I attended an event sponsored by the local Democrats (I have lived in Silicon Valley since 1969) and spoke with many of the leading lights in the unions and the party. I was startled at the lukewarm support for Gore, I was surprised by how many felt that he would lose to Bush hands down and it wouldn't be so bad... The Shrub would be a quick one-termer like his dad... How much damage could he do, in one term with a Democratic Congress? In light of the rather dismal debates, the outrageous media slams on Gore and the teflon being dripped all over Bush, it was not hard to see why. In retrospect we saw the beginnings of the current media environment during that campaign, the echo chamber found the designer steroids and went into high gear. We have been ruled by half-truths and spin ever since.
After Florida, on December 12, 2000, I resolved that I must do more, do something, now! I went back to the boards, writing furiously every night, I actually sent money to the party and went out and pounded pavement as well as my keyboard. 2002 showed us the new pattern, in Georgia and New Hampshire they hacked the election in key locales and out pops a Republican Congress.
As I said before, I am not a true believer, I live in the reality based world, I meet a payroll, pay taxes on time and carry lots of insurance... It seemed inconceivable to me that this boob would be re-elected in 2004, the Demo nominee would be President. Unless of course he was not "electable"... by that I meant anyone warming a Senate seat who has not also served as a Governor or with other executive experience. Surveying the field of candidates it seemed that Kerry and Edwards were not "electable"...no sitting Senator has been elected President since the last fellow sitting in a Mass. Senate seat with the initials JFK, in 1960...and Mr. Kerry you are no John Kennedy... Faced with certain defeat in his Senate re-election and seeing a Presidential campaign as possible step up or at the very least out with a bang, John Edwards really had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Senators make very poor candidates due to the nature of the legislative process, they are forced to discuss positions they have taken in the past that are very hard to defend in a 30 second sound bite, the nuance of moving a bill through the Congress is lost on the peanut gallery and doesn't have the same impact as a simple declarative sentence. I am still trying to wrap my mind around Mr. Kerry's reasoning on the War Authorization vote...
It then came down to Al Gore or Howard Dean. Al wasn't running, not with a beard (LOL). So in early March of 2003 I attended a Meet-up for Howard at a local residence. There were some 60 people there for this first meeting, including my Congresswoman. For the next 21 months we worked our tails off, the group expanded to over 800 listed on our yahoo group, just from Silicon Valley, that group is still active as one the largest Democratic Club in Santa Clara Co, DFA lives!. We fielded delegate slates, registered hundreds of voters and were poised to go all out on Primary Day...selected in the 16th Congressional District as a Dean Delegate, I can report that I got nowhere near the Convention Hall as The Conventional Wisdom triumphed and Kerry-Edwards got the nod...
In an honest election they would have won.
That is the problem we must face squarely, the system has been hacked. In order to rebuild faith in our Democracy, the people must have faith that the votes are counted and that they count...it matters not why many people feel the system is not honest, when 25-30% of the electorate believe the system is corrupt, that very perception is dangerous to our process. This issue must take precedence over all others or we will never see our Republic in the same way, for it will be dead. If we allow democracy to be manipulated by the powerful as is now being done on several levels, all the shoe leather in the world won't elect our candidates. We must have an equal and transparent process, controlled by the people's representatives, not corporations owned by Republicans.
Then we can get to rebuilding a Democratic Media to counter the thrashing we get everyday on cable and talk radio, generate some truth telling about the Corporate State, before it overwhelms the Republic and the environment.
I want Al Gore to preside over this regeneration of America, nothing could be more poetic than for this Tennessean to pick up the mantle of Andy Jackson and take back this country, for it's People.
I pledge the max, and I can speak for at least my family. if not all of DFA. Say the word and an army awaits, happy warriors seasoned by years in the trenches. Al, you don't need the "moneymen", you don't need the "advisers", you don't need speechwriters, you have found your voice and we the People will carry you to the White House. We will raise $50 million dollars in the first cycle, in weeks...not months. Your biggest problem will be how to keep order as the ranks swell quickly. You will be opposed by the entire media, you will roasted and skewered, tarred and feathered and hung in effigy everyday on the Fox Network, but elected you will be... if you speak truth to power and the American People. No teleprompters needed, we will save a bundle on focus groups by not having any, we are already focused.
Now I don't know Mr. Gore personally, I think I caught sight of him once, after 2000, at a Dead show, we had to wait for his limo and entourage to leave the backstage area, gladly waited I might add. This experience alone would be enough for me to love the man... No,I don't know his heart, I can't see inside his fears and hopes, although I have some small idea of what he faces. Most men who have worked for four decades or more can sit back in the "Golden Years" and rest upon the well earned laurels of a lifetime, secure in the knowledge of a job completed or at least retired from... at 50 I have a deep apreciation of this feeling... In my career I have been mostly self-employed, there have been ups anddowns, lately downs as the economy tanked, the War upturned the raw material markets and the insurance industry recovered by raising everybody's rates..., so I am left unfulfilled and I hope a similar knawing in the gut is what Al Gore feels every morning.
I will be happy to help him slake that bit of gut wrenching, and millions more will as well.
RG Johnson
San Jose CA