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TechnoratiDaylight declines and the leaves fall. We imagine it is frost that colors then looses them, because the heat declines more or less during the same weeks as the erosion of daylength reaches the critical limit for each deciduous species, but it is latitude, not lack of warmth that brings on the fall. Then, in the last few days of October and through as much of November as might remain unencumbered by snow, our landscape is made by wind.
First the red maple leaves are shoved about, then sugar and silver maple, last the oaks, thick, brown, rich with tannin and slow to dampen or decay. Oak leaves compete with snow to build the early drifts of winter. The wind moves them, but they catch and stay or are diverted and moved on according to interruptions of the ground-a stump, a rock, a bicycle or a building. An open garage door creates a slack area where, when the wind is just so, oak leaves may enter but they will not leave until broom and shovel may be brought against them.
Each new tree, every stone wall extension or new cut road alters this flow. The dead tops of perennials catch and hold. Even grass is sticky compared to driveway. High ground is swept clean; depressions no longer show until, forgetting, we stumble into them. Among all this brown, this shifting mass, may glow some golden ginkgo leaves or a late persistent red or burgundy of another introduced species.
So it is, I think, in the interior landscape of men and women. Our intellectual, our emotional, our spiritual lives are accumulated. We are made more of what blows up against us and lodges than by what we set out to buy or build. The persons we meet, the books we read, the songs that we cannot shake free from pile up against us. Experiences drift and stick. In time it all composts. We absorb it and are changed by the infusion of our accumulated delights and disasters.
The popular press has it that we are all made by predictable patterns, that our lives cycle through some number of modes, changing according to our age. We are this at twenty, that at thirty-five, something other when we retire. Books have been written, fortunes made, platitudes spread wide on this foundation. I deny and reject this notion. The conventional wisdom and the pop psychologists and the evening news readers are, as usual, wrong.
I have met too many remarkable, unconventional, original, alarming men and women to accept that we all plod through some boring cycle of changes, putting on the suit of parenthood, accepting the comforting raincoat of career, moving finally to slippers and pajamas and acceptance of retirement, decline and death. Go read your books and study your charts; I'll just let life bang into me until the wind stops bringing new leaves or I can no longer pull myself out of the rough holes.
I heard a record on the radio. Well, that tells you something, doesn't it? A record. The radio. What a funny old man. In the autumn of his life, no doubt. So bugger off, kid. I heard a song by a new to me outfit called Over The Rhine, called "If A Song Could Be President." You may stop reading right here, go buy their CD, and you will understand the point of my preceding paragraphs: great and changeful things come to us, sometimes for the price of a fifty cent newspaper. This is a band you don't yet know, with songs you don't know you need.
They make appointment recommendations -- John Prine for the FBI, Emmylou Harris an ambassador. Steve Earle should bring us the news, the first lady would sing rhythm and blues, and we'd count Lightnin' Hopkins and Patsy Cline coequal to our founding fathers. It's a quirky but compelling song, and however odd or unlikely some of the cabinet recommendations, any of them would be immeasurably better than the losers and crazies and criminals on the payroll now.
My favorite line: "We'd make Neil Young a senator, even though he came from Canada." I like everything about this -- the slant rhyme, the choice of Neil, the idea that we'd get better senators by importing them from Canada than by electing the creeps put forward by the Demopublican one-party system. Every Neil Young record has some good, some great songs, and, to be sure, a few forgettable or even regrettable ones. But he's honest, he's decent, he's smart and creative and caring and hard working, and I could add another half dozen adjectives of like virtue without brushing up against one that applies to the singer-songwriter we've entrusted the soundboard to the last seven years.
I have read every article about the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates that The New Yorker, Harper's and Rolling Stone have published. Some ridicule me for this, telling me they're not interested in those persons, won't vote for them, don't wish to know more about them. But I feel (see above) that you can't know the utility of something truly until you own it and try it, and I've learned some useful things by reading some wretched works, so I've wallowed quite often in the stinking slough of Giuliani and Thompson and Clinton and Obama these several months, and I am disgusted and depressed by turns.
