[Grovenet] Another Choice

Sun Feb 4 09:58:52 PST 2007

Good points Carol. Yes, because of the tendency of people to go to extremes
in the absence of any restraint, I often associate rampant with extreme but
they are not exactly the same. 

On that basis, I can't say that I understand what "rampant Corporatism"
means! There is hardly any human activity more restricted and controlled
than Corporate behavior, so how could it ever be "rampant"? 

Ron D'Eau Claire 

.  

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of Carol Morgan
Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2007 9:11 PM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Another Choice

I am not sure that rampant and extreme are the same thing.  Well perhaps
they are similar in concept but not in what they usually modify.  Rampant
usually means unrestrained, and so is usually not used to modify anything
that is good or even neutral, only something that left to itself would be
bad.  Rampant corruption, for instance, would make sense, but rampant
philanthropy, however, would not.

Etreme, on the other hand, can apply to anything good or bad, it usually
just refers that thing to a great degree.  So you can say extreme virtue,
extreme precision, extreme caution, extreme concern, but you wouldn't say
rampant for any of those things.

So applied to politics, you could say rampant liberalism or rampant
conservatism if you assume that either is bad by definition.  However, some
that are liberal and some that are conservative are not apologetic for their
beliefs, rather they think their position is one to be defended and be proud
of, and if it is good it would be good in a great degree.  In that case I am
not sure why extreme liberalism or extreme conservatism would be a bad
thing, by definition, like it would be if you needed to use the word
rampant.

I have always believed that moderation is a strange thing to feel is a
virtue per se, because for moderation to be a virtue it would need to be
certain that the things that are being moderated are bad if unrestrained, or
I guess if they are rampant.  If liberalism and conservatism are both bad in
the extreme, than I am not sure why half way in between two bad things is
automatically somewhere good.  

It makes much more sense for someone to have come to the conclusion that one
or the other is the superior position, and then to be an advocate of that
position, in the extreme.

------ Original Message ------
Received: 11:03 AM PST, 02/01/2007
From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <rondec at easystreet.com>
To: "'Forest Grove local interests list'" <grovenet at rdrop.com>
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Another Choice

I would never assume that Sam Waterson was a "neutral face"? How can one 
endorse any political agenda and be a neutral face? 

Katie wrote, "...he is also a shill for those who have strong ties to the 
corrupting influence of rampant corporatism." 

What are you referring to, his TV commercials? He's a paid spokesperson for 
some companies. "Rampant" corporatism is bad, just as bad as "rampant" 
liberalism. Rampant is just another word for "extremist" and I agree, it has

a corrosive, even corrupting influence. 

I would be skeptical of the Unity '08 approach as well if I considered it 
necessary to put their candidate in the White House in order to be 
successful. I don't. I think I can understand genesis of their goal of 
nominating people from both major parties. We've seen independents fall flat

on their face, even when they had the cash to run a competitive campaign. 
Remember Ross Perot? I think one of the biggest problems is that Americans 
want professional politicians in office. Look at poor Senator Obama ("He 
can't be a Presidential candidate! He's only been elected to the Senate 
once!!"). So this group seems to be trying to draw established and 
disaffected candidates from both parties who feel they can't be heard inside

the narrow confines of the "Red" and "Blue" designations. 

I applaud that. From that standpoint I think they've already "won" and won 
big, but winning is much more than that. 

To me, getting your candidate elected doesn't mean the party won. Indeed, 
getting their candidate elected gives that party the power to lose, and lose

big! Look at the Republican party over the past two Presidential terms! Lots

of losing going on because the guy they got elected wasn't able to do the 
job. No, I'm not talking about winning a war in Iraq, I'm talking about 
motivating people and following through with that motivation that puts the 
American people in a stronger, more positive position than before. 

It's easy to drum up an angry mob when people are frightened. That's exactly

what happened after 9/11. It took no "leadership" to cause people to lust 
after revenge (we like to call it "justice")to the point of supporting a 
war, especially when the President put his reputation on the line saying 
we'd find that Saddam had hidden WMD ready for use against Americans. 

