tomorrow we will go to war in what may be the most significant fight of our generation.
the force that has propeled, influenced, and redefined our generation is (unbelievably) the internet. no other cultural phenomenon has gripped and changed our lives quite like it, and it will effect our future in ways we can only imagine. the internet, with its file sharing, blogs, e-mails, and countless websites, means only one thing: us. the internet is often dismissed by those who don't understand it as a high velocity way of wasting time. and, like the internet, we too are often dismissed by those who don't understand us, by the people who often make the most important decisions of our lives for us in congress, senate, the white house.
only two people have a chance at winning the democratic nomation and go up against george w. bush come 2004 . wesley clark has regional advantages (have you noticed that every democratic president since JFK have been southerners?) and has been raising good press lately with his accomplishments as key witness at dictator milosevic's trial. howard dean has something quite different. he is all that anyone can talk about. the other candidates rage and attack on him without remorse. the press repeatedly dismiss him as having no chance of winning (quite condescendingly, if i may say.) but somehow, amazingly, he keeps on climbing the polls, he continues to lead the race and pulls further and further away from the rest of the race.
the secret to his breakthough is the internet. like FDR and the radio, like JFK and the television, howard dean is bringing new meaning to the internet. while other candidates simply use it to advertise their latest press releases, howard dean brings boldness into the internet and turned it into a movement. countless debates and discussion are wage online. news that doesn't get mainstream press get launched acoss blog to blog to message board to e-mail. activist strategies are constantly thrown around. meet-ups with other organizers happen on a weekly basis thanks to internet resources (type in a zip code and you get contacts to other activists in your area.) the dean campaign managed to race $15 million dollars through small donations from hundreds of thousands of people (i gave $20) in three months through internet organizing.
his campaign is unbelievable, and should he win the nomination, we will have a battle between two very different world come 2004. we have bush and his CEOs dictating their agendas on one hand, and on the other, we will have ourselves, throwing our voices from the bottom up. this is the fight of our generation, encoupled with our internet. radio and television were powerfool tools that lost meaning once the people were taken out and the corporations moved in. we lost radio and television but we will not lose the internet. we have ourselves and our warm hands, and what we have we will never lose.