After all the political posts in which I indulged in the past couple of months, it is probably a mystery why I’ve not yet posted anything on it. The answer is twofold: (1) I’m still thinking through my reaction, and (2) I’m still in shock.
The UK’s Daily Mirror’s title How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb? is a bit unfair. I think it’s necessary to realize that this election was nearly entirely about fear. Well, fear and “moral issues,” another troubling phrase that I'd like to see stay the hell out of my American government. The fear is easy to understand: we are in a war, and it is particularly difficult to unseat a sitting president while at war. This is apparently true even when the war in which we are engaged is over false pretenses, has switched from a pre-emptive strike to combat Weapons of Mass Destruction to a focus on liberating the Iraqi people and newly invented ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda.
The election’s morale issues are harder to justify. One of the few bits of Government Class in 9th grade that actually interested me had to deal with the separation of church and state. The realization that so much of this election became about how people interpreted the candidates’ stance on gay marriage, stem cell research, and abortion/pro-choice/pro-life is staggering.
It is tempting to point to the rough evidence that the states that voted for Bush are, on average, not that smart. There is probably some truth to the idea that, like in 2000, a number of bubba-types simply voted with the guy who seemed nicer, and wasn’t challenging their intelligence or trying to get them to think about the issues. A big part of me wants to adopt the stance of authors of FuckTheSouth.com, and flip the bird to the red states in the same way that Bush has flipped the bird (.mov) to the just-short-of-half of voters that turned out in record numbers to evict him, but I suspect the truth may be significantly more complex than a simple map showing binary states for each of our fifty.
What can be done? What will happen? Well, we’ve got another four years ahead of us while this radical regime has its way with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, but that’s not necessarily a given. Just prior to the election, it seemed like a number of news sources remembered their place in the public trust, snapped out of their pornographic attraction to free tank rides in exchange for journalistic integrity, and woke up to the reality of what road W. is leading us. It has turned out to be too little, too late for the election, but there is a strong possibility that this next stretch could generate another Woodward and Bernstein, and Bush (and Cheney soon thereafter) could be impeached. To be honest, since Clinton was nearly impeached over technically lying under oath, it is a mystery how this has not been brought up as a possible solution to the cheatocracy.
More than anything, I am getting more than a little sick of hearing how the democrats need to “heal the rift” between the right and the left, the red and the blue, and find some median ground on which we can stand and agree. Bull-fucking-shit; we are in a war for the culture of America, which has been hijacked by the Karl Rove cabal, and manipulated against its own fears. We do not need to find a middle ground, because there is none; this group will run as far to the right as they can, and then keep running, all of us in tow, right off a cliff. If half the country thinks that the way Bush has run things is acceptable, it is not time for us to find a way to all get along and play nice, it is time to get out there an educate these fools, and get our government to look out for our interests again.
The UK’s Daily Mirror’s title How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb? is a bit unfair. I think it’s necessary to realize that this election was nearly entirely about fear. Well, fear and “moral issues,” another troubling phrase that I'd like to see stay the hell out of my American government. The fear is easy to understand: we are in a war, and it is particularly difficult to unseat a sitting president while at war. This is apparently true even when the war in which we are engaged is over false pretenses, has switched from a pre-emptive strike to combat Weapons of Mass Destruction to a focus on liberating the Iraqi people and newly invented ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda.
The election’s morale issues are harder to justify. One of the few bits of Government Class in 9th grade that actually interested me had to deal with the separation of church and state. The realization that so much of this election became about how people interpreted the candidates’ stance on gay marriage, stem cell research, and abortion/pro-choice/pro-life is staggering.
It is tempting to point to the rough evidence that the states that voted for Bush are, on average, not that smart. There is probably some truth to the idea that, like in 2000, a number of bubba-types simply voted with the guy who seemed nicer, and wasn’t challenging their intelligence or trying to get them to think about the issues. A big part of me wants to adopt the stance of authors of FuckTheSouth.com, and flip the bird to the red states in the same way that Bush has flipped the bird (.mov) to the just-short-of-half of voters that turned out in record numbers to evict him, but I suspect the truth may be significantly more complex than a simple map showing binary states for each of our fifty.
What can be done? What will happen? Well, we’ve got another four years ahead of us while this radical regime has its way with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, but that’s not necessarily a given. Just prior to the election, it seemed like a number of news sources remembered their place in the public trust, snapped out of their pornographic attraction to free tank rides in exchange for journalistic integrity, and woke up to the reality of what road W. is leading us. It has turned out to be too little, too late for the election, but there is a strong possibility that this next stretch could generate another Woodward and Bernstein, and Bush (and Cheney soon thereafter) could be impeached. To be honest, since Clinton was nearly impeached over technically lying under oath, it is a mystery how this has not been brought up as a possible solution to the cheatocracy.
More than anything, I am getting more than a little sick of hearing how the democrats need to “heal the rift” between the right and the left, the red and the blue, and find some median ground on which we can stand and agree. Bull-fucking-shit; we are in a war for the culture of America, which has been hijacked by the Karl Rove cabal, and manipulated against its own fears. We do not need to find a middle ground, because there is none; this group will run as far to the right as they can, and then keep running, all of us in tow, right off a cliff. If half the country thinks that the way Bush has run things is acceptable, it is not time for us to find a way to all get along and play nice, it is time to get out there an educate these fools, and get our government to look out for our interests again.
Comments
Post a Comment