Rudy Giuliani is worse than Bush. Fred Thompson is dumber than a stump and less interesting. The Democrats are soaking up money from the same corporate sump, talking slightly left and running ever right. The November Harper's article is titled "Making Mitt Romney." It is illustrated with Mitt (now, there's a rich white guy name for you) as a grinning bobble-head doll, turning slightly left and quite far right and well-suited and ready to shake a voter's hand at every turn.
Mr. Romney, I learned, made his considerable money as a management consultant. This non-job, as near as I can tell, entails telling the incredibly overpaid executives of a corporation how to run their business. You look at such of their records as they may be willing to open to you (ever mistrustful because you may use what you learn to benefit your next client), you bring your powerful insights to bear, and you recommend changes. Often, "new directions" are indicated. Perhaps "strategic reformation." Incidentally, thousands of wage-earners may need to be laid off. A name change may be in order or a new logo or company colors. Lean, reconfigured, the firm will be ready to "hit the ground running" with its "new management team in place."
In a better world than this one, we would laugh at consultants. They would starve for lack of employment. In the worse world we're becoming, they are ever more important as image and bottom line alone matter. So the consultant team now creates the candidate, none more obviously made or fabricated or plastic than Mr. Mitt Romney. He has abandoned or repudiated all his previous vaguely liberal tenets so that he may run as a conservative. The true-believer Bible-clutching, family-values, nuke-Iran conservatives don't buy the chameleon in a new color necktie, but the consultant-approved "swing voter" may.
Or he or she may more likely put aside the creepy unease we all feel about Hillary Clinton because "at least she's a Democrat and we need change, and Bush has been so bad, and she might do the right thing once she gets elected and (fill in your own justification here." Either way, you'll be voting for a construct rather than a human being, a thing made from meetings and focus groups and polls and pandering. A creature of consultants, not human, not worthy, not likely to do you or your loved ones any good.
I have no solution. Only revolution, and we are too comfortable and too remote from our founding principles to essay that necessity. So we vote or don't. Rudy's too crazy, Fred's too slow and stupid. Their party and the press will not allow Kucinich or Gravel a forum or credit them "viable." We'll have Mitt or Hillary. The consultants will win.
Neil's new album, Chrome Dreams II is uneven as they come. That's Neil. He's still better on a bad day than most of the plastic pop acts at the top of their form. But just submit to the insistence of the eighteen-minute "Ordinary People" on this disc and you'll be as lost again as you once were to "Powderfinger" or "Heart Of Gold or anything on Ragged Glory. New or old, mediocre or great or merely pretty good, Neil Young never took a poll before he wrote or released a song and never asked a consultant if he should think or act in some way different from what he feels.
Track eight, "Ever After," is only three and a half minutes. But when it washed up against all the other songs and scraps of songs and loves and longings and fears and frustrations and cold days and dark nights and wild mercury moments and dreams chrome and otherwise of my life so far, it triggered several switches and opened other circuits.
My partner and I have a customer of decades standing for whom we work at less than our usual rate because he is of very modest means and because he is interesting. We would not wish to be him or even to live as he lives, perhaps, but that he is and does enriches us without taking from him. He collects things. Among his souvenirs is a die-cast model of an automobile, I think in about 1:24 scale, of a '57 Chevrolet. I remember it as red. Opening the trunk reveals that it conceals a bottle of whiskey-Jack Daniels, perhaps, or Canadian Club. Our friend is extremely proud of the fact that the seal on the neck of the bottle is intact; it has never been opened; its contents are unconsumed. This, he assures us, greatly increases the "book value" of this "collector's edition" artifact.
