Better Together

While normally an insufferably pompous jackass, Thomas Friedman has written a nice little piece about the importance of working together to change our leaders like some burnt-out light bulbs.

As Friedman points out, your hybrid car don't mean shit if you vote for politicians who believe that having a 70 degree day in summer proves that global warming is a farce.

Republicans have proven exceedingly good at picking up small constituencies of libertarian anti-environmentalists, Rush Limbaugh devotees, and violent anti-choicers and managing to roll them into a ball of voters large enough to defeat regular folks. Needless to say, the politicians elected by this mass of generally anti-social, I-got-mine people are hardly progressive, let alone common-sense types of leaders.

So in this case Friedman is right: we are better together than apart. We mustn't fall into the marketing trap that tries to convince us that our purchases can substitute for real organizing and activism.