Whether the President realized it or not, angry mobs have a short attention 
span, and America's attention to the war has faded with whatever became of 
those supposed WMD. And who got us into this mess? This President and the 
people who supported him. 

President Bush may have secured the White House for two terms, but I doubt 
if he, or the Republican leadership, feels like they "won" anything. Indeed,

I think they lost as big as anyone has ever lost who aspired to the 
Presidency. They lost so big because, by securing the White House, they 
exposed their failures to the entire nation, and made the entire nation 
suffer in those failures along with them. 

The Republican party is struggling mightily just to retain a decent position

in the Congress. They know they are far, far behind in the race to select 
the next President. That's the position a loser finds himself in; it is not 
the position of a "winner". 

In their goal statements Unity 08 defines winning as, "...to effect major 
change and reform in the 2008 national elections by influencing the major 
parties to adopt the core features of our national agenda. With a group of 
voters who comprise at least 20% of the national electorate, we feel 
confident that our voters will decide the 2008 election." 

I think they have a good chance to do that. There are two groups of voters 
on election day: those who have ignored the campaign and the issues because 
they vote a party line regardless, and those who have thought about their 
vote, considered the campaign and who chose the candidate to vote for based 
on their impressions and feelings about the campaign. Attempting to do 
something about the first group whose minds are made up is pointless in the 
campaign. That group is affected by their experiences over time. President 
Bush has seriously reduced the number of people in that group who would have

voted Republican in the next election. That's why he has produced what I 
call a huge loss for the Republican party during his presidency. But those 
diehard voters don't listen to campaigns. The second group was swelled in 
size by the President Bush's mistakes. There is a "bumper crop" of people 
willing to listen to a campaign. 

If the Democrats are smart, they'll focus on those people. Unity '08 is 
doing that too, saying, "Look! There's another choice". 

I applaud that! It makes them a winner just being there. 

Ron D'Eau Claire 

-----Original Message----- 
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On 
Behalf Of allnutt 
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 8:58 AM 
To: Forest Grove local interests list 
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Another Choice 

Interesting concept. And one that holds a lot of promise in the concept. 
Though I have to question whether Sam Waterson is truly a neutral face to 
get the message across. While his character on TV is very straight arrow 
and usually sides with 'the right' choice in TV land (perhaps 'the correct' 
choice would be a better way to phrase it) he is also a shill for those who 

have strong ties to the corrupting influence of rampant corporatism. I 
sympathize with the movement because if they wanted a truly neutral spokes 
person they would have to pick somebody that was an unknown. And by doing 
so they would not have the advantage of a recognizable spokesperson that 
would get people to stop and listen long enough to hear the message. Overall

I think it is a good goal to have politics move more toward the 
middle but it is too simplistic to think that the way to do that is to have 
one R and one D on the ticket to accomplish it. I also think it is too 
simplistic to think that it will happen in a year, even if they use the 
power of the internet to attempt it. When it happens on that short of a time

frame it is more of a fad than a movement. 
But I'm not trying to poo poo the idea of change itself. I'm just a little 
skeptical that this is the answer. 

Katie 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <rondec at easystreet.com> 
To: "'Forest Grove local interests list'" <grovenet at rdrop.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 3:40 PM 
Subject: [Grovenet] Another Choice 

> And so it happens again, a movement for more choice than the same old 
> Red and Blue 'polarizers' is building for the '08 elections: 
> 
> http://www.unity08.com/believe 
> 
> They're collecting some well known faces to back them. One is Sam 
> Waterson: 
> 
> http://www.unity08.com/buzzworthy/sam_team 
> 
> Ron D'Eau Claire 
> 
> _______________________________________________ 
> GroveNet mailing list 
> GroveNet at rdrop.com http://www.rdrop.com/mailman/listinfo/grovenet 
> 

_______________________________________________ 
GroveNet mailing list 
GroveNet at rdrop.com http://www.rdrop.com/mailman/listinfo/grovenet 

_______________________________________________ 
GroveNet mailing list 
GroveNet at rdrop.com 
http://www.rdrop.com/mailman/listinfo/grovenet 

  _____  