Dave Morin

My good friend and collegue Nate Johnson sent this email last week and has licensed me to reproduce it in my blog space. He provides a concise and pointed look at the passing republican and democratic conventions. Again my friends…its time to take action, time to engage and challenge the political conversation with all of your friends. Time to make change happen.

Thanks Nate.

—

Friends,

I tried to play fair. So I watched both the Democrats and the Republicans and their national conventions. Here�s what I learned.

Republicans clearly have a flair for the ironic. Consider what happened during the RNC…

…the most conservative regime since WWII, comes to the center for the convention, just like they did in 2000. Which was just before they became the most conservative regime since WWII.
…Zell Miller (D-Georgia) brands Kerry a �flip-flopper.� Not only did this guy speak out at the 1992 DNC against George H.W. Bush, he switched loyalties a dozen years later to speak out against Kerry during a prime time address.
…Bush blasts Kerry for pointing to Hollywood as �the heart and soul of America� less than 48 hours after Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers a high profile speech to the RNC.
…Cheney states that our soldiers �represent the very best of America.� Never mind, of course, that Cheney dodged service in Vietnam while John Kerry became a decorated war hero. This from a man who sees no conflict of interest in his former corporation making a profit in the now-Halliburtonized not-so-post-war Iraq.
…Cheney says, “My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked.� Can someone please refresh my memory? When did Iraq attack the United States?

In fact, every speech at the RNC dripped with irony. Suddenly, monumental failures in public policy became huge successes.

Want the truth? Bush has lost 1,000,000 jobs since 2000. Over 4,000,000 Americans have lost health care coverage since he became president. He under-funded No Child Left Behind by $9B. Want more? How about over 1,000 soldiers losing their lives in Iraq, after our president destroys any chance of a global coalition and undermines 225+ years of American foreign policy by striking first?

If I sound upset, that�s intentional. I�m tired of sitting by while lowbrow �politicians� drag Democrats into the “Republican Mud Pit: Serving Citizens Since 1992.”

It didn�t have to be like this. On the first night of the RNC, John McCain (R-Arizona) calls the Democratic Party �opponents, not enemies.” But then every speaker in his wake missed the most sensible statement from their most sensible public figure. It�s not surprising, though, from a party that enabled a group of veterans who never served with Kerry to share their �observations.” Or from a party that continually named, shamed, and blamed �John Kerry� in speech after speech. Or from a party who endorsed Zell �Flip-Flop� Miller, who walked off the stage and promptly challenged journalist Chris Matthews to a duel.

What�s the point? Here�s what we need to stand up for…more jobs…universal health care…religious and cultural tolerance…equal access to education…regained status as a conscientious member of the global community…recognition of same-sex marriages.

I�ll close this rant by quoting Republican icon Ronald Reagan, who, in a 1980 debate, asked the American public: �Are you better of now than you were four years ago?�

We�re not.

Which is why I�m not asking you to join me in voting for Kerry. What I�m asking you to do is much bigger than that. I�m asking you to ask others to join us in voting for John Kerry in November.

When small numbers of people start behaving differently, that behavior can ripple outward until a critical mass — �or tipping point� — is reached. That�s when you change the world.

It�s time to tip this thing over. It�s time to break out your best Paul Revere impression and warn everyone that �the Republicans are coming!� It�s time to influence the most influential people you know.

It�s time to join us and vote for John Kerry.

Sincerely,
Nate

Here’s to companies that care deeply about the environment. We only have one earth, and it’s fastly getting smaller. Soon we will live in a globalized economy with fewer barriers to trade. Companies will be global, and their actions will have global implications on our lives, our environments, the air we breath, and the water we drink.

One of my favorite people in the world, Justine Rosa, works for absurdly little money at a midtown Manhattan architecture firm. She’s an amazing Cornell-trained interior designer with a razor edge wit. She cares deeply about the environment, as she’s a fellow Montanan.

Through my conversations with her, she turned me on to Interface. One of those companies that you never think about, but they make like half the industrial carpet in the world. You can only imagine the waste involved in developing carpeting solutions. Carpet is/was completely un-recyclable. They’ve come up with some pretty awesome ideas. You can read more about it here.

Maybe Micheal Moore is on base. Maybe he isn’t. All that matters is that we are all definately thinking about our country right now. The youth in this country are thinking about some very interesting questions. Who is the right choice? Am I a Democrat? Republican? What the hell do either of these parties even stand for. I can sure tell you which person will suck most at the job. But who will do the best?

A lot of people you talk to right now will argue that we are at a fundamental turning point in our nations history. I for one am pretty leary of everything going on in the White House right now. But honestly. How do we really have any idea what information is correct. Pete, made an exceptionally good point today that a nation’s prosperity is defined by the amount of information it’s citizens have. It’s amazing the amount of information we think we have. But do we really?

Worldwide globalization. Saudi Arabian Oil. Indian technology economic explosion. Chinese manufacturing domination. Energy dependence. Gay marriage. Abortion. US tax policy. Terrorist extremism. So many issues, so little time. Our lives are clouded with information that moves so quickly, half of us don’t truely have time to really explore every issue we want to. We hope that we can trust our leaders and the information we receive. But can we?

