Money, Civil Disobedience and other stuff

Money .... can't help but to notice that the little Maplight.org widget above these posts has updated with June numbers on campaign finance. Obama must have raised about $50 million last month compared to McCain with $25 million.

Its striking to someone who's followed politics for a long time that its the Republican who's taking the public financing route for an election, and criticizing the Democrat for not doing so. That alone speaks volumes about the current campaign. Along with the numbers showing that Obama is out fund-raising McCain by Republican-like numbers.

Follow the money, and usually it will show you the winner in American politics. And, you can count on a candidate not biting the hand that feeds it. Want to know why Obama is disavowing everything even moderately progressive that he said or even hinted at to get the Democratic nomination? Just watch the dollar amounts tick over on that little Maplight.org widget and you'll know the reason why. That and the "AT&T Convention" handbag for the corporate party here in Denver tell you all you need to know.

------------------
Sometimes people are critical of the Palestinians for not opposing the Israelies non-violently like Dr. King or Ghandi might do. This article over at DissendentVoice.org tells you what happens when they do. "A West Bank Town’s Struggle to Survive"

I strongly believe that people should try to achieve needed change through legal means provided by society as their first option. In a place like America, that means contesting elections and using the courts to enforce laws when possible.

But, the question becomes, what do you do next if you find that the system is rigged to prevent change by those means? To me, the next stage is non-violent civil disobedience.

In order for non-violent civil disobedience to be effective though, you need a couple of things. One is that hopefully your opposition is willing to stay within the rules and not respond with violence in return. If that doesn't happen, you get the line from "V for Vendetta" :

"What's going to happen? What usually happens when people without guns try to stand up to people with guns."

Even that's not the end of the road for non-violent civil disobedience. Ghandi was met with violence at times. And the people just marched forward and let the police beat them.

But that only works when your opposition is willing to listen. What happens if this occurs, but no one knows about it.? Note the lead to the article about Palestine where it notes that this village that is attempting to resist the Israelis is only found in press searches 71 times. How effective is non-violent civil disobedience when no one knows that its suffering at the hands of a violent opposition?

And what are people, who are suffering and who legitimately have grievances, to do when legal attempts to ask for change are blocked and non-violent attempts to step outside the law are met with violence?