LEAP DAY

Have a cocktail!


Recipe here

And then, let's talk.....

There are two comments in reader posts at Big, Left, Outside that strike to the heart of the matter this election year:

"Most of all, we soldiers know that no matter who wins the Presidential "election" nothing will change." "The change you’re looking for isn't going to come from a presidential election...it has to start at the local level."

Actually, I think there is a chance that change could occur with Kucinich as president. I used to say that he would be eaten alive if he got that far, and I didn't want to have to watch. And, realistically, that's probably what would happen. But, Kucinich offers the left a real leftist position, and the media refuse to serve the offering. And where is the left's demand for service? What happened in Hawaii that hasn't happened in other primary states?

Discussing the merits of Kerry or Edwards over Bush is like arguing over who gets to sit in the engineer's seat when the train is barreling full-throttle toward a chasm that has no bridge, and the brakeman who died years ago was never replaced.

And speaking of years ago - In one of the primary debates from which Clinton won the Democrat nomination, Jerry Brown threw a mini-fit at the table, saying all the rest of the candidates were wanting to go to Washington and tweak this or that, when what we needed was a crowbar. He was right, but we didn't get one. We got the tweak. And the things that could make the changes we need stayed the same. We're still riding that train and arguing about who gets to sit up front.

Instant runoff elections. For a start. No electoral college - one person, one vote. Major busting up of media conglomerates. (And guard the internet.) Extreme campaign finance reform, incorporating equal allotted ad time and numerous debates on all major TV stations. Limits to congressional terms. The end of politics as a career. Public election of the judiciary. Major tax and corporate reform. For a start. What's good for corporate profits is not good for the world. What's good for keeping a congressperson in office isn't either. Separation of corporation and state. And certainly a return to separation of church and state. For a start.

I don't imagine I have the best answers, but I can see the questions we might want to ask if we expect any meaningful change. And I suppose that does happen first at the local level, but Kucinich at least claims to be looking at those types of fundamental corrections....so, in this leap year, we might actually have had a chance to make a certain leap and leave off the damned tweaking. Doesn't look like we're going to try.