It seems to me that the repubs have come to power by using people’s base instincts to characterize other people as “other”. To hate the faceless group with permission from the ruling elite seems to be the ultimate ambition of the kool aid folks.
So how to innoculate people? I propose that we do it with stories. We had a great bunch of stories coming out of Katrina. They chronicled the individual struggle for survival. I propose that we keep it up and promote stories about people’s individual heroism, especially when it comes to people that Bush has let down. Katrina victims are high on that list, but I betcha that people in other countries can give us great story lines as well about individual heroism.
on the flip:
The play between Obrador and Calderon in Mexico is great fodder for understanding groups of people in that country. We can relate to how they are responding to a stolen election. How is it playing with the citizenry of Mexico. Our stiff upper lip politicians on the national stage have not fired up our passions nor their own, but they have fired up the latino community here in this country and apparently in Mexico they are stirring.
But to get back to my thesis, if we know people we cannot hate them as faceless people, faceless threats to our own security. I exhort all of our writers to give at least one diary a week to the human stories you see. Or even the human story that you are!