I got up early this morning, very early, and watched much of the ceremony sans contacts, coffee, and toothpaste. Also sans hairbrush, bra, and shoes. Attractive? Yes, but I didn't want to miss a moment. I stood when the crowd stood and cheered when they cheered and, yes, cried when they cried. In the aftermath, I keep hearing how 'you had to be there to truly appreciate it.' Not having been there, I thought I truly appreciated what I had. Perhaps it's an indication that I really am a loner. When I thought of the missed camaraderie of watching this monumental event with my fellow citizens, I mostly appreciated not being annoyed by the vagaries of their responses.
I loved seeing Cheney reduced to being pushing along behind the others in his wheel chair. It seemed so very symbolic to me. In the past, whenever I see him on TV, I want to get me a big blunderbuss and blast through the TV at him. I steeled myself for feeling that today as well when the Evil Doer (the real Evil Doer) came trundling along looking nothing if not pathetic. Is that mean of me? Maybe. But I blame him for almost all the ills of the past eight years, and I hope in some way that he suffers for what he has wrought.
I didn't like the First Lady's outfit today. It's just a taste thing: I'm not real big on lace. And I don't think I cared for the ball gown. I'm not real big on one shoulder dresses. Again, it's just a taste thing.
I can't stop watching the coverage. I can't believe it's actually true, that this man actually became president just barely two years beyond his introduction to the national political scene. I wasn't an early Obama follower, I must admit. For one, I so wanted Hillary to go the distance. But, too, I just didn't believe all the hype surrounding Obama. When people would gush, I'd think "Yeah, yeah...and you thought George W. was such a swell fellow too." The problem was that sixteen years of vicious street fighting between the GOP and the Dems had crushed my belief in the intelligence and sanity of my fellow citizens. They seemed only able to hear who screamed the loudest or the foulest or, even, the first. I didn't see their fervor over Obama as anything different. And because I had been disappointed so often in the past, I suppose I was reluctant to allow myself to fall under his spell. So I didn't pay attention to his speeches and, truthfully, I thought I might vote for McCain. But then Obama got the nomination and Hillary made the speech pointing out the disparity between what her supporters believed and what McCain stood for. I started to listen a little. Then McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate and the Republican convention was nothing if not the same old nasty bullshit as usual. I started to listen to Obama a lot. And now I see that he truly is the only person for the job--and I can't believe my fellow citizens regained their intelligence and sanity sufficient to vote him into office. It isn't that I expect Obama to work any miracles; it's that there's a We, The People back on the job.
Showing posts with label McCain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McCain. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Great Minds Think Alike--or, I Don't Own My Words
Years ago, another lifetime ago, I wrote a book. It was about kids in commercials and it was published by Doubleday. Cool, right? Eh, not so fast. My title, The Commercial Kids, was axed by the sales staff in favor of How To Get Your Child Into Commercials and Modeling. The former was kinda cute; the latter was to me, a serious journalist, an embarrassment. But at least in those days, Doubleday did not give mid-list writers much choice. Grin and bear it, I was told; bend over and smile--all the way to the bank. But that trip to the bank never came, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that after my book was published, a deluge of similar works came off the presses. I tried to ignore them; what else could I do. But I would check each one out as it was published and one day I picked up the latest version and started to read the Introduction. And the words sounded familiar. Very familiar. I'll never forget that kick in the stomach feeling I had when I realized that my words, my writing had been stolen. First, I was incensed. Then I felt the futility of doing anything about it. And then I was depressed because not only had my book turned into an embarrassment for me, but it had been plagiarized. Talk about a double whammy. I could have gone through that second book, highlighted every sentence that duplicated one in mine and taken it into a court of law. The choice not to sue was mine, and I made it because I didn't want to spend an inordinate part of my life looking backwards and being bitter. So I said, "Whatever...", hoped the second book would tank (it did, they all did) and marched off bravely into the future. I haven't forgotten, but I have moved on.
As one who has spent the better part of her life as a writer, I have some fond, perhaps archaic feelings about my ideas and the words I use to express them. Before the internet existed, before everyone and their uncle was a blogger, that had some meaning. Now? Not so much.
