One Small Consensus at MFA; One Great Consensus for Personkind
I've always loved space travel. I devoured
science fiction as my default genre through high school. In my early
teens I borrowed books from the branch library that catered to Robert
Heinlein when he was my age. My favorite first book had been the
1949 Conquest
of Space, realistic paintings by Chesley
Bonestell of Willy Ley's conception of the space travel everyone knew would
be routine by the third millennium. Three buddies of mine in USAF Pilot
Training became astronauts and later gave me an insider's tour of Johnson
Space Center. One of them, Roy
D. Bridges, Major Gen., (Rtd.) saved my life with a radio call,
and, last I heard, was the Director of Kennedy Space Center. |
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Further, I'm enough of a trekkie to know that Gene Roddenberry's
widow, Majel
Barrett, is the voice of the computer on the Next Generation
series and played Deanna Troi's mother, the fabulously outrageous Lwaxana
Troi
(a daughter of Betazed's Fifth House, holder of the sacred Chalice of Rixx
and heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed) and was nearly cast in the Captain
Kirk role in the original series.
Yep, I'm in the cross hairs of the old fart population of
space exploration fanatics.
But I don't see how going
to Mars relates to developing our
Global Brain. Global
Brain is
the book by my favorite sociobiologist, Howard
Bloom, describing how we are
wiring ourselves together to form
a superorganism linking us as tightly as bees in their hive. Bloom thinks
every life form is a superorganism comprised of simpler life forms that link
up so avidly they take on the appearance of unity. In our case,
it's useful to remember that all our biological energy is generated by the
mitochondria at the core of every cell, which is literally a separate,
symbiotic life form. Our mitochondria are with us but not of us.
Howard Bloom says we're connecting so fast that major projects
will need a broad cultural buy-in rather than
by presidential decree. Imagine how different the federal budget would look
if it were designed
the way they develop budgets in Vermont.
Last week, armed with that question, I read a skeptic who
declared that there's no market for Mars exploration, except for the military-industrial
complex.
How does
he know that? If people hankered for Mars, he said, there'd be settlers
queuing up to live in the
Gobi
Desert, which is a million times more hospitable than Mars and a billion
times cheaper to get to. Besides, there are far more interesting challenges
waiting for us here on earth, like getting democracy right and building The
Economy, Rev. 3.0, which I call Xpertweb.
Harmonizing with the Enemy
On Saturday, Tamara and I visited with Franz
Hartl, Dan Droller and Kevin Collinsworth at Music
For America's east coast headquarters. Franz is
the spiritual head of MFA, and dropped in on our mini-summit last July to
say hi to Zephyr and Zack. Franz loves the idea of the Great Centrist Party,
but wants to call
it
the
Great
Consensus. He says that the labels Democratic, Republican, liberal and conservative
have
lost their meaning and that we need a new way of describing the animating force
behind American politics.
As Franz and Dan's interview by Chris Lydon reveals, MFA
will sponsor a series of concerts across the country to inspire a new generation
of political activists. This initiative, combined with the energy that the
Dean youngsters have introduced into the race, is a tsunami sweeping
over American politics.
I'm in Burlington for my monthly
stint at the capacious corner
office in the volunteer bull pen, and I'll witness this force again,
firsthand. Most of the volunteers and staff have never been involved in politics
and often have never voted. I certainly have never been involved in politics
and swore I never would be.
What does Tom Harkin Know
that We Don't?
Tom Harkin is the
senior senator from Iowa and one of the most beloved politicians in Iowa's
history (I'm surprised I can even type "beloved
politician"). Last week he joined Al Gore and Bill Bradley to
campaign for the Gov in Iowa. Why would he do this when pundits are
saying that the race is getting closer?
Does this mean Harkin's casting caution to the winds and throwing in with
Dr. Dean to rescue him from the teapot tempest inspired by his 1999
observation
that only committed professionals will spend several hours at an Iowa caucus?
Actually, no. I'll bet Tom Harkin likes Howard Dean as much
as anyone else, but he's not likely to turn his back on Gephardt or
Kerry unless he's quite confident about Dean's victory in Iowa. But where
is he getting his confidence? The difference is that he's an Iowan and the
pundits aren't. The polls are tilted to the old politics and not to the new,
as Franz Hartl explained yesterday.
Franz pointed out that pollsters mostly poll people who voted
in the last caucus, discounting the likelihood that a newcomer will show
up next Tuesday night. But Franz reminded me of an important point. As
we heard again on Meet the Press this morning, Iowa expects twice the turnout
as the 2000 caucus. And what kind of people are those new 60,000 voters?
People who now have a reason to caucus and did not before.
MidWiving the Revolution
As we left Music For America, Tamara and I thanked our new
friends for sharing their time and enthusiasm. And Franz gave us one
of the nicest compliments I've heard: "It's great to get better acquainted:
You guys midwived the revolution!"
10:30:33 PM 
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