i saw amy goodman of democracy now speak tonight. she is a powerful, important voice of dissent in this country. there are too few people with her courage. as i was having her sign the copy of her book that i bought, i complimented her on her eloquence in describing the woeful inadequacy of john kerry as a voice for what she called the silenced majority. then i pointed out to her that there were no less than three progressive candidates running for the democratic nomination. less than 1/4 of registered democrats voted in the primaries. this "silenced" majority has silenced itself. progressives don't have a candidate in the democratic party because they didn't use their vote to speak out for their values. we must choose between john kerry and george bush because 75% of democrats weren't willing to spend the five minutes required to fill out a ballot. she said i had a good point. i can only hope that in the future, along with decrying the quality of candidates we have to choose between, she elaborates on the reason why.