September Wrap-Up

I'm back now. After a couple of weeks of not entering anything here, I'm going to try to pick up the pace once again. I dropped out of blogging partly because of busy-ness, but also because I get the feeling that no one is reading any of this stuff and I can see why. It's my diary and most people have many other priorities than catching up on the details of my fairly commonplace life. Though I think it's a useful, purposeful existence anyway, I don't make much of a habit of reading others' diaries so why would I expect anyone to check in regularly on mine? But if anyone wants to leave a comment and prove me wrong, please do!

OK, so here's what's been happening. My son Derek had a seizure on Friday, September 17. It occurred at the end of a long day for him, where he'd been marching in a parade and the high school football game. He'd also not eaten very much all day. But it was still very emotionally draining to see this happen to him again. He's not had a seizure since he was 5 or 6 years old, when he had a series of them over the course of several months. Even now, a couple of seizure-free weeks later, it still wierds me out to relive that moment when his eyes rolled back and he just drifted away from all of us for a few minutes, coming back a bit later, after 911 had been called and some concerned friends and relatives who happened to be at the house around 10 pm gathered around to see what was happening to our dear son. I could, but I won't, try to put in the words how much love and tenderness I felt for Derek at those moments. I love all my kids, but he has a special place in my heart, partly because of this sense of physical vulnerability that he's had since early in his life, but also because he has such a sweet, pure, enigmatic soul.

So we wound up going to the emergency room and going through some tests, deciding that overall he is probably OK, got over-exerted and underfed from the busy day and that as long as we or he keeps an eye on his food intake, we probably won't have too many more of these problems.

Moving on to other things. IGE and various peace/political/activist events have been keeping me busy, usually a couple of times per week at least. On Monday, I moderated a workshop on draft awareness, military service and conscientious objector status at Grand Rapids Community College. We've also had the regular WMJPC meetings and some rearrangement of furniture and office space at IGE. Tonight, Cate Edwards (daughter of VP Candidate John) is appearing at the Wealthy Theatre where the first Kerry-Bush debate of 2004 will be broadcast on a big screen. I'd like to go, but Julie would rather have me stay home so I will. But we will watch the debates and hopefully have some fun with it. On Sunday, I am hoping to work at the Pearl Jam concert at the Deltaplex, part of the Vote for Change tour sponsored by MoveOn.org, but I'm not certain that I'll be able to get in. WMJPC is supposedly going to have a table there but I haven't heard of any definitive plans. Gotta check with Jane about this. The next night, Monday, I will be working the book table at a lecture given by Gary Dorrien on his new book, Imperial Designs. Tuesday is the IGE board meeting and Thursday, IGE is hosting an open forum talk on the presidential election and what's a peace activist to do in choosing between Kerry, Nader, Cobb or some other alternative? And I think that pace may continue up until the election, and then who knows what kind of madness we'll be dealing with after that?

And now we've resumed working at the Van Andel Arena (I was at the Phil Collins concert, the Professional Bull Riders competition and the Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey Circus over the past two weeks.) We're signed up for a Detroit Pistons exhibition basketball game, and a Cher/Village People concert in November, and there are a lot of Griffins games that I could choose from too, but we'll see. Most are on Friday nights and I might want to do other things...

I won't even get into work stuff here, but there's a lot going on. Mostly good/manageable, but there are some thorny and potentially wrenching/emotional situations going on with a few of our staff that I will need to help resolve.

It's dinner time, I'll link this stuff up later!

David Cobb, Presidential Candidate

I got the chance to meet a presidential candidate, up close and personal today, though only for a few minutes. He's David Cobb, put forth by the Green Party to lead our country as the President of the United States of America. He did a short campaign stop in downtown Grand Rapids today, more a media event than a large rally. By the time I got there, which was close to wind-down time, there were only a few bystanders present, as well as media reps and cameramen. Not a very big deal from all appearances, but the fact is, Cobb is a bonafide candidate on many, maybe most state ballots, and I got to shake his hand and also get in some pictures with him, which I will try to get a copy of and post here at a later time. His website has a lot more information about him than I can say - I mainly went because my friend Jane, who is a dedicated Green Party organizer as well as an ally in my work at IGE, helped coordinate his visit here and told me about it. I am probably a good potential recruit for the Green Party somewhere down the line, but for now I'm looking to stick with Kerry and give the Democrats one more chance (at least.) If they can't pull it off this time, in 2004, then I may just go Green for keeps.