A couple of years ago I wrote a post in which I took the words Blogito Ergo Sum as my motto. Since then I've used those words and/or their translation, "I blog, therefore I am" as a constant on my site. I was a Philosophy major as an undergraduate; Descartes was drilled into my head and so it was not all that creative when I gave his words a spin because they said so perfectly what I feel about my blogging. But I went a little nutsy the other day when I saw them as a title of a session at BlogHer DC. Obviously I was not one of the panelists and obviously there are a lot of other former philosophy majors out there, but still--
Another instance: A month or so ago, I wrote a post called John McCain versus the GOP. In this week's Newsweek, Jonathan Alter has a column called, "Crushed by the Elephant." We both said pretty much the same thing. My line was "John McCain--the Hanoi Hilton didn't break him; the Republican party did" and Alter's was "a man who survived five and a half years as a Vietnam POW and a thousand political battles is being crushed by a dying elephant." Did Jonathan Alter grab my idea? Don't be ridiculous. I prefer to think of it as, great minds think alike.
The good news about blogging is that it has given a voice to me and many others who would stand shrieking in their closets if not for the internet. The bad news is that a lot of other people can hear you now. That means that ownership of ideas is impossible. I'm sure a mathematician could come up with the odds of how many people would have the same idea at relatively the same time. I'm seeing the Alter-ByJane coincidence as a teachable moment for myself, one that's allowing me to put the I blog, therefore I am incident into perspective.
Yet, there are definite consequences in the marketplace. For one, Alter got paid for his column and umpteen thousand readers (Newsweek hopes) read him, while I got bupkus and my stat reader rarely goes above double digits. But I don't think there's anything to be done about that, short of deep breathing, marching bravely into the future, and moving on.
As one who has spent the better part of her life as a writer, I have some fond, perhaps archaic feelings about my ideas and the words I use to express them. Before the internet existed, before everyone and their uncle was a blogger, that had some meaning. Now? Not so much.
A couple of years ago I wrote a post in which I took the words Blogito Ergo Sum as my motto. Since then I've used those words and/or their translation, "I blog, therefore I am" as a constant on my site. I was a Philosophy major as an undergraduate; Descartes was drilled into my head and so it was not all that creative when I gave his words a spin because they said so perfectly what I feel about my blogging. But I went a little nutsy the other day when I saw them as a title of a session at BlogHer DC. Obviously I was not one of the panelists and obviously there are a lot of other former philosophy majors out there, but still--
Another instance: A month or so ago, I wrote a post called John McCain versus the GOP. In this week's Newsweek, Jonathan Alter has a column called, "Crushed by the Elephant." We both said pretty much the same thing. My line was "John McCain--the Hanoi Hilton didn't break him; the Republican party did" and Alter's was "a man who survived five and a half years as a Vietnam POW and a thousand political battles is being crushed by a dying elephant." Did Jonathan Alter grab my idea? Don't be ridiculous. I prefer to think of it as, great minds think alike.
The good news about blogging is that it has given a voice to me and many others who would stand shrieking in their closets if not for the internet. The bad news is that a lot of other people can hear you now. That means that ownership of ideas is impossible. I'm sure a mathematician could come up with the odds of how many people would have the same idea at relatively the same time. I'm seeing the Alter-ByJane coincidence as a teachable moment for myself, one that's allowing me to put the I blog, therefore I am incident into perspective.
Yet, there are definite consequences in the marketplace. For one, Alter got paid for his column and umpteen thousand readers (Newsweek hopes) read him, while I got bupkus and my stat reader rarely goes above double digits. But I don't think there's anything to be done about that, short of deep breathing, marching bravely into the future, and moving on.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The John McCain I Might Have Voted For...
...made a brief appearance at a Town Hall meeting in Minnesota yesterday. That was John McCain, man of honesty and integrity and honor. That was the John McCain who drove the Straight Talk Express and was, in fact, a maverick because he said what was true for him, even when not politically expedient. We could trust that he'd tell us when the emperor was wearing no clothes, because he'd done it before, and that meant that we could send him out in the world to do right by us, even when we didn't so much like the sound of it.
Then he lost his viable bid for the presidency to the dirty tricks of the GOP in 2000. That hurt him, and eight years later, we know how much it hurt the United States, not to mention the rest of the world. But now, in 2008, it's his last chance to do for his country what he believes should be done. The Maverick is driving the Straight Talking bus again. Except, the Dirty Tricksters are now whispering in his ear. He may be working the pedals, but they're steering the course. And he's letting them. Which is understandable for a only-too-human man, with a Top Gun ego.
