I went to the Howard Dean Meetup last night at Halcyon.
There were dozens of people in attendance; the crowd seemed energetic and enthusiastic. The event was well-organized, and the organizers seemed experienced at the campaign process.
One organizer gave an informative talk about the process of campaigning — signing petitions to get Dean on the ballot, having fund-raising house parties, competing in the precinct caucuses.
The second organizer gave a very short but inspirational talk about taking our country back.
To the best of my understanding — Dean has no chance of winning Texas, but some chance of winning the Democratic primary. So this is a useful endeavor.
I’ve never been involved in elections before except to vote. But with things like this happening, I feel the need to show up and do something.
I like Dean’s socially liberal and fiscally conservative policy and record. I like the way he uses the words civil liberties liberally in his discussion of homeland security. I really like the way that his campaign is making use of the the internet as a tool for grass-roots organizing, with Meet-Up and weblogs.
And I’m very impressed by paragraphs like this on his website.
The current Administration has defined the concept of national security too narrowly. For example, our failure to develop alternative sources of energy and fuel creates an over-dependence on petroleum imported from the Middle East. As a result, we send billions of dollars every year to countries that are financing radical educational systems that teach young people to hate Christians, Jews and Americans. We learned on September 11 that these schools are prime recruiting grounds for terrorists.
America needs an energy policy that stresses conservation and renewable fuels, including ethanol, solar, wind and biomass. Alternative energy sources are practical, economically viable and good for our environment; they are smart national security policy, as well.
Dean just pulled even with Kerry in New Hampshire.
Here’s the Dean for Texas website and the Texans for Dean mailing list.
I was there too! I couldn’t stick around much after Glen Maxey spoke, but I’m glad I went. I was extremely involved with the Bradley campaign, and it was the first campaign I ever really got involved in. Needless to say, it broke my heart when he got Gored. So it takes a lot to get me all fired up about someone again — Dean’s got it.
Maybe for the next meetup, we could try and find each other? 🙂
Hey Adina,
I’ll have to check out that new coffee shop when i come to town.
I think we get about 12% of our oil from the Middle East, and our willingness to depose Saddam illustrates that we are not making foreign policy based on oil dependence.
(Even if having Iraq’s oil secure for extraction was a major motive, the war has the potential to destabilize the region enough that it would not be worth the risk if we could get more Iraqi oil just by lifting sanctions and helping Saddam develop his oil fields. Ergo – we are not in Iraq primarily for oil.)
So we should continue moving away from petroleum-based energy, and we are still too nice to Saudi Arabia, but I think that is a vestige of Bush I and the Arabophilia of the State Dept. The Iraq war is actually a step in the direction Dean wants to take – Bush fils is not listening to his father’s advisors.
Judith,
Even if we get 12% of our oil from the Middle East, the region has a higher market share than that overall, and therefore has a greater ability to impact US energy prices.
“the war has the potential to destabilize the region enough that it would not be worth the risk if we could get more Iraqi oil just by lifting sanctions and helping Saddam develop his oil fields.
Yes. I don’t think this disproves the oil motive. I think this shows that administration is overconfident about its ability to stabilize the region by military invasion and occupation. Look at the difficulty Israel has in occupying the territories. And Israel does not have a choice of neighbors. The US had a choice.
“The Iraq war is actually a step in the direction Dean wants to take.”
I don’t understand this at all. Fighting Iraq does nothing to reduce our dependence on oil as a source of energy.
It is only a step in that direction if you believe that the US has the ability, on its own, to remake Iraq into a democratic nation.