Neil's song, "Ever After," seems to me to be about the afterlife, or about some persistence of spirit or memory altogether more likely than the conventional Christian afterlife. It's Neil-who knows? It's a sweet and lovely and loving song.
Here's the fourth verse:
A man had many boxes
And he liked them quite a lot.
But they would not be opened
'Cause the value would be shot.
And isn't that just the nature of faith of all sorts, whether faith in a bottle or in an afterlife or a religion or a candidate for president? Your faith sustains you until you look into it, open it, study it, display or consume its contents. The more you know about the hard, concrete, everyday reality of things, the harder it is to sustain a belief that they are other than they appear. If the box cannot be opened without losing its value, what was the nature of that value? How big was the box, how deep, of what true worth?
You might keep the booze and assume it is worth more with each passing year. Or you might drink it and enjoy it for the ride it would give you, for the crash that it could precipitate, or for the unchanged empty shell of the vehicle that contained it all those years. Or you could keep it intact, riding your faith without looking, so to speak, under its hood.
I sometimes receive complaints that my work is too dense, abstruse, wordy or oblique. Perhaps I should be less indirect in laying out my point? Very well, then, I shall. Get ready for it. Here it is: All the Republicans and most of the Democrats who would be president would, were they opened and inspected, be found short of intellect, absent good intentions, compromised, bought, beholden, and antagonistic to the interests of ordinary persons lacking great wealth, oil wells or designs upon what is left of our abused and reduced environment. The more you might inspect these boxes, the more you'd see their value is shot. Thank you, Neil, for helping me clarify my position.
Vote for the candidate of your choice. They will give you a choice, however limited or difficult or unappealing, these consultants. Believe in whatever god you like. Imagine an afterlife.
It's November. Things will get rougher before they turn better. It's a long, cold winter in these latitudes. There is a drought of options this season. Leaves and songs and books and ideas will blow all around your cabin door. Reach out for them. All have potential. Some will take you where you may not have known you needed to go; a few will maybe save you.
Consulting no experts, informed by no authority, bereft of any respectable faith, Mr. Cooper blithely puts his little essays before the public, knowing that a few will wish to attempt to inform or correct him by writing ckc2@prexar.com. He does not object to this, and may reply to some.
© 2007 The Wiscasset Newspaper
34 Comments so far
Show Allto cmichaelg49 you seem to make an assumption that those who follow some pop culture are not capable of thinking or do not read books.Read Dostoyevsky He was pop culture in a different time and place.
CHRIS COOPER: As a former English teacher and still dedicated writer, I'd like to applaud you on the above essay, a true gem. Its metaphors and lyrical language glides like a song. Write on!
Cmichaelg49.....I don't watch TV and do not have an Ipod. I'm an avid reader. I have quite simply stated that Dylan is a great artist and deserves respect. Accept it or don't. Just my opinion. Freedom of speech. You don't know me, nor I you, so WHY are you attacking me and making judgements? Enough said. Ciao!
You people who want to criticize a Bob Dylan or a Neal Young for having cashed in on their talents or rested on their laurals ought maybe to take a look at your own selves for a sec. Why are you shaking your fist at them? Is that your contribution? Would you want the inventer of velcro to still be hunched over his workbench into his 70's or 80's? If the talented and funny and insightful Mr. Cooper were suddenly catapaulted to riches and stardom for ladeling out his semi-weekly $.02, an then retired and bought a yacht and took his grandkids on a round the world cruise, would you then turn your backs and berate him as a sell out too? What's a matter with you?
Yeah, well, willybill, Bob Dylan has many followers who seem to have lost the ability to discriminate, to think critically. He's been resting on his laurels so long you'd think more people would have noticed. Why am I surprised at how many people seem to need someone to follow, someone to idolize, someone "star" to admire? In a media-satruated celebrity culture, thinking for ones self is simply not a highly valued trait, nor is it one that is taught in schools much anymore. In such an environment, skepticism, curiosity, and a willingness to seek out truth, to dig beneath the surface of events and find out for yourself what is obscured and hidden from public view, these are healthy traits that frequently provide interesting and rewarding results.