Understandable, yes, but not allowable if, that is, we want to cut the free fall into disgrace of our nation. When John McCain picked Sarah Palin to assuage the GOP base, he sold himself out. In so doing he forced himself into a situation where he had to claim that the empress was, in fact, wearing clothes, and that he liked her gown very much. This is not a criticism of Palin; it is a criticism of McCain himself. They say that every person has their price, and winning the election was McCain's, I suppose. Except he probably won't win now (barring an Al Quida crisis, something I can't help thinking the Dirty Tricksters are praying for, if not outright planning. Remember Wag The Dog, won't you).
I have found it increasingly difficult to listen to McCain. He sounds like a parody of a person running for office: "my friends...my friends...." is how he begins too many statements that are clearly sound bites. I'm not your friend, John, I want to yell at him. I'm an American citizen who wants the best of and for her country. Fomenting class and race wars--that's not the best; that's the worst. The pundits are saying that McCain has no choice but to go 'dirty'. It's his last chance to change the topic of this conversation to one that suits him better. Then the pundits correct themselves to say, "well, he does have a choice, but this is the direction he's going in."
Yes, he did have a choice. If he wanted to appeal to many independent voters, the ex-Hillary voters, the Purple State Voters, it was only going to happen by virtue of our belief in the man himself. That meant not pandering to the lowest of the Conservative base, not accepting as fact that he could not win without them. If all the Rovian Republicans had stayed home, what difference would that have made in this campaign? Might John McCain be in a different place now if he had maintained his integrity and trusted himself?
That integrity was on display yesterday in Minnesota when he took the microphone from a woman who was calling Obama an Arab. "No, ma'am," he said. "He's a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with." But the rage at that Town Hall meeting, rage he tried to calm, is a product of his campaign. It's the consequence of going dirty. It made me sad to see the McCain I thought he was on display again. I thought of how much was wasted in the name of political expediency. And I thought too of how John McCain has forever besmirched his good name by sending the Straight Talk Express down that rutted, potholed, axle-breaking shortcut.
Then he lost his viable bid for the presidency to the dirty tricks of the GOP in 2000. That hurt him, and eight years later, we know how much it hurt the United States, not to mention the rest of the world. But now, in 2008, it's his last chance to do for his country what he believes should be done. The Maverick is driving the Straight Talking bus again. Except, the Dirty Tricksters are now whispering in his ear. He may be working the pedals, but they're steering the course. And he's letting them. Which is understandable for a only-too-human man, with a Top Gun ego.
Understandable, yes, but not allowable if, that is, we want to cut the free fall into disgrace of our nation. When John McCain picked Sarah Palin to assuage the GOP base, he sold himself out. In so doing he forced himself into a situation where he had to claim that the empress was, in fact, wearing clothes, and that he liked her gown very much. This is not a criticism of Palin; it is a criticism of McCain himself. They say that every person has their price, and winning the election was McCain's, I suppose. Except he probably won't win now (barring an Al Quida crisis, something I can't help thinking the Dirty Tricksters are praying for, if not outright planning. Remember Wag The Dog, won't you).
I have found it increasingly difficult to listen to McCain. He sounds like a parody of a person running for office: "my friends...my friends...." is how he begins too many statements that are clearly sound bites. I'm not your friend, John, I want to yell at him. I'm an American citizen who wants the best of and for her country. Fomenting class and race wars--that's not the best; that's the worst. The pundits are saying that McCain has no choice but to go 'dirty'. It's his last chance to change the topic of this conversation to one that suits him better. Then the pundits correct themselves to say, "well, he does have a choice, but this is the direction he's going in."
Yes, he did have a choice. If he wanted to appeal to many independent voters, the ex-Hillary voters, the Purple State Voters, it was only going to happen by virtue of our belief in the man himself. That meant not pandering to the lowest of the Conservative base, not accepting as fact that he could not win without them. If all the Rovian Republicans had stayed home, what difference would that have made in this campaign? Might John McCain be in a different place now if he had maintained his integrity and trusted himself?
