Take a Cue from the WGA: a Reason for Revolution After the Ron Paul rEVOLution
As the WGA strike has shown us, securing our future rights is reason for action. by M Cal
(libertarian)
Friday, February 1, 2008
The return of the late-night talk show hosts after an absence of a month due to striking writers: the former "Dorito-Shilling" Jay Leno is forced to write his own jokes again. Jon Stewart, a WGA member,returns to the airwaves changing the name of his show to "A Daily Show," and Stephen Colbert, also a WGA member, now pronounces the 'T's in the "Colbert Report," to show solidarity with the writers. Jon Stewart's very presence on television now is a constant reminder of their absence, and not because he can't hold the show on his own. Colbert certainly can, since 'Colbert' (with a -bear) is a living breathing entity unto itself. But Stewart rather chooses to highlight the effects of the writer's strike the first night back, bringing on an academic expert on unions.
And why are they striking? Over residuals coming from "new media." This is only the beginning of a real issue for writers, as the technology that will generate this massive influx of money for the corporations is far from ubiquitous, but that will be remedied in a few years. This is a case of likeminded individuals in their own best interest preemptively securing their rights in a brave new world.
Should we fail to secure a position peacefully through a continued peaceful and lawful grass-roots effort that has inspired people of all ages to care about the political process, the constitution, their rights, and how those rights are being abused by a select few, all of this energy will dissipate back from where it came: inside us, as we again grow disillusioned and tired of more of the same. This could have been done peacefully, since the majority of people I speak to about the election haven't even heard of Ron Paul. They haven't heard about Ron Paul because he's been left out of the race by the mainstream media since the beginning, despite getting more votes than so-called "front-runners" Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani. In fact, the Old Media sources of news are conspiratorial in expounding the belief that rabid Ron Paul supporters somehow fake the numbers on text-message and online voting post-debate polls. Even Rudy Giuliani acknowledged this, as a bit of humor, of course, in his speech announcing that he was leaving the Republican race.
It's not very long till' November, and we should start thinking about the future, as the writers have shown us. Ron Paul has awakened something in a vast majority of people that will die as soon as the presidential elections are over (assuming he runs third-party). "Pessimism is the new black," says futurist and technology forecaster Paul Saffo at the 2007 Singularity Summit. "Endism is in," he continued. Indeed, and it's a symptom of our time. Four more years of politics as usual until we rise again? Repopulating the congress with Paul-like Libertarians? Ron Paul 2012? Now that's a possibility, but the possibility of living under McCain is frightening. Ron Paul IS the Revolution. He would like to think that the people at the grass roots level that are making history because they are compelled by his ideas. But it's not just his ideas, but how he acted on those ideas (that is, voted on those ideas), and that is the person: Ron Paul. Ron Paul is an absolutely singular entity, and he is the embodiment of his ideas. Without him as candidate, all he has inspired dies. We rally around HIM as the only sane man in the political game.
We can remember this as the time when we all came close and sunk back into normalcy, or we can remember this as the time that we came close and took that momentum to the streets, and to the halls of government, and demanded a change.
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