Remember when your party stood for something?
by Bob Smith
No Force, No Fraud
12/23/04
The two big parties have discarded their heritage, their ideology, and their principles in a frantic fight to become the ONE party that can fool ALL voters. Each is willing to stand for nothing in particular in order to not lose any voters. What we're left with are two parties who differ only in their rhetoric, which has kept some of the old appeal, but which is nothing BUT rhetoric that has little to do with their actions. The 'ideal' of both major parties has become winning and keeping political control. They use that power to reward those who sell out to their side, and they drag all the rest of us into serfdom to the ever-fattening structure we used to call 'our' government...
http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/bsmith/2004/12/23
Gridlock impossible at "kitchen table"
by James E. Geringer & John A. Kitzhaber
Christian Science Monitor
12/22/04
One issue still lingers from the polarized presidential elections: How might we return to more civil discourse, especially among our public leaders? Our fellow citizens aren't interested in a blame game. Leaders: It's up to us to change things. We'd do well to start at home, in our states and communities, whether we are Democrat, Republican or of another stripe. It's time for public leaders to make a real effort to draw fellow citizens to the kitchen table, where America has traditionally found its most durable solutions, and begin to make progress together. Absent this, the polarization that now grips our land can only continue. One approach is 'collaborative governance.' That's a fancy name for getting everyone -- every agency, citizen, community -- with a stake in a particular issue to come together to talk about what ought to be done...
http://tinyurl.com/4uv7p
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
No Force, No Fraud
12/23/04
The two big parties have discarded their heritage, their ideology, and their principles in a frantic fight to become the ONE party that can fool ALL voters. Each is willing to stand for nothing in particular in order to not lose any voters. What we're left with are two parties who differ only in their rhetoric, which has kept some of the old appeal, but which is nothing BUT rhetoric that has little to do with their actions. The 'ideal' of both major parties has become winning and keeping political control. They use that power to reward those who sell out to their side, and they drag all the rest of us into serfdom to the ever-fattening structure we used to call 'our' government...
http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/bsmith/2004/12/23
Gridlock impossible at "kitchen table"
by James E. Geringer & John A. Kitzhaber
Christian Science Monitor
12/22/04
One issue still lingers from the polarized presidential elections: How might we return to more civil discourse, especially among our public leaders? Our fellow citizens aren't interested in a blame game. Leaders: It's up to us to change things. We'd do well to start at home, in our states and communities, whether we are Democrat, Republican or of another stripe. It's time for public leaders to make a real effort to draw fellow citizens to the kitchen table, where America has traditionally found its most durable solutions, and begin to make progress together. Absent this, the polarization that now grips our land can only continue. One approach is 'collaborative governance.' That's a fancy name for getting everyone -- every agency, citizen, community -- with a stake in a particular issue to come together to talk about what ought to be done...
http://tinyurl.com/4uv7p
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 23. Dez, 15:38