That integrity was on display yesterday in Minnesota when he took the microphone from a woman who was calling Obama an Arab. "No, ma'am," he said. "He's a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with." But the rage at that Town Hall meeting, rage he tried to calm, is a product of his campaign. It's the consequence of going dirty. It made me sad to see the McCain I thought he was on display again. I thought of how much was wasted in the name of political expediency. And I thought too of how John McCain has forever besmirched his good name by sending the Straight Talk Express down that rutted, potholed, axle-breaking shortcut.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Survival of the Fittest, and Other Political Stuff
WARNING WARNING: if you don't like reading about the election, if my progressive views bother you, go away right now.
I had a conversation the other day with a woman who is supporting McCain, and I wondered what about his platform appealed to her. Turns out, it's his economic policies. Or rather, it's Obama's economic policies that are so reprehensible to her that she is voting against him. This thing of helping the less fortunate, of the wealthiest sector of America taking a tad less so that the working middle classes could stay above the poverty line--this bothers her. Not that she was unsympathetic to the plight of the less fortunate, she was quick to tell me.
"But really," she said, "why should my husband and I have to give up anything that we've achieved? To help out these other people who haven't been able to achieve what we have?"
And then she smiled and said, "After all, it is survival of the fittest, isn't it?"
Yes, indeedy. Let's just flush all them there low achievers down the toilet where they belong, gutter scum that they are. Meanwhile, we lofty ones who had the wisdom to be born to parents of privilege, we get to assume our rightful place up there in the pantheon of the gods. And by parents of privilege, I don't mean those who were born well or wealthy. No, just your average mom and dad, like mine, who stressed education and fostered my dreams.
Survival of the fittest as an ideological stance: somehow I don't think that's what Darwin had in mind. It is, quite frankly, a nauseating concept to me. I don't think I betrayed that to her, because I wasn't interested in a debate. But perhaps I blinked. Or maybe some part of her heard herself and she quickly said, "If you talk to my friends, they'll tell you what a good person I am and how much I care about the less fortunate."
Yes, indeedy. As long as they're not in my backyard. Or at my front door. Or anywhere near my piggy banks.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
We Shall Prevail....
In the wild and woolly world of the internet, democracy may finally be achievable. What follows is a YouTube ad, put up by someone who's clever with code. Didn't take any money; didn't need any sayso from the party.
I learned about it from this tweet on Twitter
Now you're seeing it on my blog.
youtube
Go read about it on The Nation's site. Then do one of your own.
The power belongs to the people. At last.
I learned about it from this tweet on Twitter
davewiner Homebrew politics is the wave of the future. Mark my words. This is the year we the people get in on the fun. Ads on YouTube cost $0 to run. .
Now you're seeing it on my blog.
youtube
Go read about it on The Nation's site. Then do one of your own.
The power belongs to the people. At last.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
The High Road or the Low--Does It Matter How You Win?
These are excerpts from an email dialogue I've been having with one of my friends. It's all I can put out there about my state of mind with this election. I've said before: I don't have the temperament for political engagement because I GET SO FUCKING ANGRY I think my head is going to blow off. I try to be reasoned and calm and cool, but it doesn't last for long. I am walking around grinding my teeth and I have a mega-headache to boot. That can't be good for me.
SHE: I am so scared Palin might do the trick for McCain. But listened to Rachel Maddow last night and learned mucho. Palin didn't sell her governor's jet on e-bay. she sold it through a broker and didn't make a profit she had a loss of 6 million. She also has the state with the largest earmarks and pork barrel spending. She tried to get 51 million for a train from her town to Ted Stephens ski resort. And boy is she avoiding the press. I know you know about her affiliation with Jews For Jesus and on top of that she has some connection to a move to secede Alaska from the union. But I'm still very worried because it seems to be working. All these Republicans seem happy to have her in the VP so if this OLD OLD man dies they'll be real happy to have her run things. I'm beginning to think the president doesn't run much anyway. It's people like Karl Rove that are running this country.
ME: The reason I like/need to read a bunch of different sources is so I can get a metaview of what's happening in the campaign. It is true about Palin and the eBay jet but she didn't make the claim; McCain did. All she said was that she had "listed it on eBay." Which she did....As for the Jews for Jesus thing, I started to send that to you when I first came across it a couple of days ago, but I didn't because when I read further I saw that the story was a bit more and a bit less. She was at her church and a Jews for Jesus guy was speaking, but she was not aware that he was going to be there. So, unlike O. with the preacherman in Chicago, this was an unwitting attendance on Palin's part. The reason I'm bringing this up to you is that what you're picking up on is useless shit that the Dems are throwing out there to obfuscate the truth--which is that McCain and Palin are more of the same. It's very easy to get into a shitting (spitting?) contest, but it doesn't serve to do anything but inflame and put the emphasis on the wrong things. That's what the Reps are so brilliant at doing--and they are doing it now. But do we descend to their level knowing we can never be vile enough to beat them at their own game? Or do we maintain our integrity and insist they come up to our level?
