democracy

okay. I'm coming out.

*clears throat*

no, not that coming out. not in today's blog....

I'm making it a matter of record that i am a democrat.

no surprise to most readers...shocking to...? nope, nobody, *but* hailing from the ronald-reagan-republican-christians that I do, I'm aware that politics is sticky point for a number of my readers today.

the point of today's revelation is to:

1. commend the democratic party for choosing to highligh / engage Howard Dean's rhetoric that what's *important* about being a democrat is *commitment to democracy*.

-- and that this commitment to democracy means that educational reform is rooted in DEVELOPING people's sense of agency, voice and participation, instead of punishing those who do not already have these privileges (eg. "failing" schools in the "no" [rich] child left behind policy...)

-- that this commitment to democracy means participating in the kind of foreign policy that puts constraints on multinational corporations and multinational political organizations and the industrial-military-complex in favor of DEVELOPING the rights, privileges and opportunities of workers and underpriveleged people around the world

-- and that this commitent to democracy means protecting the rights of marginal populations so that they have the ability to DEVELOP their sense of agency, opportunities and contribution to society instead of *targetting* them to preserve the safety and security of the already-privileged (eg. Bush vs. Affirmative Action, Bush-tries-to-make-gays-constitutionally-inferior)

2. excoriate the democratic party -- as well as the rest of the politico-industrial-complex -- for failing to adopt *real* campaign reform which would allow for choice and heterogeneity to flourish *throughout* a political campaign -- instead of foreclosing the pool of candidates as early as possible (for both parties) in order to divorce the political process from grass roots deliberation and transform it into even more sloganeering and bumpersticking.

i *do* blame the media-indusrial-complex largely for this quandary, and i *do* (perhaps naievely) register *hope* for decentralization, dialogic media with the advent of digital / wireless / and networked media...