And If You Did Know?

So here we are at the beginning of the Democratic convention. It is very different than when I was a child. I remember watching the 1968 convention and seeing all of the emotion and passion. I was facinated. But tonight I fear that it will be a scripted and emotionless prefunctory exercise. I am going to vote for Kerry but mostly because I do not like the way the neo-cons are running things. I am not sure Kerry will be much different, but at least he will not be smirking and mugging all of the time. I also hope he spends more time in Washington working instead of at home playing.

I must admit that I had hopes for Kucinich, but alas he did not have the backing. I had hopes for Dean, but alas he was too real. I do not have much hope for Kerry, I think he is in the pocket of big business or they would not be letting him run at all. I think it is a matter of being acceptable by big business or you cannot run.

I must admit that Ralph Nader is still one of my heros. I admire his ability to run even with so much criticism surrounding him. He speaks truth to power, and power does not like that. He has been vilified by most everyone and I think that is wrong. I think he just says what he knows to be the truth. I like him as a voice for the rest of us.

At any rate the race is on. We will watch the rhetoric run rampant. We will watch as the mud flies. We will watch as the true issues get lost in the silly wedge issues and silly “moral” issues cloud the truth. The truth is the gap between the rich and the poor is growing at an alarming rate. What happens when it reaches a critical point is revolution. This has always been the case in the past. I think we are closer to that now than ever before. I know that we have the most powerful tool we have ever had—The Internet—the great equalizer. Everyone’s voice is accepted here. You can say whatever you want, and the test is who reads it. The fact that 10 million people–world-wide—protested the war in Iraq is proof that it is a growing force to be dealt with. I like that a lot.

We have moved. We now live in Kansas City, KS. So far I like this place. It has been described as 50 communities, 2 states, 1 city. I like the diversity of the place. It feels like home to me.

There seem to be a number of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds represented here, that feels like America to me.

As a child I lived in the north where racism was pretty covert, but very real. We then moved to the rural south where racism was overt and accepted. I remember walking into a 5 and 10 cent store with my mother and seeing a set of drinking foutains. One was marked white and one was marked colored. I started pulling on my mother’s hand insisting that I wanted to see what color the water was. She stopped me and told me that it was for colored people. I remember thinking that I did not understand why some people got a more colorful fountain than I could have. I look back on that incident now and realize that everything is about perspective. I did not know that it was about discrimination back then.

I look at the way we discriminate and I feel sad and angry. It stops us from being all that we can be and keeps us stuck in fear. Prejudice in all its in various forms is so wrong and yet we keep doing it over and over.

Moving to a place that seems to be more culturally divergent and accepting is something I like. I want to be a part of something growing and vital. That is one of the reasons I love this country. It is something wonderful and real. But it is under attack. Not from some small, beleagered, war-torn place like Iraq but from unchecked growth and greed. It is greed and the lust for power that has become the problem for this earth.