SHE: Actually I knew the man just spoke at her church re: Jews for Jesus but her preacher has been quoted as saying "if you are against Bush you will go to hell and if you vote for Kerry I cannot guarantee your salvation." I know that is more of the crap that the Republicans are dishing out to us but I fell strongly that the Republicans are now lying about Obama's platforms-saying the he is a tax and spend liberal who will make Washington bigger--a totally inaccurate statement about his financial programs. Also I watched Karl Rove and his henchmen in 2004 lie and mislead the voters on so many issues and that crap wasn't addressed by Kerry quickly enough. I guess I am for throwing around some lies even if it is stretched a bit to sling at them. I'm not confident we can take the high road and win. And boy are Palin and McCain throwing crap around.
Here's some more sludge--she may have had an affair.
Saw Biden today and he was very good. So feeling a little more confident.
when I see a guttersnipe I want to make sure they stay in the gutter.
ME: Yeah, I hear you--and part of me agrees with you about throwing the crap back. I always think about the Pro-choice/Pro-Life debate in that context as well. The Pro-Lifers threw jars with aborted fetuses in them on legislators desks. The Pro-Choicers just talked and reasoned and explained. As a result, despite the majority of Americans being pro-choice, we are under the sway of the anti-choice minority--just because they are so effectively vocal. I saw Obama yesterday "answer" Palin by raising the issue of her pork votes. But really, he was so mild, there was little effect even among the audience. This whole thing does have me scared because it is so reminiscent of 2000...and 2004. This was one reason why I was so pro-Hillary: she could give the Republicans a run for their money. I'm just afraid Obama can't.
And that's where I am right now: jaw clenched, head aching, wishing I didn't think this is going to end up as a replay of 2000.
SHE: I am so scared Palin might do the trick for McCain. But listened to Rachel Maddow last night and learned mucho. Palin didn't sell her governor's jet on e-bay. she sold it through a broker and didn't make a profit she had a loss of 6 million. She also has the state with the largest earmarks and pork barrel spending. She tried to get 51 million for a train from her town to Ted Stephens ski resort. And boy is she avoiding the press. I know you know about her affiliation with Jews For Jesus and on top of that she has some connection to a move to secede Alaska from the union. But I'm still very worried because it seems to be working. All these Republicans seem happy to have her in the VP so if this OLD OLD man dies they'll be real happy to have her run things. I'm beginning to think the president doesn't run much anyway. It's people like Karl Rove that are running this country.
ME: The reason I like/need to read a bunch of different sources is so I can get a metaview of what's happening in the campaign. It is true about Palin and the eBay jet but she didn't make the claim; McCain did. All she said was that she had "listed it on eBay." Which she did....As for the Jews for Jesus thing, I started to send that to you when I first came across it a couple of days ago, but I didn't because when I read further I saw that the story was a bit more and a bit less. She was at her church and a Jews for Jesus guy was speaking, but she was not aware that he was going to be there. So, unlike O. with the preacherman in Chicago, this was an unwitting attendance on Palin's part. The reason I'm bringing this up to you is that what you're picking up on is useless shit that the Dems are throwing out there to obfuscate the truth--which is that McCain and Palin are more of the same. It's very easy to get into a shitting (spitting?) contest, but it doesn't serve to do anything but inflame and put the emphasis on the wrong things. That's what the Reps are so brilliant at doing--and they are doing it now. But do we descend to their level knowing we can never be vile enough to beat them at their own game? Or do we maintain our integrity and insist they come up to our level?
SHE: Actually I knew the man just spoke at her church re: Jews for Jesus but her preacher has been quoted as saying "if you are against Bush you will go to hell and if you vote for Kerry I cannot guarantee your salvation." I know that is more of the crap that the Republicans are dishing out to us but I fell strongly that the Republicans are now lying about Obama's platforms-saying the he is a tax and spend liberal who will make Washington bigger--a totally inaccurate statement about his financial programs. Also I watched Karl Rove and his henchmen in 2004 lie and mislead the voters on so many issues and that crap wasn't addressed by Kerry quickly enough. I guess I am for throwing around some lies even if it is stretched a bit to sling at them. I'm not confident we can take the high road and win. And boy are Palin and McCain throwing crap around.
