DNC: Take-out or Delivery?
I would also like to add that Howard Dean has become boring. He emails me all the time. He emails a lot of you all the time, I'm sure. Always dropping you a line. Telling you why the Democratic Party needs your money NOW. RIGHT NOW BEFORE TOMORROW'S DEADLINE, TO SHOW CONGRESSMAN MOTHA F. UCKA THAT WE WON'T STAND FOR HIS BLAH BLAH BLAH. What happened? How could Mr. Energizer Bunny turn into a dull email spammer? I was so excited when Dean was going to take the helm of the Party. But somehow, I feel that all that's changed now is that you can have a blog on the DNC site.
Skippee.
Some text from Dean's latest:
In honor of Tom DeLay's retirement, today I am ordering another 250,000 of the door-hangers that bear this message -- that's an investment to reach another quarter-million voters on our April 29th organizing day.
Your $50 can put 233 pieces of literature in the hands potential volunteers and potential voters. Will you make a donation?
http://www.democrats.org/delayretirement
Yeah, I really think this is why I don't read his emails so much nowadays. I can get my news without being asked to make a donation two or three times to the DNC inbetween paragraphs. I don't think this should be the DNC's major crutch. Apparently they want money from me to put literature on doors across the fifty states that share the Democratic Vision.
Christ, we have to explain this to people now via door-hangers??? Last I checked, the things that get stuck on doors are FedEx notices and Chinese delivery menus.
So let's see. What is the Democratic Vision, exactly, then?
Now, it is cool that they have all the materials you need to make your own um, door-hangers, at the party website. That much, at least, is democracy in action. Except... Here's what all the dead trees will say:
"1) Honest Leadership & Open Government
We will end the Republican culture of corruption and restore a government as good as
the people it serves.
2) Real Security
We will protect Americans at home and lead the world by telling the truth to our troops,
our citizens and our allies.
3) Energy Independence
We will create a cleaner and stronger America by reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
4) Economic Prosperity & Educational Excellence
We will create jobs that will stay in America by restoring opportunity and driving innovation.
5) A Healthcare System that Works for Everyone
We will join 36 other industrialized nations by making sure everyone has access to
affordable health care.
6) Retirement Security
We will ensure that a retirement with dignity is the right and expectation of every
single American."
Where, exactly, is the anger? Where is the excitement? Yeah, all of these are fine and dandy, I like the bit about truth and all, but, I don't know. I'd rather see it say:
1) We will kick the fucking corrupt corporate-owned sleazebags out of Cap Hill and the White House and we will also kick out those in OUR OWN PARTY who are assholes too.
2) We will do our best to get out of the Iraq quagmire with minimum death and polytrauma and we will stop the government from ruling you with a CULTURE OF FEAR.
3) We will start leading people whose livelihoods have been made in oil into investing in like, mag-lev trains, and will stop the incessant building of suburban blight like "office parks" that is not just keeping the car as a near-requirement in most of the U.S. but also steadily making our nation the dullest, most repetitive country on earth.
4) We will make industries stop outsourcing labor by enslaving people of other countries as human resources. The economy will briefly crash and we will all see how we have been using the rest of the world, and the companies that don't will lead by glorious example. ...Idealistic? ...Yeah, probably. Still, we will do something about it, you hear?
5) IT'S ALL ABOUT MASSACHUSETTS. The true leader of the Free World.
6) How about we stop encouraging Americans to sink into endless credit card debt by curbing needless consumer culture? Then maybe people will actually have some money left over on top of the social security we will protect to give to them when they finally leave the working world.
I want to see a DNC that I can jump up and down about, see. That will go out on a limb and take risks and say what many people are thinking. This is why I'm more likely to spread the word about Dan Savage's Impeach the Motherfucker Already restless citizen-aiding humor and outreach campaign than about this fifty-state canvas thing. When policy sounds utterly like policy, after a point, it sounds boring. I don't really feel any heart in this Vision. I feel a bunch of people at a table spending hours mulling over every word, honing it to absolutely inoffensive perfection.
The Republicans could make the same door-hanger, really.
1) See, we let go of Tom DeLay.
2) We're protecting America from terrorists like Russ Feingold, c'mon!
3) Iraqi oil won't be foreign so long as it stays a sort of U.S. project, see.
4) We created so many contractor positions in Iraq! And now, for some more standardized testing...
5) Revamped prescription drug care for seniors!!! All the rest of you have to do is wait to be a senior now.
6) If you people didn't suck, you could have just accepted putting some of your government money into private corporations for us. Jesus, we were trying to look out for you. Buncha ungrateful...
Maybe it's time to join the Socialist Party. We still have one, right? Somewhere?
This kind of reminds me how Kerry and Edwards put a like, hundred-thirty page book up on their website during the campaign to tell people what they stood for. We need a happy medium. We need marketing that doesn't stink of marketing. We need new young leaders.
If I could appoint anyone to run the Democratic Party right now, I would choose someone like Duane Swierczynski. Fuck if I can pronounce his name, but he took the second-rate City Paper alternative rag of Philadelphia and made it not only hold up to the great Philadelphia Weekly, but surpass it. The City Paper has become consistently excellent and engaging. Every week the lead stories are phenomenal and the writing is sharp, witty, and dynamic from cover-to-cover. He revamped it seriously for the better. He makes editorial choices that constantly force people to think. His debut column was called, seriously, "WTF." I love this man. I wish he were a DNC organizer. I can't imagine actually being excited about the next Call to Action in my inbox.
