a
\n friend<\/a>, and wondering
\n if its time to start planning an intervention. This friend has lately
\n become obsessed and intoxicated by a highly addictive and ultimately
\n destructive activity
\n – American politics. He is losing his perspective, espousing kooky theories,
\n keeping strange hours, and running with a very disreputable crowd. Those
\n of us who care about him are at our wit’s end.<\/p>\nThis friend has just been recruited by the teetering Dean machine, to
\n try to take their internet operation to the next level and reinvigorate
\n the campaign with a jolt of energy from its cybernetic roots . His
\n crazy leap onto the sinking SS Dean has us convinced that one of
\n two theories must be true. Either (theory one) our fiend’s exquisite
\n sense of timing in all things technological is mirrored by a previously
\n unseen
\n but equally abysmal sense of timing in things political, or (theory
\n two) the secret hidden cabal atop the major media conglomerates saw him
\n coming
\n aboard the Dean campaign and yelled "Yikes!" feeling so threatened that
\n they decided to pull the plug on the whole Dean phenomena quick, before
\n it was too
\n late.<\/p>\n
My friend secretly
\n hopes to crack open the whole campaign from the inside out, to create
\n an information flow which will beget an energy flow, which will in turn
\n blow away
\n the crusty politics-as-usual asphyxiating the national political
\n consciousness and cutting it off from its lifeblood, the living electorate.
\n He wants to show the world the true potential of the internet to revolutionize
\n how the political
\n process can work in this country.<\/p>\n
Alas, how charmingly naive. As though the vested interests and
\n savage winners of the multigenerational dogfight for junkyard supremacy
\n who rule our outlaw empire are just going to roll over and fade away
\n when an idealist with shiny ideas appears on the scene. It is almost
\n touching
\n to see such a sophisticated man-about-the-blogosphere reduced
\n to
\n dewy-eyed
\n innocence.
\n Doesn’t he know that politics in America is a sick and vicious game,
\n fraught with treachery and hipocrisy, more often lose-lose than win-win?
\n Can’t he see that he is being used as a wild-card chip in a desperate
\n gambit
\n for
\n political
\n survival,
\n and
\n that whether the gamble succeeds or fails he will probably be discarded
\n in a heartbeat when his usefulness is perceived to be waning?<\/p>\n
My
\n friend is normally a grounded and realistic fellow. His instincts
\n and sense of timing in his chosen field are legendary, and the Dowbrigade
\n is in awe of his business acumen and highly developed bullshit detector.
\n Yet,
\n as we see him being led down the garden path of American politics with
\n stars
\n in
\n his
\n eyes
\n we want to yell, "Watch out, Buddy!"<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, we doubt even a well-intentioned intervention would
\n help at this stage of the game. He is too far gone, too in
\n love with the power and illusion of the statesmen’s platform. This
\n wizened, nearly
\n jaded
\n developer has become a virgin again, reborn in the world of national
\n politics, and who can blame him for being dazzled and charmed by these
\n master
\n mesmerizers. And
\n yet, seeing so clearly that his heart is bound to be broken
\n in their soiled and sordid game, how can we stand by and do nothing?<\/p>\n
We guess that all we can do is watch, and try to be the best friend
\n we know how, ready with a sympathetic shoulder and a bit of buck-up-manship
\n when
\n the
\n inevitable come-down hits. And to assure him that having your
\n heart broken doesn’t mean you can never love again. When The
\n One <\/a>shows up, we’ll all be virgins again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Dowbrigade is worried about a friend, and wondering if its time to start planning an intervention. This friend has lately become obsessed and intoxicated by a highly addictive and ultimately destructive activity – American politics. He is losing his … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1443],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esl-links"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}