Hijacking Catastrophe

I just saw a powerful documentary last night titled Hijacking Catastrophe which lets the words of Bush and his key players speak for themselves in demonstrating the injustice of the war in Iraq and the general conduct of American foreign policy toward the Middle East under the guise of the War on Terrorism.

From the website, here's the synopsis.

SYNOPSIS: Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire examines how a radical fringe of the Republican Party used the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks to advance a pre-existing agenda to radically transform American foreign policy while rolling back civil liberties and social programs at home. The documentary places the Bush Administration's false justifications for war in Iraq within the larger context of a two-decade struggle by neoconservatives to dramatically increase military spending in the wake of the Cold War, and to expand American power globally by means of military force. At the same time, the documentary argues that the Bush Administration has sold this radical and controversial plan for aggressive American military intervention by deliberately manipulating intelligence, political imagery, and the fears of the American people after 9/11.

Narrated by Julian Bond, Hijacking Catastrophe features interviews with more than twenty prominent political observers, including Pentagon whistleblower Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who witnessed first-hand how the Bush Administration set up a sophisticated propaganda operation to link the anxieties generated by 9/11 to a pre-existing foreign policy agenda that included a preemptive war on Iraq.

Joining Kwiatkowski in a wide-ranging, accessible, and ultimately empowering analysis are former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, former Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer, MIT professor Noam Chomsky, Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin, defense policy analyst William Hartung, author Chalmers Johnson, Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Stan Goff (Ret.).

At its core, the film places the deceptions of the Bush Administration within the larger frame of questions seldom posed in the mainstream: What, exactly, is the agenda that drove the administration's pre-war deceptions? How is 9/11 being used to sell this agenda? And what are the stakes for America, Americans, and the world if this agenda succeeds in being fully implemented during a second Bush term? (end of synopsis)

This film is similar to Fahrenheit 9/11 without the trademark sarcasm/satire/silliness of Michael Moore, which makes it less entertaining but also harder hitting and not so easy to dismiss (though some obviously will anyway.) It also won't rake in over $100 million. :o)

But if you get a chance to see it, or want to order a copy for $20 and show it to friends, I recommend it highly.

The Court System - My Verdict: "Screwed Up!"

A couple of Thursdays ago I reported, as ordered, to the District 62-A courthouse near City Hall in Wyoming, MI to sit on a pool of potential jurors. Mine was the third name drawn, and I was selected to be a juror on a criminal matter involving an alleged incident of assault that took place at an auto parts store on South Division Avenue, the road that divides East from West as far as the quadrants of Grand Rapids are concerned. Since I was a sworn officer of the court, I upheld my responsibilities by not blogging about it here or talking about it with anyone else. The hearing was scheduled for today, but I had to call in last night to make sure that the case would proceed today, and the phone message informed me that I would indeed need to report at 1:00 pm on Monday, September 13. This morning, I took care of wrapping up my work duties in time to be out of the office by 12:40 pm and reported to the courthouse several minutes early. When I got there, I was informed that the hearing had been rescheduled and that I would not have to sit on the jury on that future date. I was paid $22.50 (thank you very much!) and set loose to do whatever I wanted to for the rest of the day. After pondering the options for a few minutes, I decided to just go home, get some lunch and not return to work. I've spent the time this afternoon catching up on emails, browsing various articles on the internet (I'll link a few here and here and here and here and here to give you a sense of what I found...) and now I'm updating my blog.

I would like to know more about what led to the cancellation. I was looking forward to being a part of the criminal justice process and now I'm disappointed that I apparently won't get that chance. Not that I relish the idea of having to sit in judgment and possibly send someone to prison, but I would have liked to seen what steps are taken to ensure that justice is served and I was especially interested in getting to the deliberations where the other jurors and I would have to arrive at a verdict. But all those hopes were dashed, for who knows what reason? The security guards only had me sign a paper and offered me cash for the inconvenience but had either no clue or no permission to tell me anymore about what had changed between last night and this afternoon. Probably it was just some technical glitch, or a cancellation from one of the witnesses, or some otherwise mundane complication. But in the process, a couple hundred bucks were just paid out to us jurors for no reason. And my civic zeal has been diminished, just when I was beginning to feel some enthusiasm about getting involved in changing the system - in a positive way, that is!