Here's some more sludge--she may have had an affair.
Saw Biden today and he was very good. So feeling a little more confident.
when I see a guttersnipe I want to make sure they stay in the gutter.
ME: Yeah, I hear you--and part of me agrees with you about throwing the crap back. I always think about the Pro-choice/Pro-Life debate in that context as well. The Pro-Lifers threw jars with aborted fetuses in them on legislators desks. The Pro-Choicers just talked and reasoned and explained. As a result, despite the majority of Americans being pro-choice, we are under the sway of the anti-choice minority--just because they are so effectively vocal. I saw Obama yesterday "answer" Palin by raising the issue of her pork votes. But really, he was so mild, there was little effect even among the audience. This whole thing does have me scared because it is so reminiscent of 2000...and 2004. This was one reason why I was so pro-Hillary: she could give the Republicans a run for their money. I'm just afraid Obama can't.
And that's where I am right now: jaw clenched, head aching, wishing I didn't think this is going to end up as a replay of 2000.
Friday, September 05, 2008
John McCain versus The GOP
John McCain gave a stirring speech last night, and if that was all I had to go by, then my vote might be in the 'undecided' column again. But it's not. He wasn't the cherry on top of the sundae so much as the strawberry on top of the gore. My allusions getting to you? A bit too allusive? Okay, let me clarify.
McCain promised last night to take on the people in his party who had failed the American people and betrayed Republican principles. That would be the people in his party who were speaking before him. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina: Fat Cats One and Two, spewing the party line as if the economic state of our nation was a figment of Democrats imaginations. I had to laugh when Carly vowed to post every pro-people move that McCain made on the internet for every American to see. Well, every American who has ready access to computers--and that would be how many? and of what socio-economic class?
And Mitt Romney, who recited a litany of the sins of liberals in Washington, as if the Republicans were poor weak bystanders the past eight years. The Republicans, he said, "are the party of big ideas, not Big Brother." Obviously Mitt never read the book, 1984, because Big Brother was a spy system pretty damn close to the one the Republicans have been insisting we need to protect us from evil, so that comment of his is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. As is this one: "We prefer straight talk to politically correct talk..." I call politically correct talk speech of any stripe that seeks to enforce a moral code. Like all of Romney's blather about Family Values, which are just his religious beliefs and not, he should know, mine or the Founders of our nation. I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on old Mitt and Carly and Meg. They are, after all, running for office. We don't have to wait till February 2009 for the next election cycle to begin; it's underway right now.
And then there was Mike Huckabee, the only Republican, save McCain, to have the balls to say something positive about Obama. But then he went off into some Cold War fantasy world. Obama went to Europe and "brought back European ideas, like big government." Whereas he, Huckabee, was raised in a place where "the three heroes were Jesus, Elvis, and FDR." FDR--wasn't he the guy who was the bete noire of the Republican party? Didn't he institute all those New Deal policies the Republicans hate?
***********
Can you tell that I was taking notes when I listened to the speeches? It was the only way I could listen without exploding. And I was determined to listen: I believe it is my duty as an American citizen to have some background, not to mention integrity when I speak. Which is more than can be said for many of the speechifiers on Wednesday night. I gave up my note-taking soon after Rudy Guiliani began talking. Here's what I wrote when I quit: "This is all about appeasing the Republican base. There is so much bullshit in this speech, I can't listen." And Palin was just more of the same, although quite a bit better at delivery than any of the others at the podium. Someone asked me what I thought of her, and I said, "She gives good speech, and I mean that with all of the Hollywood implications intact."