Or, you could just plug in a tape or a CD or turn on your Ipod and zone out--let some arrogant, wealthy, burnt-out corporate hack posing as an artist occupy your mind and tell you what to think, what to feel, and what to do.
Duh. If I'd been following Bob Dylan since 1962, I guess I too might have some difficulty getting my mind around the suggestion that it's OK to have ideas and discover ideals on my own.
Rock stars? Cop shows on the tube? Why not a frontal lobotomy?
You'll never learn to fish on a borrowed line.
But you might discover the life of the mind in a borrowed book. Some people read. Whole books, even. Shelves of them. Some people work at learning to think critically.
Learning never ends. The universe is friendly. Progress is its watchword.
My mother had a saying that I now, as an adult, fully understand. She used to say that "empty barrels make the most noise." This simple metaphor for these banal and vapid presidential 'choices' we are given by the establishment could not be more accurate. These folks, like most pop culture celebrities, are manufactured products sold to us by a completely controlled media. We live in what I like to call an oxymoronic society, a superficial reality, 'created' by PR firms on behalf of the right-wing, radical establishment, which utilizes propaganda to make us believe we are part of a real consensus. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the truth is what's consistently missing or intentionally villified for fear that we the people might actually come to realize that our entire lives are manipulated through the media by an elite, oligarchic, fascist plutocracy disquised as a democratic republic.
how many common dreams posters use their post to present themselves to the public in an attempt to turn a profit off themselves like a name brand?
How many of the actual articles are actually just attempts to sell a book/film/article/audio tape?
Ok perhaps the info is appreciated, but am I the only one who thinks that there's a problem with using a crisis in order to try to make a living off that crisis? Wouldn't that be like self-fulfilling prophecy?
what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
and what did ron paul have to do with anything here????
Loved this article. As for suggesting a musician poet as a politician, after seeing "Runnin on a Dream" I'd go for Tom Petty in a heartbeat.
Good God, have you lovely people even heard of Dr. Paul? Don't take my word for it - go and watch him speak at the Republican debates. He stands more than a good chance of winning the primary, whereas Billary can pop little Dennis' head right off'n his little shoulders with one great blood-drenched, debt-ridden fist. Seriously, just go see what the man has to say. And pray (or non-theistically hope in a kind of eyes-glowing way) he gets through. How on Earth will you stomach voting for any of the rest of the pack? The only other principled man on the stage right now is Dennis K., and he's not even as thoroughly anti-war as Paul.
Ah, well.
Glad I'm surrounded by deep water on all sides and have abundant local food and water,
Lord R.
INTERESTING discussion-through reading these posts i rediscovered a realization made many years ago,and then forgot-bob dylan is a commercial product-he left woody guthrie behind many years ago.that choice was his choice.don't let other people get your kicks for you.bob said that,man can't you understand its not my problem? he said that too.i was shocked,shocked to learn that louie armstrong was not satchmo,mark twain was not a real person,hell,jimmy durante may not have been schnozzola for all i know.thanks for the post.
Please don't assume what I understand or do not understand. It's called OPINION. I'm on dial-up, so I can't view the ad and must reserve opinion. But, it's a commercial, so who really cares? If you or anyone else purchases or gives validity to a product based on a commercial..well, enough said. The remark about global warming seems to be facetious..what else would one expect from Dylan? As I said in that previous post, RZ made a choice not to follow the activist path and most of his followers respected that choice. I refuse to dismiss a lifetime of work and dedication to his craft because of a facetious remark and a silly ad. Who knows, maybe all the money he made from that ad went to combat global warming. As you said..."or so it would seem". Let's spend our time and effort combatting the real thieves and rapers of mankind..like the present cabal that's trying their best to get us into ww III.
