Political Pom-Poms

Lake Worth, Florida, voters have elected the anarchist cofounder of the Radical Cheerleaders to serve as a city commissioner. Even though her Republican opponent outspent her three to one, 29-year-old Cara Jennings' environmental ethic and social justice agenda (along with a lot of door-knocking) carried the day, according to In These Times (June 2006).

Back in 1996, Jennings and her two sisters, frustrated with the boring chants at male-dominated progressive rallies, hit on the idea of Radical Cheerleaders-rabble rousers with plastic-bag pom-poms and chants like 'Shoot the Rapist.' The idea took off, and today there are Radical Cheerleaders all over the world.

Politics' Consolidation Round

Advocates of instant runoff voting (IRV) are claiming victory in Burlington, Vermont, where voters used the system in a 'flawless' mayoral election, reports YES! (Summer 2006). To settle close elections, IRV lets citizens rank multiple candidates and tallies the second choices of voters whose top pick finished third or worse. In Burlington, Progressive Party candidate Bob Kiss initially won just 39 percent of the vote, while a Democrat took 31 percent and a Republican and two independents split the difference. When second choices were tallied, however, Kiss came out a winner and credited his victory in part to the Republican who endorsed the Progressive as his personal second choice.

Gandhi's 9/11

On September 11, we will reflect on the terrorist attacks that forever changed our country's collective memory. For 95 years before that fateful day in 2001, the anniversary many associated with 9/11 was the launch, in 1906, of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent resistance to British imperialism. New Yorkers for a Department of Peace, an organization that promotes nonviolence, is planning a citywide 100th celebration of Gandhi's courage and foresight. 'Our aim is to remind people that since this country's founding, peace has been an organizing principle,' says Liz Graydon, the group's state coordinator. Events include a theatrical re-release of Richard Attenborough's 1982 film biography of the Indian nationalist leader. For more information, see www.nyc-dop.com.

Pol tagging

Potential presidential contenders Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Russ Feingold, and others have all been slapped recently with the tag 'p2008.' And no, we don't mean graffiti artists are spray-painting their campaign buses. In cyberspace, 'tagging' refers to websites that let users attach their own descriptive keywords to images, videos, links, blog posts, and articles-harnessing the wisdom of the crowd to classify and organize information. The practice has even given rise to tagging campaigns. For example, the folks at E-Democracy.org, a clearinghouse of online political information, are urging netizens to apply the 'p2008' tag to anything related to the presidential race.