I read the post “I made the “Vote Different” Ad” on Huffington. Its a nice piece to check out. This anti-Hillary ad caught our attention for more than two weeks. It was run over and over on cable news shows and people took notice. We’ve all heard that Hillary has this gigantic political machinery and fund raising prowess and therefore she will be the democratic nominee for president. Most candidates in the race believe that money is primarily what makes or breaks a campaign. An ordinary citizen has no choice in effecting the process because money drives everything. I strongly like Sen Obama. But Obama could easily be steam rolled by the Clinton’s fund raising abilities. His campaign would be dead in an era where money is the only driving force. With the internet, blogs and above all YouTube , we are in a different era. People can organize on the web in support of a candidate of their choice. Candidates are able to reach younger voters through internet avenues like myspace. Obama is know to have the most myspace friends. He is the most popular guy on the web. So there is enormous hope for ordinary citizens. We do not have to settle for the money candidate. Ordinary citizens are relevant.

Hillary’s campaign must be kicking themselves for being totally helpless against these internet assaults. I don’t think it changed minds but it reinforced all the negatives people do feel about Hillary. She seems inauthentic, bitter, domineering and cold. Her life has not been easy in the public eye for more than 20years. In spite of all she has endured with Bill’s indiscretions, she is unable to garner any kind of public sympathy. It feels like she stuck with Bill to catapult her own political career. The manner in which she responded to David Geffen’s unflattering remarks about her family solidified her image as extremely mean spirited and big brotherly. This “Vote Different” ad just puts this whole personality of Sen Clinton in a 60sec video bit. It is very effective.

I liked the ad but I can understand that campaigns feel nervous about this. Obama’s campaign does not want to be labeled as a smear machine and they may be worried that there might be people who begin to perceive it that way. Therefore it is great that Mr Phil De Vellis came out and took ownership of the ad. He clearly mentions that the aim of his ad is to communicate the fact that Sen Clinton could be very domineering. Point well made. We are talking about it and millions of people took notice. Mr Phil effectively communicated his point of view about the democratic primary process and it was heard loud and clear. He made himself relevant in the political process and so will many others. This will make politicians more conscious and in tune to people than to special interests. The million dollar TV ads will still be there but their effectiveness will be considerably reduced.

Internet has opened the gateway for people to be part of the political discourse. People can make themselves heard and that is a great step forward for this democracy.

I was watching Tucker on MSNBC. A member of Code Pink: Women for Peace was a guest on the show. She was telling that she has been relentlessly pursuing Nancy Pelosi’s office to get a meeting with her. I see this kind of pursuit of politicians by peace activists totally pointless. This Code Pink activist’s argument is that her group helped in electing democrats and its time to pay the dues back by ending the war. The fact is that Bush is still president and the democrats do not have a veto proof majority in either house; the majority in the senate is good for nothing except that the democrats get to chair the various committees. The activists must let the politicians know about their priorities but expecting instant success especially in something as huge as ending the war is kind of unreasonable. I think members of congress do feel kind of helpless because in spite of being on the side of ending the war they cannot show anything tangible to the peace groups. This is a sad situation for both.

The peace activists must go to local community’s and educate people about the facts of the war and how it has been run for the past four years. They must encourage people to call their elected representatives and voice their disapproval about the war in Iraq. The politicians will feel the heat and be forced to act. The war is hurting all Americans; republican, democrat and independent. So when people take initiative in the bottom change happens eventually at the top. The activists can expect action quickly if democrats had a substantial majority. That is not the case and the sure way to end the war is to organize the grass roots.

The military is fighting this war. The people of the country are not. There is no draft; so a majority of the people cannot relate to the plight of the military families. People have not been asked to make even economic sacrifices for this war. This was not the case during World War II when there was rationing and high taxes. Therefore people do not find the need to take any proactive steps towards ending the war. They do not feel the war affecting their daily lives; and we all know the saying “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.”.

One strong reason for the war going on for 4 long years is that people are grossly ill-informed. Many citizens read “People” and “In Touch” weekly as compared to TIME and NEWSWEEK. The corporate electronic media does a poor job in giving facts. When I watch the news, the time spent on covering the Iraq War is very little. It almost feels like a “side show” as Bill Maher says it all the time in his show “Real Time with Bill Maher“. There is polling data that shows that 70% of the American people oppose the Iraq War. However I feel that one cannot effectively criticize a policy if they do not have knowledge about it. The way I see it is that there was no effective opposition to the war in the beginning. People believed what the administration said and went with it; now that the war has dragged on, people don’t seem to like it anymore. My feeling is that people are more upset over the fact that the war is taking too long; however they do not have any strong opposition to the WAR as a matter of policy. It is like the whole country has ADD(Attention Deficit Disorder). This is a direct result of being ignorant about the facts. The war policy could be pursued because the people were behind it. Similarly this war can be stopped if people go against it in a proactive fashion. The peace groups must understand this and must bring the pressure to Captiol Hill from the people. It is going to take time but by educating the people, we will not only end this war but all future wars as well. Even politicians who are against this policy must bring the debate to the people and garner their support for ending this war.

There were some anti-war protests on the fourth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. I would not know the exact figures of how many people participated since the main stream media did not cover it. My understanding however is that it was not very big. This speaks to the intensity in the anti-war movement which we can all agree to be very tepid. The activists complain that they are not getting air time to speak out and that the protests are not covered deliberately. They might have a point; however I think that if 10,000 people march against the war, it can be ignored but if 10 million march they will not be. The peace groups must force to media to take notice and stop complaining about not being heard. The only way to get noticed is to get people on board with their agenda of peace. This means a lot of hard work and sometimes I get a feeling that they are shying away from the tough challenge of accomplishing that. It is a lot simpler to hound a politician and pat yourself on the back for being active than toiling hard in communities to mobilize people. I am not against pursuing politicians to get your point across but it should be a small part in a larger operation of getting people to understand the disastrous policy of the Iraq War.