I'm all for class war.

Okay, Jesse's comment here raisees some interesting points that are worth arguing against:

1) The claims on both sides of the electronic voting machine question are hyperbolic. It is a serious risk, as we all realized after the Swarthmore students circulated the Diebold memos. But it's far from a sure thing that it will circumvent democracy in this election. Several of my friends are volunteering as election monitors, and if I weren't going to be canvassing in Oregon I'd do the same. Honestly, I don't mean this to sound glib, but it really is true that a lot of people died fighting for the right to vote and I think for me not to continue that fight today wouldn't feel right to me.

2) In my opinion, the history of the mass media reveals a more complicated picture than simply that of media consolidation. Yes, media consolidation is a very clear and present danger, but it's not clear to me that the condition of press freedom from censorship and self-censorship alike is today, overall, any worse than it was in 1960, or 1930, or 1900. And the fact that there are other trends, too, is demonstrated by the successful efforts of a blogger to get Trent Lott's comments about the 1948 presidential race into the mainstream media. Question: do people think the corporate control of the media is one way in which we live in a "New Gilded Age"?

3) Gerrymandering (named after, and spelled like, Elbridge Gerry) is not the same thing as intimidation and election fraud, and is more complicated. For now, I'll say only that if the overall level of voter intimidation was substantial in Florida in 2000, at the same time you have to admit that there is less intimidation than there has been in the past.

4) John Kerry is no Barack Obama. Still, he's not a DLC Democrat. He's my candidate for his record and proposals on the domestic HIV/AIDS crisis if nothing else, as I argued on p. 10 of this week's Windy City Times:
http://www.windycitytimes.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=6295

5) I'm all for class war. As I said when Queer to the Left was red-baited recently during an affordable housing debate and accused of advocating "the overthrow of the capitalist system"----where do I sign up?