Do We Really Care About Conservatives?

What made my head explode this morning? This New York Times opinion piece title: "An Emissions Plan Conservatives Could Warm To."

Because really who cares about what will please conservatives? I'm all for open debate between disagreeing sides. I'm not the most progressive of progressives. I'm good with incentives to do good (because we all know self-interest works). And I'm sure there are some smart conservatives out there (Andrew Sullivan is a conservative). But still. After eight years of conservative rule and 16 (or 30) years of undo influence on economic policy, I think it's fair to say conservatives have said enough. What with the collapse of the free markets, a crumbling infrastructure, and a fundamentally failed foreign policy, conservatives may now scuttle off to their tiny little think tanks, hang their heads and weep for what they've done to this country. Weep. Long and hard.

An emissions plan conservatives could warm to. As if.

The Money. The Failure. The Web?

I have a hard time sticking with stuff when I read online. I have to force myself to focus, attend, finish. Often I wander off in the middle and think about recipe books I should consult or that book about deregulation (I think that's what it's about) I still want to read or whether or not I'm going to blog about how I still don't quite get short selling. But today, I made myself finish reading this post on the Daily Kos. I got to it from (where else?) Sullivan, and it begins with a quote from an article in Harper's that maybe I want to go read. (Per the Kos post it's not yet online). So I'm reading and it's about the debt and how badly the Bush administration has mangled things and then it's about propoganda and how those in power talk about how things happen and then it gets to its point: The failure of the government to manage the chaos of our country has created the potential for more democratic discussion. I read this and start to get that familiar stirring deep inside, the thing that signals maybe I feel hope? Maybe I'm a little less cynical? Maybe I'll find a way to get up and get involved?

I read on and learn that that democratic discussion isn't going to happen between people or in assembly halls or church basement or classrooms. No. It's going to happen on the Web. And I just want to hang my head because a blogger writing about how the democratic discussion is going to happen online is, in the end, just writing so much self-referential chin music.

Sure we can discuss away online, and more people than can fit on the New York Times or the Daily Beast or even Huffington Post can join in. And then? Doesn't more democratic discussion have to happen through talking out loud to other people and then to matter shouldn't it make us act? I mean, Obama didn't win just because of all those words and all that content online. He won because there were people all over the country knocking on doors and taking people to the polls. Discussion led to action. Sure, it also led to a lot of web sites and lordy knows I love the web and the blogging thing. But, really, the whole shebang can't be about the web. It just can't. It's too depressing. Isn't it?

Prop 8

There's a lot I want to say about Prop 8, especially since I've just actually married a couple. But, the thing is, I've yet to find the time to sit and sort through what I'm actually thinking about all this beyond the general heartbreak and horror at its passage and the strange hocus-pocusness of marrying. Many people at the wedding where I was the official officiant asked me what I had to do to get certified as an officiant and the bottom line is this: I had to do not much.  With the internet, anyone can become a minister, and with a minister's certificate, anyone can go to City Hall and register as an officiant. So why can't anyone who wants to get married?  And I don't mean enter into a civil union, I mean pledge to their lover the rights and responsibility that are embedded in a life-long union and call it a marriage because that's what it is.  I know, I'm being dim and ignoring fear and prejudice, but, seriously, who's hurt by a nice gay couple getting married? 

I would comment on Dan Savage's piece in the Times today, but he makes his point and gins up some anxiety, which I hope will be besides the point, but only if we're all vigilant, because at the Right constricts, we could be in for some seriously loud fear-mongering.