Give Dylan a break, WillyBill? He's been on the road 45 years?
Yeah, and now he's a paid hack and a huckster for Cadillac's most-polluting gas guzzling Escalade and he likes to deny that global warming exists. What a prince of a guy, NOT.
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/category/bob-dylan
"There's something happening here, but you just don't understand what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"
What is it that you don't understand about wealthy, arrogant rock star hypocrits who will do or say anything for a dollar? Dylan sold his soul to the rapacious, mind-warping, world-destroying corporate mob a long time ago, or so it would seem.
Philip K Dick - 1978 - How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later
"The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not."
The good thing about it is that after the roughness, when things do get better, the children of the future will not have to live in a world where other children are not their neighbors.
Neil is an artist who sometimes makes a political point.Yes he's Canadian and a "rock" star , but I wish the current occupant or any one of the candidates had half the insight.Its a dark time in the US of A.What should we do? give up? leave? The elections a year away, hope , pray, and I'll listen to Neil and other artist to help dull the mental pain. Peace
Noam Chomsky, though he's not a performer per se in the same mold, comes to mind. but he doesn't profit by it to the same extent. Shakespeare seems to have kept at it, he was a performer for his time. but for this time, I'm kind of of the opinion of Joe Bageant who thinks it's perhaps not possible in today's economy.
nothing against dylan, though. He spoke eloquently for the times. but things have changed. we want to see a continuing passion, life long!
But of course, more difficult said then done. Wealth in today's economy seems to engender a kind of unhealthy passivity, tempting though that may be, best avoided and stick with the Gandhi idea, and accept the labor idea perhaps.
dieing with god on your side and on your lips - not mouthing the military industrial complex idea of the same thing.
I've been following Dylan since 1962. As a performer, poet and artist whose words have become part of our culture, there is no equal. He left "activism" many, many years ago and had the respect for his followers to tell them exactly what he was doing. He has written what may be considered some activist songs since then, but my take on this is that he did it when he felt the call..."Masters of War " and "Hurricane Carter" come to mind. All artists, poets and writers at times use other artists words..usually paraphrased..rarely verbatum. When you read books and other lyrics and listen to other performers, the words and music become part of you. It's the process. Give Dylan a break. He's been on the road at least 45 years and dedicated his life to his audience. 45 years. Thanks, RZ...you deserve all the money you have made and then some. Neal Young is a gifted singer and writer, but I cannot speak for his motivation. Both of these guys have been around a long, long time and deserve our admiration and respect. Do you know of any performers currently in the field who will be here forty or fifty years from now?
Thank you Mr. Cooper. Your writing brought me to tears.
What do biofuels, consulting, music and dogs have in common? They can all bring good things or bring bad things depending on people's AGENDAS.
Capitalists abuse biofuels to make a profit, damaging people and planet in the process. Progressives use biofuels to strengthen local economic/political iindependence without damaging the environment.
Capitalists abuse consulting by inventing unnecessary consulting jobs for themselves to keep themselves up and the rabble down. Progressives build networks of low-cost consultants to benefit wider geographic areas with expertise that enables local small enterprises to effectively supply local market demands without abusing people and planet.
Capitalists use music and dogs to torture and terrorize Muslim "terror" suspects to preserve capitalist oppression over people and planet. Progressives play inspiring music and keep friendly dogs, providing a net benefit to societies.
So let's please stop distracting ourselves by vilifying every idea, object, system and method the capitalist abuses and start pointing the finger where the problem lies - at the capitalist agenda.
great article!!!
yeah, Dylan wrote some great stuff, but he illustrates a point I was tryin' to make yesterday about "activism" being a life long avocation. Like thinking and breathing. Stop and you run the peril of joining the group you have been fighting against. But the temptation of the life of luxury and ease.
Conformity appears to be an easy script neither appearing to require inventiveness, faith, or dis - ease. It is, however, not easy. Perhaps none of us here would choose it now.
