Democrat,Republican, Libertarian or Independent? Continued

A grass roots movement by bloggers toward the goal of changing campaign finance looks very interesting to me, even if we had to start a new party as great grandfather helped do or we selected candidates and worked to help them regardless of party line. Our representation has been bought out and we stood by and watched them do it. Now, with our blogs, we have the power to improve it.

Just as Lincoln was the result of a grass roots movement and there have been others such as anti discrimination movements. Right now there is a movement pushing tax reform with the Fair Tax program. The group and movement are growing with rallies of thousands in Atlanta and Orlando.

Also think about the growth of our huge grass roots movement of blogs throughout the world. Bloggers are bringing news directly without the control of editors or publishers and the movement is well documented in the book “Blog, Understanding Reformation” by Hugh Hewitt and published by Nelson Books. I will quote a couple of facts from his book but I urge you to buy it and read it. Our world is leaving the traditional newspaper world and taking news directly from the internet. It is not difficult to find blogs that are reliable and informative. You can tune into the life of citizens in many countries and learn what is happening immediately. You do not wait for tomorrow’s paper; you can get the news as it happens from where it happens. Good bloggers are great researchers. They dig and dig until they get reliable facts and report the information to the public with or without a viewpoint, however you want it. There is software available that will list blogs when you turn on your computer and you can scan those you like as often as you like. The best bloggers post several times a day. There are millions of blogs to choose from and search engines to help you find what you want. Some bloggers read many blogs before they post their own. Those who have developed a following of 20,000, 50,000, and 120,000 and so on keep in touch with what is happening. They are well informed, have developed a following and are relied upon for facts. I was really impressed with Hugh Hewitt’s style of documenting the source of all important information. His book is a resource and directory which speaks well for his law training and professorial credentials. He learned early that when learning and exhibiting skills academia does not accept news articles as source documents, they are very unreliable, you need source documents and the blog community only allows those who appreciate that to climb to relevance.

Howard Dean got a big boost from bloggers during his campaign and the Republican National Committee lists a blog on its current site.
When Hugh Hewitt wrote his book two years ago there were about 4 million blogs and there are about 60,000 being created each month and one estimate places the current total at 19 million. This huge growth took place in just a few years. Hewitt’s book is filled with statistics about the growth of the blogs and the influence they have had, the influence on the problems of Trent Lott, mistakes made by the New York Times, John Kerry’s claims about Christmas in Cambodia and lots more. Bloggers found information and spread the word and interfered with the influence of the main stream press.

I would like to see that power turned loose on the political scene. However, I do not want to start condemning any politician, after all, we allowed them to put themselves in this mess. But we must be heard and we must support those who will place their civic responsibilities ahead of personal goals. The Contract with America was a good example and demonstrated that many good politicians would place the community first. It was a goal of Newt Gingrich who is a historian which complements his problem solving abilities and I noticed just today there is renewed interest in him.

(Sometimes I start writing and the discussion seems to be influenced. Maybe great grandfather or my dad has more influence than we think.) Our country is in a mess with campaign finance and the influence of big money. We might as well not even vote! The candidates are selected by who will finance them and how well they can raise money, not on their interest in representing us. We are fed information by headlines carefully worded to steer our thinking and then we are polled to see if the influence is there and then our politicians tell us they will vote the way we want them to. But often they listen to their big dollar contributors and figure out ways to mislead us.
Blgos have the power to change it all. Blogs can give the people a chance to be heard.