Concise High Efficiency Update

Curt passed his road test and will soon receive his driver's license, the Michigan Tournament of Bands event at Wyoming Park HS was a success, I'm happy that the Detroit Lions won in Chicago and broke their record losing streak, I'm excited about the new office expansion happening at IGE, I am going to sit on a jury tomorrow to offer a verdict on a criminal matter in the City of Wyoming, I'm feeling less pessimistic about the political situation after checking out this map of the Electoral College, Iraq is (pardon the language) obviously just a big ol' fuck-up on the part of George W. Bush and the USA in general, now that I've just finished Bushwhacked I'm reading the book Culture Jam and it's affecting my thinking and possibly my habits but we'll have to wait and see on that, I received a contract in the mail that will eventually lead to the release of an official and authentic Church Police CD, and finally it looks like I might be getting an upgrade on my computer for free since Curt is buying a better processor chip for his computer from a friend and he says his old one will be an improvement from the one that I'm using which is nice because right now I'm typing faster than the computer is able to display the words that I have ordered. OK, now it's caught up so I think I can post this. So I will.

September 11, 2004 - Thoughts on Kerry and Bush

So the dreadful spot on the calendar arrives once again, the third anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington D.C. I have a busy day ahead of me, mostly involving volunteering for a tournament of marching bands involving Curt and Derek, plus taking Curt to his road test to earn his license to drive. But I'll take a few minutes to unload a few thoughts.

I am somewhat discouraged at the prospect of a Bush election victory in November. All along, of course, we faced the possibility that he would be an 8-year, not a 4-year president. But the prospect may be solidifying somewhat - he is leading in several polls and it looks like his campaign has been able to catch on with just enough people to push him over the top in that great "heartland of America." It will come down to turnout, when all is said and done, but it's going to be an uphill battle - nothing is going to come easy for "our side."

Pursuing this thought a bit further, it seems to me that at the heart of the difficulties faced by Kerry in this election is that he has a hard time connecting with the working definition of "Americanism" held by many people. Bush, for all his faults, still seems to fit the bill for a lot of our citizens as far as what they think an American leader should stand for. Don't let my calmness of expression mask the revulsion I feel at this realization! It makes me feel incredibly sad that somewhere around half of our voters are content to have such an unqualified and unenlightened person leading and representing this nation, but that is a fact that is hard to dispute, and even harder to change through appeals to reason and other forms of persuasion.

Bush's ability to wrap himself in the flag and stand up for "traditional values" resonates much better with people who highly value such characteristics. Kerry's a good, proud, sincere American, no doubt in my mind about that, but he's not "simplistic" (as I would say) or "resolute" (as his admirers would characterize it) as Bush appears to be. For Kerry, opinions and insights from the rest of the world really do matter, but Bush is able to simply dismiss all that as it suits his more single-minded interests. And his top advisors all seem to have similar traits, even Colin Powell, who is regularly put forth as the most sensible or reasonable member of Bush's cabinet. The ability to bulldoze straight through the counter-arguments put forth by political opponents when necessary, and completely ignore their points whenever possible, is what is most highly prized by those in Bush's inner circle and political base. Once the position is established, the mind is made up and then it's just a process of getting the rest of the world to fall in line or step out of the way. As Maureen Dowd's phrase describes Bushworld, "it's his reality - we just live and die in it."

Kerry, on the other hand, stops to listen, pauses to reflect, mulls it over a bit, then comes up with an answer that indicates he's given the matter consideration in its contemporary and historical context and avoids putting himself, to some extent, in a "locked" position that cuts off some of his options for later on in the process. In short, he thinks about things, recognizing the complexity of the details, the competing needs of various interested parties, and looks to creating a solution that maximizes the benefit for the broadest number of people. A lot of voters who might expect their leaders to apply that kind of wisdom to be applied to their personal concerns don't seem very keen on the idea that a president would apply his intellect in such a way. Indeed, Bush's appeal seems largely based on the fact that he doesn't ponder things, he just "prays about it" and goes with his gut instincts, a pattern of response that to some indicates "dependent faithfulness on God" and to others, the kind of archetypal "rugged individualism" embodied by the mythic American cowboy of the Old West. Though many of us see Bush as the quintessential poseur, given his aristocratic roots and Ivy League/Big Business connections, he has adopted enough of the Texan mannerisms to pass muster from the regular folks who populate the so-called "red states" that run from Dixie through the prairies to the mountainous regions of the country.