Pursuing that course, something you think you should have, that you're accustomed to, that you've been lead to think that you should want, it seems to me, is also like descending further into violence, grief, self-inflicted pain and sorrow. The further you lust after it and it's supposed benefits, the meaner it becomes, the more a prisoner to it you are.
We who do not wish to read the script, but to follow the beat of different drummers, are witnessing this violence of the failure, the tragic flaw, of attempting to subvert and control nature, all around us. Violence based on many things, but in part on what happens when you refuse to follow what is in your heart. Ghandi would tell us that what is in our heart that we follow with the requisite self-discipline and so on, is the god within us. yes I think maybe.
since1492:
"true artists like Bob Dylan and Neil Young"?
Dylan and Young continue to make themselves a pot of money singing and prancing around on stage as "rock stars" while the true activists are busy these days making a habit of getting themselves arrested down at the Federal Buidling for misdemeanor trespassing in the offices of their elected representatives or for disturbing the peace in Congressional hearing rooms in Washington, DC for confronting the likes of Condolezza Rice. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/31/4924/
True activists put themselves at some risk for their beliefs. The well-heeled "rock star" con-"artists" are just out to make another million bucks, at no significant personal risk or inconvenience while they bask in the adulation of naive and gullible audiences.
When Bob Dylan puts his incredibly wealthy ass on the line for peace and social justice, when he spends a night in jail with true activists, mostly mothers, grandmothers, and white-haired little old ladies, with a sprinkling of ministers, priests, former priests, and others who are neither famous or rich (except in comparison to the 41 percent of humanity who have no access to sanitary facilities comparable to what is available in U.S. jails), when Bob Dylan sings "Blowin in the Wind" on the sidewalk, in a federal building, and gets himself arrested and put behind bars where his voice can lift the spirits of true activists, then, maybe, I'll listen to his music again. He could use the experience for new material so he wouldn't have to lift lines from Civil War era Confederate poets. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1603668.ece
"... we'd get better senators by importing them from Canada ..."
I'm not so sure about that. Once upon a time, I might have agreed, but the neo-con contagion is spreading rapidly. I'm sure that's not an accident either.
In the movie, Psycho, it turns out that the villian's mother is dead in her rocking chair. But it doesn't seem to matter to him. He pretends that she is still alive.
This is the state of our democracy. It's gone. It's dead, but so many people pretend that it stills works. We are extorted to vote by everyone, Democrats, Republicans, rock stars, Greens, commondreams posters, etc, etc.
If we're going to vote, we need to organize at every polling place to have alternative ballot boxes. Then everyone can vote as they come out, since the voting machines are suspect and the exit polls are covered up. In 2004, when the exit polls said that Kerry won, they changed the numbers to reflect what the voting machines said. Next time, those numbers won't come out, you can be sure.
It didn't matter, though. 2 weeks later, the Ukraine voted, and the exit polls showed a discrepancy, so the American taxpayers paid millions of dollars to support the "spontaneous" demonstrations. The corporate media never once remarked on the incredible irony of using exit polls in Ukraine and discarding exit polls in the USA, within 2 weeks! They are truly shameless.
It was the Greens and the Libertarians who paid for the recount in Ohio, by the way. American taxpayers paid to overthrow the election in the Ukraine, but not to question the one here.
What a disgrace. And for everyone to pretend it didn't happen, and just move on as if we have a functioning democracy, is psychotic, so to speak.
Every society needs to encourage and listen to its artists. They are the ones who are telling us what we are like. They are telling us who we are and what we are doing. I'm not talking about the studio-produced artist as they have a very different agenda. Society's true artists serve an integral role in developing culture and traditions. They not only point out our contradictions, they also function as social accelerators and can bring about great change. The mass production of studio-produced artists in America, and the change that they have generated, can be seen in our society today. True artists like Bob Dylan and Neil Young have to compete with so many Idols and Survivors that it's not surprising that what they are telling us isn't being heard.
