Sounding the Alarm: Al Franken's Netroots Nation Keynote Address

Franken makes a remarkably clear, urgent, and appealingly good-humoroed case that the struggle for democracy against corporatist expansion in this historical moment has been shaped by the 5-4 Roberts Republican Supreme Court Citizens United decision, by concerns over the upcoming Comcast/NBC merger, by the vicissitudes in the incessant struggles to preserve Net Neutrality, and how all these struggles form the urgent context in which to understand the stakes for the mid-term election this November. For those who are devoted to the politics of ongoing p2p-democratization, Franken's case is enormously welcome and I am hoping excerpts will circulate far beyond the conference audience.



PART ONE



PART TWO



PART THREE



PART FOUR

I have heard some declare Franken's speech to be desperately alarmist and defensively weak-kneed, but I must say that in my opinion if you are not alarmed and mobilized by the prospects of would-be House Speak Boehner with his Gingrichian promises to shut down responsible governance in the midst of a near economic Depression coupled with Issa's promise to take up the gavel and transform the House into a puke funnel for frivolous multi-million dollar nuisance lawsuits and scandal mongering a la Clinton era Blackwater-Vince Foster-impeachments-for-blowjobs, if you are not alarmed by the prospect of a complete corporate-militarist dismantlement of our already almost fatally dysfunctional democratic processes, then you are either dangerously ignorant or deluded indeed.