So what can we do about this predicament? First, I think that any of us who are concerned about the problem of "Bushism" in this country need to do what we can to get involved with the upcoming election. It may make the difference in the actual results, but just as important is that we not look back with regret that more could have been done. However the final numbers shake down, it is in our best interest to get as many people as possible on board with the effort to resist the direction that Bush and his supporters are trying to drive our country - toward fear, paranoia, the erosion of civil liberties, massive budget deficits, advantages skewed wildly toward the wealthiest and most privileged, religious intolerance and a misguided, exploitative foreign policy that continues to create deep animosity, mistrust and resentment even within the populations of countries allied with the USA through various cultural or economic ties. Kerry still has a strong opportunity to win the election and begin to undo some of the damage that Bush has inflicted, and he needs our support. But his candidacy is not the linchpin upon which all our hopes rest. The bigger priority is shaping the culture in a direction that is more cooperative, more inclusive, more concerned with the well-being of all than just the few, a much more complex and long-term task indeed, but one that I am even more confident in our ability to succeed. Our responsibility is to take on the peddlars of fear, falsehood and division, to reach out with the gracious love and moral strength of Jesus and his early followers, who challenged empire, reached out to those on the fringes of society, and refused the temptation to use violence to advance their cause. In short, we have to rediscover once again what it means to be a disciple, and to answer that call.

President Bush: Free Love Advocate?

I'm not sure how long this video clip will stay active, but check it out while you can. It's a snippet of Bush at a rally in Missouri today, bemoaning the fact that OB-GYN's around the country are not able to "practice their love with women." What in the world is he talking about? Listen for yourself, see if you can make any sense of it!

Labor Day Parade

I spent my morning marching on behalf of WMJPC in the annual Labor Day parade here in Grand Rapids that stretches from the west bank of the Grand River to John Ball Park, where a lot of the local unions gather afterward for a picnic. It was a fun event for me, the first time since I was a kid that I had taken part in a parade. My role was to carry a banner that said "Peace is Patriotic" and walk in front of a truck that was painted up with a bunch of peace slogans and colorful floral designs. Perhaps some pictures will be made available to me that I can post here later, but for now I'm limited to simple comments.

It was interesting to observe the crowds, mostly made up of working class folks, real salt of the earth types, as we walked through the blue-collar neighborhoods of Grand Rapids' Southwest side. It's not the relatively affluent middle-class suburbanite crowd that I typically see in the 4th of July parades I've gone to in Grandville in years past, and it's also a bit rougher of a crowd, demographically speaking, than what I see in the local "Celebrate Wyoming" parade that my sons marched in recently. There were a lot of people who I would describe by appearance as "the working poor" and I also noted a number of developmentally disabled, possibly autistic children lining the route, which causes me a bit of concern. This seems to be the forgotten segment of society, without any real strong advocate voices out there speaking up on their behalf.

The political slant of the parade was decidedly pro-Democrat. There were many signs, buttons and t-shirts with pro-Kerry messages, and overall, I would say our pro-peace, anti-war message was reasonably well received. We got some very affirmative thumbs-up response from a number of people, as well as a few non-comprehending stares, but no over opposition or booing, which was nice. Of course, we were being positive and nice about it all. The truck played a tape loop including a snippet of Disney's "It's a Small World After All" song which can be rather grating to some but it actually fit OK into this context. I'm just glad that Ilene cut other songs into the mix or I might have been driven insane by the end of the parade. :o)

Afterward, we gathered in the park and I chatted with several of my colleagues from IGE and WMJPC. We have a big leadership retreat happening tomorrow evening and I have some ambitious plans about what we can do to revitalize IGE in the months to come. So I'll be back here soon with a report on what happened there and what will happen next.

But for now, let me conclude with a big "THANK YOU" to the working people of our world who spend countless hours manufacturing products and delivering services that we too often take for granted, but in any case make our lives much more comfortable, safe and orderly. WE APPRECIATE YOU and respect the numerous contributions you have made in making our country a great place to live and raise a family!

Hero

My son Derek and I went to the mall with Julie on Friday night, just for something to do, while our other children were out with their friends. Derek and I didn't feel like window-shopping so we decided to take in a movie at the Cinemark. He suggested "Hero," a newly-released Chinese film starring Jet Li. It looked good to me, something more interesting to both of us than "The Manchurian Candidate" (which I intend to see but haven't yet) so in we went.