Hoa binh
I wish I could write like that. I get the point and agree. I am truly amazed at how smart I am. I'm not kidding. I'm not saying I'm particularly smart. I'm saying most people are incredibly stupid. I understand that if you do the right thing for the right reasons things will work out. But if you play games for the wrong reason everything will be crap. People like Howard Dean and Kucinich are unelecteble. Hillary is the one to beat the repubs because "they" say so. I may be an uneducated Plumber, but I'm a freakin genious.
Kerry is a great pretender. He pretended to be an opposition candidate in 2004. He pretends every day to be an opposition Senator. He pretends to care about our civil liberties while doing nothing when someone is Tasered right in front of him for the crime of daring to ask a question that must not be asked.
Anyone remember the commercial making fun of management consultants a few years ago? Two consultants present their report to their CEO customer, which lays out some changes and action for the corp. The CEO looks at them and says great, 'lets do it!' The two management consultants look confused at each other and say 'we don't actually do anything, we just recommend.' Then later they are laughing as they walk out of the building at the very thought that someone expected them to actually do anything.
Thanks for this.
Greens or independents might be able to attract bitter Republicans who can't bring themselves to vote for the Clinton party. Especially if they support a balanced budget which would attract fiscal conservatives.
Don't go left. Progress.
I don't have any model cars. I have a petrified fish, though. It looks like Cheney on a good day.
Key lines in the article:
"Their party and the press will not allow Kucinich or Gravel a forum or credit them "viable." We'll have Mitt or Hillary. The consultants will win."
hmmm. Is that really TRUE? Or does it actually matter, in the final analysis, what the majority of people in this country WANT?
If people REFUSE to vote for Mitt or Hillary, then they won't get votes--unless you believe the whole thing is rigged, and it very well may be. There is strong evidence for electoral fraud on a massive scale in the 2004 election, but of course Kerry didn't care. Was he for real? Or was he just pretending to be an opposition candidate? "Don't rock the boat Mr. Kerry, you lost fair and square."
The stolen election of 2004:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_st...
However, it seems that since we haven't even gotten to the primaries, it seems a bit premature to be so fatalistic? It may be that there are LIMITS to the fraud and manipulation. Indeed, getting people who support the best candidates to do nothing and become cynical is what the MSM does best.
No one has voted for anyone yet. No delegates have been chosen. I would argue that one might as well promote the candidates who are making the most sense NOW and spread the word that an upset is indeed possible.
Revolution? No one is even able to articulate what that means anymore. Would that be a political revolution where congress is swept aside in some sort of third party bid? Or a new state is created through some other means, say, a general $trike? It happened in Seattle in 1919. But the labor movement was strong. And again in SF in the 1930s. That's the ultimate move by the working class. Governments can be toppled, ruling elites deposed, wealth can be more evenly distributed. But is anyone really discussing that? I think very few. If authors and bloggers bring it up, my only suggestion is that we start to try to describe what a 'revolution' might look like, what are people talking about when they use this word?
hhhmmmmm...
When I see a Chris Cooper article I go to it first and then forward it to all of my friends. He is priceless! I recently watched a Master Chess Champion from Russia on the Bill Meyher show. He is running for president of Russia and it has been a long time since I have listened to anyone as interesting. He is rational and reasonable in his thinking and it was the first time I ever saw Bill flattened. He may or may not have 'consultants' running his campaign, but if he does they are better and brighter than the ones running our current campaign circus.
A lovely collection of words, as always with Mr. Cooper.
Why not, Chris, simply come out and say it? Dennis Kucinich for President!
Beautiful piece.
However: there will be other options, probably quite a few. The Greens, in particular, will run someone you can actually vote for. I don't think we'll be the only ones.
Well put!
I thank you for providing a few minutes of thoughtful reflection, a welcomed respite from the absurdity that surrounds us.