Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2004-09-28 10:48 am
azurelunatic) wrote2004-09-28 10:48 am
Voter registrations
If you're a US citizen, one who is legally able to vote if registered, and you are not registered, get your ass up and register before it's too late. While naturally I'd prefer if people voted the Shrubbery out of office, I prefer that people vote for who they're voting for because voting is an important part in a mass-participation republic. I don't care if you vote for Kermit the Frog, as long as you cast a vote that makes sense to you. (See? I've avoided both the "vote your conscience" and the "vote for someone who has a chance of winning" snarls there, because "a vote that makes sense to you" can cover either of those.) October 4th is the registration deadline in Arizona. I'm not sure about other states. Even if you forget to register until the day of the election, register anyway, so you'll be registered for the next vote.
With the advent of quicker counting technologies (Alaska uses something akin to the infamous Scan-Tron now, which is shiny, damn fast, and has a paper record to back things up) and the internet and things like MoveOn.org's demonstration that well-organized grassroots efforts do too work now, because they can work fast, the political process may well change within our lifetimes. I was deeply impressed with the inadvertent distributed denial of service attack on DC's switchboards when there was a coordinated call-in campaign regarding a sneaky little bill on media monopoly. These days it tends to take a natural (or unnatural *lights a candle*) disaster to generate enough incoming phone calls to take a switchboard down. (I don't think we actually crashed it, because those things are robust and designed to handle a massive amount of incoming calls, but it definitely did clog the works for a while.)
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ataniell93's suggestion that political and financial conservatives take back the Republican party from the neocons is actually a viable one in this day and age. I'm not a Republican, and never have been (I was politically clueless until the age of 15 or 16, and was still easily confused on party names until age 20, at which point I learned that when my roommates were cheering, it was for the Republicans and the Shrubbery, and I was not cheering the Shrubbery even if my fiancé was) but someone in or formerly in the Republican party really ought to do for the Republicans what MoveOn.org has done for the Democrats.
In fact, with organized grassroots (not astroturf, but not quite genuine grassroots -- sodstrips?) politicking, I think a multi-party system could start working now. Anyone want to bring back the Whigs and the Tories?
With the advent of quicker counting technologies (Alaska uses something akin to the infamous Scan-Tron now, which is shiny, damn fast, and has a paper record to back things up) and the internet and things like MoveOn.org's demonstration that well-organized grassroots efforts do too work now, because they can work fast, the political process may well change within our lifetimes. I was deeply impressed with the inadvertent distributed denial of service attack on DC's switchboards when there was a coordinated call-in campaign regarding a sneaky little bill on media monopoly. These days it tends to take a natural (or unnatural *lights a candle*) disaster to generate enough incoming phone calls to take a switchboard down. (I don't think we actually crashed it, because those things are robust and designed to handle a massive amount of incoming calls, but it definitely did clog the works for a while.)
ataniell93's suggestion that political and financial conservatives take back the Republican party from the neocons is actually a viable one in this day and age. I'm not a Republican, and never have been (I was politically clueless until the age of 15 or 16, and was still easily confused on party names until age 20, at which point I learned that when my roommates were cheering, it was for the Republicans and the Shrubbery, and I was not cheering the Shrubbery even if my fiancé was) but someone in or formerly in the Republican party really ought to do for the Republicans what MoveOn.org has done for the Democrats. In fact, with organized grassroots (not astroturf, but not quite genuine grassroots -- sodstrips?) politicking, I think a multi-party system could start working now. Anyone want to bring back the Whigs and the Tories?
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The Scottish Conservative party's website is 'ScottishTories.org.uk'.
They're still /quite/ here. Unfortunately. ;o)
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Were they ever really an American party?
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I'd be a lot happier if I had more choices this year.
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