That's what the DNC needs right now. A leader who will say fuck. Because right now, the country sure is making us say fuck plenty enough on our own. Administration to start making more nukes. Fuck. Another trio of suicide bombers in Iraq. Fuck. Google demanded to give over search info. Fuck, fuck, fuck, and don't come after me for googling Britney.
Instead, we've got doorknobs across America that will soon be shouting, Do Not Disturb! Democratic Party In Action.
Skippee.
Some text from Dean's latest:
In honor of Tom DeLay's retirement, today I am ordering another 250,000 of the door-hangers that bear this message -- that's an investment to reach another quarter-million voters on our April 29th organizing day.
Your $50 can put 233 pieces of literature in the hands potential volunteers and potential voters. Will you make a donation?
http://www.democrats.org/delayretirement
Yeah, I really think this is why I don't read his emails so much nowadays. I can get my news without being asked to make a donation two or three times to the DNC inbetween paragraphs. I don't think this should be the DNC's major crutch. Apparently they want money from me to put literature on doors across the fifty states that share the Democratic Vision.
Christ, we have to explain this to people now via door-hangers??? Last I checked, the things that get stuck on doors are FedEx notices and Chinese delivery menus.
So let's see. What is the Democratic Vision, exactly, then?
Now, it is cool that they have all the materials you need to make your own um, door-hangers, at the party website. That much, at least, is democracy in action. Except... Here's what all the dead trees will say:
"1) Honest Leadership & Open Government
We will end the Republican culture of corruption and restore a government as good as
the people it serves.
2) Real Security
We will protect Americans at home and lead the world by telling the truth to our troops,
our citizens and our allies.
3) Energy Independence
We will create a cleaner and stronger America by reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
4) Economic Prosperity & Educational Excellence
We will create jobs that will stay in America by restoring opportunity and driving innovation.
5) A Healthcare System that Works for Everyone
We will join 36 other industrialized nations by making sure everyone has access to
affordable health care.
6) Retirement Security
We will ensure that a retirement with dignity is the right and expectation of every
single American."
Where, exactly, is the anger? Where is the excitement? Yeah, all of these are fine and dandy, I like the bit about truth and all, but, I don't know. I'd rather see it say:
1) We will kick the fucking corrupt corporate-owned sleazebags out of Cap Hill and the White House and we will also kick out those in OUR OWN PARTY who are assholes too.
2) We will do our best to get out of the Iraq quagmire with minimum death and polytrauma and we will stop the government from ruling you with a CULTURE OF FEAR.
3) We will start leading people whose livelihoods have been made in oil into investing in like, mag-lev trains, and will stop the incessant building of suburban blight like "office parks" that is not just keeping the car as a near-requirement in most of the U.S. but also steadily making our nation the dullest, most repetitive country on earth.
4) We will make industries stop outsourcing labor by enslaving people of other countries as human resources. The economy will briefly crash and we will all see how we have been using the rest of the world, and the companies that don't will lead by glorious example. ...Idealistic? ...Yeah, probably. Still, we will do something about it, you hear?
5) IT'S ALL ABOUT MASSACHUSETTS. The true leader of the Free World.
6) How about we stop encouraging Americans to sink into endless credit card debt by curbing needless consumer culture? Then maybe people will actually have some money left over on top of the social security we will protect to give to them when they finally leave the working world.
I want to see a DNC that I can jump up and down about, see. That will go out on a limb and take risks and say what many people are thinking. This is why I'm more likely to spread the word about Dan Savage's Impeach the Motherfucker Already restless citizen-aiding humor and outreach campaign than about this fifty-state canvas thing. When policy sounds utterly like policy, after a point, it sounds boring. I don't really feel any heart in this Vision. I feel a bunch of people at a table spending hours mulling over every word, honing it to absolutely inoffensive perfection.
The Republicans could make the same door-hanger, really.
1) See, we let go of Tom DeLay.
2) We're protecting America from terrorists like Russ Feingold, c'mon!
3) Iraqi oil won't be foreign so long as it stays a sort of U.S. project, see.
4) We created so many contractor positions in Iraq! And now, for some more standardized testing...
5) Revamped prescription drug care for seniors!!! All the rest of you have to do is wait to be a senior now.
6) If you people didn't suck, you could have just accepted putting some of your government money into private corporations for us. Jesus, we were trying to look out for you. Buncha ungrateful...
Maybe it's time to join the Socialist Party. We still have one, right? Somewhere?
This kind of reminds me how Kerry and Edwards put a like, hundred-thirty page book up on their website during the campaign to tell people what they stood for. We need a happy medium. We need marketing that doesn't stink of marketing. We need new young leaders.
If I could appoint anyone to run the Democratic Party right now, I would choose someone like Duane Swierczynski. Fuck if I can pronounce his name, but he took the second-rate City Paper alternative rag of Philadelphia and made it not only hold up to the great Philadelphia Weekly, but surpass it. The City Paper has become consistently excellent and engaging. Every week the lead stories are phenomenal and the writing is sharp, witty, and dynamic from cover-to-cover. He revamped it seriously for the better. He makes editorial choices that constantly force people to think. His debut column was called, seriously, "WTF." I love this man. I wish he were a DNC organizer. I can't imagine actually being excited about the next Call to Action in my inbox.
That's what the DNC needs right now. A leader who will say fuck. Because right now, the country sure is making us say fuck plenty enough on our own. Administration to start making more nukes. Fuck. Another trio of suicide bombers in Iraq. Fuck. Google demanded to give over search info. Fuck, fuck, fuck, and don't come after me for googling Britney.
Instead, we've got doorknobs across America that will soon be shouting, Do Not Disturb! Democratic Party In Action.