And don’t forget to phone Corzine, wherever you live, at 609-292-6000. The governor has been involved in national politics and is the most powerful governor in the nation with his line-item veto. As chair of Clinton’s campaign in New Jersey, he could certainly affect the outcome in 2008.
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Next on the agenda, Rob Kall, described by Mary Ann as a founding member of CVI as well as “outspoken, savvy, tells it as it is,” was morose as he diagnosed what’s wrong with this country: it’s running on 230-year-old machinery, stuck with the Electoral College, while newer democracies elsewhere, less weighed down, have evolved better systems.
Well, California is working to dilute the power of the college—bravo—and also dilute the Democrats’ chance for a 2008 victory.
span class=SpellE>Kall said that he had just run an article on the necessity to get rid of the two political parties, which are not, in fact, provided for in the Constitution. Grimly he added that the grassroots can affect institutions at their level but not those higher up.
Some say that we should start from scratch altogether, said Mary Ann.
Legislators should serve only one term, said Kall. Then he turned the mindset to mythology, the holy grail specifically, one of the “newest myths.” It involves suffering of all subjects because their king has been wounded; there is no vegetation, no fertility (this is a pre-Christian motif). The knight in shining armor can come along and ask the right of two questions: What is the grail? or Whom does the grail serve?
In this case, the hero asks neither question. The bad situation in the kingdom persists or worsens. The hero fights wars and protects the women and, after twenty years, finally asks the right question and life immediately improves.
The myth, of course, is subject to many interpretations; consider Odysseus’s twenty-year voyage, an allegorical process of maturing that may be applicable here also.
The same problem applies to today’s media, said Kall. They won’t ask the right questions.
The ultimate root of the term question, said Mary Ann, means “carving a path to follow.”
Kall said that in modern terms the two questions add up to “Where’s the money?” It’s with those who have power and influence and are, as a result, utterly corrupt.
Looking back again to myth (which preceded sci fi), Kall said that the birth of science fiction in the late nineteenth century inspired humans to create monsters—computers take over the world, kill, enslave, alter the environment to suit their needs, just as the corporatists are doing here with our ecology and their bloodthirsty greed.
Mary Ann hesitantly reminded Kall that the founding fathers warned about granting banks and corporations too much power—remembering how the Boston Tea Party trashed the East India Trading Company.
And then the inevitable “What can be done?”
Kall invoked Mary Ann’s principle that this country is at war with itself; the people don’t realize that their new religion is consumerism, which is killing democracy.
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