Kelly and I debated for 2 hours over dinner at Cheesecake. As we went round and round battling each others points from both sides of the proverbial fence, one interesting point was agreed upon. Leadership is almost always defined by what the previous leader let go. There comes a time when the nation is so neglected internally that we need to shift to a president on the other side. Inversely, after a stint of external ass-kicking, war, and defense spending, we seem to see the cycle move the other way. This makes absolute sense.

Now, I’m just as pissed off as the next guy about Iraq and the loss of life going on both in the US military and Iraqi civilians. But can any of us say we really know what is going on over there? Why 9/11 happened? What this all about? Or why we are really there? Not one of us can define this answer to this question with absolute certainty. Who are you going to vote for? Why? How do you know what side of the fence you are on?

One thing is for certain. It involves money. A lot of it. It involves the very fabric of a very wealthy and powerful nation. A ruling country that is determined to stay in power. This is so complicated it’s hard to put one’s head around. How do our leaders grasp it? It’s just another bunch of fraternity guys trying to make sure the house doesn’t get kicked off campus. How long will we stay on campus?

Now, if we could only figure out how to make voting accurate and easily accessible…

In homage to the greatest food on earth Reagan did something right back in the 80’s and declared July National Ice Cream Month. The third Sunday of the month is also National Ice Cream Day. This has to be by far the coolest national holiday EVER!

Hope everyone is having an excellent AMERICA RULES weekend. Lots to come this week here at davemorin.com/blog in terms of epic stories and pictures of the last couple weeks. Rock On!

Does the increasingly high level of pervasive product placement in movies annoy anyone else these days? I haven’t gone off on a rant in awhile. I think I’m well overdue. It seems that the very industry (advertising) that defines us as a capitalistic consumer culture is being eaten alive by our own vices. We don’t like ads during our daytime soaps or primetime TV. So we invent Tivo. Not forgetting that those ads pay Jennifer Aniston’s ridiculous salary in the first place. I mean originally, no one even knew how to invent Tivo, it was just an idea, so they took it to a place like Ideo. They sat down with a team of engineers, psychologists, and economists and said…TV defines America as we know it, lets change that. And so they did.

Tivo’s hit The Tipping Point. It’s past early adoption and taking the mass market by storm. Tivo is being hailed as the savior in television content in America. But at what price?

The ad industry is tanking. Creative professionals are loosing their ability to offer value in a TV media setting. Tivo literally just bought up the rest of the proverbial real estate. Thus, the industry is forced to move to new methods of marketing. Tying Mini Coopers to the tops of Ford Expeditions, offering an iPod connection to a BMW. I love these ideas, they are the ingenious ideas that once went into ingenious copy and ingenious layouts.

But, I do think one of the most distrubing marketing trends is the incredible amount of product placement going on in movies currently. Not only are we bombarded with vastly shameless promotion of predominantly bad movies before they come out. Entire awards shows *cough* MTV movie awards *cough* are gigantic billboards for the upcoming movies of the summer. Then once the movies do release, we go to them, and are bombarded with more shameless promotion of products.

I hit “Dodgeball” the other day. Funny movie. Kind of. What I remember more than the humor is: vitamin water, marriott hotels, lance armstrong (nike had some sort of vicarious hand in that one), and many others. It seemed as though the entire movie was built around product showcases. We are tricked into the theatre during the summer months for a good laugh. Have no fear, the laugh was provided. But, it’s becoming increasingly hard to sit down and enjoy the actual content of the movie anymore. You see this all over television now too. Product placement, giveaways, pimped out rides. Nothing is about the content anymore, it’s about how to tap into America’s attention deficit disorder. Too much media all the time. Isn’t the content what Tivo is after?

I just seems sort of the epitomy of the hypocrisy of American culture. We drive consumerism with our rabid intent of buying buying buying all the time, yet we are tired of companies trying to prevasively cram into our eyeballs exactly what is good for us. Thus killing an entire industry in one fell swoop. Advertising as we know it is dead. It’s a sad death in some ways if you ask me. It’s hard for anyone to miss being bombarded with ads daily, in the car on the drive home, on the TV when you get home, all over the paper that we read. Companies are starting to realize, the death of advertising = revenue. We aren’t your customers anymore, we simply don’t pay attention long enough, there’s too much media coming at us.

Rising from the ashes, or soon to be ashes, is something that I hope takes shape quickly and fruitfully. Great products. In a market full of consumers as rigid as us laptop wielding, internet bargaining, uber-consumers, we need to see more rock solid products. Products that are so good they market themselves. Products that take what someone else has done, but make it better in a whole new way. I challenge every business out there to look at what they offer. What do people hate about it? What makes it great? How can you eliminate the bad, add to the good, then make it even better? Truly wonderful product is the way of the future. Wonderfully simple products that just wonderfully work. I challenge you to take your product or service to another level. Create a better life for your customer by making your product solve the everyday problems that they face as an American in your market. After you make their life easier, do it again, show them you really do care. Too high of a challenge? Call me, I’ll brainstorm with you.