I had no idea what I was in for - this is a visually spectacular and thought-provoking film, something along the lines of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" but in my opinion, even better. It features a lot of the mystical, gravity-defying martial arts sequences that most American audiences first encountered when CTHD was released to theaters a few years ago, with beautiful costuming, choreography, set design and colroful visual elements abounding in practically every frame. The relative lack of familiarity that Westerners have with the vast Chinese landscape adds a lot of exoticism to the various settings. There are many jaw-dropping stunts and surprises throughout the film that kept me marvelling at the creative ingenuity on display. Now I don't normally seek out these kinds of films, so it could be that "Hero" has been surpassed in this genre - a few reviews I read on the Internet Movie Database (where it's already ranked #128 - and rising - of all time!) had the blase' tone one sometimes finds among the cognoscenti of more specialized artforms - but my hunch is that most people who have a fairly broad taste for unconventional (by American standards) cinema will be pleased with this movie.

As for the story itself, it's a tale of old China, before the nation was united into one large empire. A king whose life has been threatened by rumors of an assassination conspiracy is approached, with extreme deliberation, by an obscure citizen of his realm who brings the report that the three known assassins have been killed, by his hand, thus relieving the king of his anxiety and the need for the extraordinary security precautions he's taken. The king is intrigued and skeptical about how this lowly unknown man could single-handedly eliminate three dangerous masters of fighting techniques, so the man, who is referred to as Nameless, tells the story of how he managed this feat, through a series of flashbacks. From there the plot twists and turns and keep the audience guessing as to how it will all resolve, and I'll say no more about that. But a number of intriguing moral and ethical concerns are raised, and I also enjoyed the distinctively Asian emotional tenor of the film as a kind of alternative values set that I find noble and honorable, even if I can't fully identify with those values on a personal level.

Highly recommended!

To Transform a Culture

Last night, before the Bush speech, I spent a couple of hours at IGE participating in a small presentation on the economic ideas of Martin Luther King Jr. As often happens with such meetings, our conversation meandered well beyond the specific writings of Dr. King, and what moves me to write here isn't so much any specific quote from last night, but the enormous challenge I feel to somehow move our culture away from the aggressive and destructive course that so many of our leaders (and their followers) have embarked upon.

It's not just the wars on terror or in Iraq that I lament. I'm also concerned about the quality of our civil discourse and our national concern for issues such as the environment, poverty, healthcare, responsible management of resources, international relations, healing the racial divides within our society and so on. When I sit back to survey the situation, it's hard not to feel discouraged at just how pervasive, well-funded and unstoppable the current system is that favors elite special interests over the broader needs and concerns of ordinary people.

What troubles me is that it seems like our representative government has been taken over by people whose speciality is deceiving the masses into supporting ideas that aren't in their best interests, or concocting deals that are not fully explained or even revealed in the media that we rely on to know what's going on.

There's no easy answer that comes to my mind as to what to do about it. I am trying to get involved through various groups and simply posting my ideas to the internet in various ways, but I want the efforts I put into that involvement to result in something tangible. We need to find ways to connect with each other that make a lasting impact on life as we currently experience it so that the ideals of peace, freedom, justice and opportunity are seen as believable possibilities, not abstractions that will only be realized in heaven.

Game On

So I had my first chance to watch George Bush and John Kerry in back-to-back major addresses tonight - Bush accepting his nomination and Kerry delivering his swift rebuttal to what's been said about him at the convention and elsewhere this week. I actually thought that both candidates presented their cases fairly well, given who they are and the records they have to run on. It should come as no surprise that I was much more impressed with Kerry, mostly because Bush has lost almost all of his credibility with me. It's not that I think he won't do what he promises - I understand that he has a proven ability to get things done, and a disciplined group of followers who respond quickly to his orders. But where he's lost credibility is in my ability to endorse and identify with his basic view of the world, his understanding of reality. The basic premise of Maureen Dowd's book Bushworld - it's Bush's reality, we just live in it - sums it up well - obviously, there are a lot of people who do like the groundrules by which he operates, and having lived in that realm for a portion of my life, I know some things about how it really can work for its inhabitants. But functionality comes at a price, and I discovered after some years that it just wasn't worth it, nor could I peacefully accept the notion that I would have to spend the rest of my life there. Because "Bushworld" isn't just about Bush, it's really about a whole complex version of what the USA represents, the role that we have in the world, and a lot of other stuff about white guys, certain attitudes and ego trips, privileges and presumptions that round out the whole package. There are some things about it that I can appreciate and respect, but overall, it just seems like so much delusion, no matter how nicely they try to package it and soften the edges. Despite their efforts to gauze things over, there's always the specter of someone like Zell Miller, a contemporary Cotton Mather, lurking around the corner, ready to enforce discipline if the mandatory levels of conformity are not maintained.

