Rudy Giuliani's speech at the RNC

You know, I rarely actually write anything about politics, never here, and rarely on the community blogs I frequent. It's primarily because I'm not the best writer in the world, and usually because someone has said what I want to say better than I could anyway. But all morning I've been dying to write something about Giuliani's speech last night. I haven't been able to formulate a good way to write it without sounding like it's straight out of the metafilter echo chamber. so I'm not going to write one here. But this comment from Douglas Rushkoff's blog, quoted in the thread, sums up what I want to say.

I felt a bit nauseous watching the Republican convention last night. I’m very much a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubt kind of guy, so I try to listen to the arguments people make even when they’re made in over-the-top or patronizing ways. Sometimes it’s good to distinguish between the rhetorical devices and the underlying substance. Even people who use manipulative language sometimes have an important point beneath their persuasion techniques (ads against smoking, for example).

I usually don’t feel uneasy when I put those filters on, but last night - during the Guiliani speech - I realized I was no longer filtering a speechwriter’s intentional manipulation; I was trying to look beyond real hate. These folks were gritting their teeth, shaking their fists, and smiling the way gladiators do when going into combat against barbarians. And this is the incumbent party. The ones currently in power.

What is it they hate? Guiliani and Palin both made it pretty clear: community organizing. Community organizing is energized from below. From the periphery. It is the direction and facilitation of mass energy towards productive and cooperative ends. It is about replacing conflict with collaboration. It is the opposite of war; it is peace.