On the other hand, I really find myself liking John Kerry, and I appreciate the simple fact of having a presidential candidate who I can genuinely identify with, maybe for the first time in my life, even though our lives have been different in many ways. I thought he did a good job replying to some of the Republican attacks and was much more effective in his attempts to engage me with the details of his domestic proposals. And I look forward to seeing how he approaches foreign policy. I want to see our nation become a more genuinely respected source of justice, truth and freedom than I think Bush could ever achieve. Bush's views on too many subjects are simply too fantastic and idiosyncratic to how the rest of the world sees reality for him to be anything other than an unsettling puzzle for them to figure out. Kerry is informed, articulate, sophisticated and doesn't have the mean streak that Bush has displayed in so many ways throughout his life. Kerry himself put the choice clearly - if more people think that they are better off with Bush in charge, they can go vote for the incumbent. But those who think we can and will do better than what we've seen these past four years have a superior choice. The other day I said that Kerry has the burden of winning the election. With his gutsy decision to go on late tonight, I think he is on the right track and I wish him all the best.

Bubblegum Cigar

I received a small gift today, a "Vote for Bush" cigar made out of bright red bubblegum, from one of my co-workers, who asked me later if the gesture had influenced my decision of who to vote for. I said I was not a Bush supporter, based on my long-standing objections to the war in Iraq. Given the situation I was in at the moment, I declined the opportunity to lay out my full case against Bush, but I suppose I'll get my chance later.

So far, I've been somewhat surprised at how empty the rhetoric has been at the Republican Convention, though I don't doubt how effective much of it probaby is to significant portions of the viewing audience. The Bush twins fulfilled my hopes for some theater of the absurd that I expressed in last night's blog entry. I missed Schwarzenegger's speech because we were watching a new DVD I got the other day of Disney cartoons produced in the World War 2 era. There's one particular toon titled "Chicken Little" that I want to watch again and compose an essay around as it relates to the current political climate, but that will have to wait until some other time. I enjoy these old propaganda/entertainment pieces because they give me some good material to analyze that comes from outside my immediate era, allowing me to have more insight into some of the basic propaganda techniques that are commonly employed without having to do the separation process between contemporary material and the situation of the moment that is required to deconstruct today's political ads and other forms of mind-influencing that politicians employ to woo our support.

I find it very difficult at times to figure out what to do with the revulsion I often feel when listening to the speeches of seriously conservative ideologues. It's not so much what they say that bothers me, but rather that there are so many people who follow the lead of these figures and who lock themselves into positions that then become nearly unalterable, regardless of whatever evidence or arguments are presented to them. It discourages me to think that there are a lot of people who are unwilling to listen to reason or work toward mutually satisfying agreements, prefering instead to perpetuate conflict and remain entrenched in their positions. It's a technique based on checking out, holding relationships hostage, insisting on a certain thing "no matter what" and stubbornly refusing to work through the problem constructively, so that the pressure to concede and break-up the logjam continually rests on the person who is willing to consider other points of view.

I would rather live as that person who's willing to consider the other point of view, but it really bothers me that in order for our nation to move closer to consensus, we have to find a middle ground with people who believe things as "absolute truth" that seem pretty demonstrably to be either matters of opinion or demonstrably false. I don't want to just strike a condescending note here, but there are times when I just resent having to take seriously the views of people I regard as essentially misguided. And right now, this includes the people who enthusiastically support Bush because of the very actions he's taken that have troubled me so much over the past several years.

My hope is that John Kerry can run a sufficiently effective campaign to overcome the reluctance that some have at supporting a so-called "Massachussetts liberal." I easily find him to be a more admirable person and qualified candidate, but he needs to cut through the distortions and prejudices that took me several years and considerable painful struggle to shed. And I wonder how many "good Americans" are ready to take that step, to emerge from Bushworld and use the eyes, ears and brains that God gave them to see the perfectly obvious - that George Bush is a serious obstacle on the course of human progress and the maintenance of well-being on the Planet Earth!