So this is what I'm saying to John McCain. I like you. I think you're honest, as much as any of us are. I believe your intentions are honorable, as much as those of anyone who seeks political power are. I don't care that you're 72. I'm even willing to overlook that you're anti-choice and anti-gay marriage, since I believe that your honesty and integrity would lead you to protect our Constitution and not use it as a cudgel for your religious beliefs. What I cannot overlook is that you have surrounded yourself with the lowest of the low. They are the very "do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd" that you castigated in your speech. You cannot hope to build a bi-partisan consensus with people who think it is funny to mock those who don't agree with them. Watching your convention, the one at which you ostensibly took the reins of your party, I felt like I was in the stands at some Medieval blowout for the hoi polloi. When it was all over, I actually felt somewhat dirty, besmirched by the rabid crowd who were gulping down the red meat whole. Red meat--that's what is thrown to carnivores at feeding time.
So I will not be voting for you, John McCain. You lost your chance to win me over, and you did it not by what you said or didn't say, but by the company you keep. You may be honest and trustworthy, but the people surrounding you are anything but. You must know that, but you never trusted that you could actually win this thing on your own, did you? Watching you and Joe Lieberman up on the stage during your run-through, I couldn't help but think: an Independent party, the end of bi-partisanship. Too bad you didn't have the courage to try. And what I said the other day, I'll say again. In fact, I may have it printed on T-shirts and done up as buttons: John McCain--the Hanoi Hilton didn't break him; the Republican party did.
McCain promised last night to take on the people in his party who had failed the American people and betrayed Republican principles. That would be the people in his party who were speaking before him. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina: Fat Cats One and Two, spewing the party line as if the economic state of our nation was a figment of Democrats imaginations. I had to laugh when Carly vowed to post every pro-people move that McCain made on the internet for every American to see. Well, every American who has ready access to computers--and that would be how many? and of what socio-economic class?
And Mitt Romney, who recited a litany of the sins of liberals in Washington, as if the Republicans were poor weak bystanders the past eight years. The Republicans, he said, "are the party of big ideas, not Big Brother." Obviously Mitt never read the book, 1984, because Big Brother was a spy system pretty damn close to the one the Republicans have been insisting we need to protect us from evil, so that comment of his is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. As is this one: "We prefer straight talk to politically correct talk..." I call politically correct talk speech of any stripe that seeks to enforce a moral code. Like all of Romney's blather about Family Values, which are just his religious beliefs and not, he should know, mine or the Founders of our nation. I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on old Mitt and Carly and Meg. They are, after all, running for office. We don't have to wait till February 2009 for the next election cycle to begin; it's underway right now.
And then there was Mike Huckabee, the only Republican, save McCain, to have the balls to say something positive about Obama. But then he went off into some Cold War fantasy world. Obama went to Europe and "brought back European ideas, like big government." Whereas he, Huckabee, was raised in a place where "the three heroes were Jesus, Elvis, and FDR." FDR--wasn't he the guy who was the bete noire of the Republican party? Didn't he institute all those New Deal policies the Republicans hate?
***********
Can you tell that I was taking notes when I listened to the speeches? It was the only way I could listen without exploding. And I was determined to listen: I believe it is my duty as an American citizen to have some background, not to mention integrity when I speak. Which is more than can be said for many of the speechifiers on Wednesday night. I gave up my note-taking soon after Rudy Guiliani began talking. Here's what I wrote when I quit: "This is all about appeasing the Republican base. There is so much bullshit in this speech, I can't listen." And Palin was just more of the same, although quite a bit better at delivery than any of the others at the podium. Someone asked me what I thought of her, and I said, "She gives good speech, and I mean that with all of the Hollywood implications intact."
So this is what I'm saying to John McCain. I like you. I think you're honest, as much as any of us are. I believe your intentions are honorable, as much as those of anyone who seeks political power are. I don't care that you're 72. I'm even willing to overlook that you're anti-choice and anti-gay marriage, since I believe that your honesty and integrity would lead you to protect our Constitution and not use it as a cudgel for your religious beliefs. What I cannot overlook is that you have surrounded yourself with the lowest of the low. They are the very "do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd" that you castigated in your speech. You cannot hope to build a bi-partisan consensus with people who think it is funny to mock those who don't agree with them. Watching your convention, the one at which you ostensibly took the reins of your party, I felt like I was in the stands at some Medieval blowout for the hoi polloi. When it was all over, I actually felt somewhat dirty, besmirched by the rabid crowd who were gulping down the red meat whole. Red meat--that's what is thrown to carnivores at feeding time.
So I will not be voting for you, John McCain. You lost your chance to win me over, and you did it not by what you said or didn't say, but by the company you keep. You may be honest and trustworthy, but the people surrounding you are anything but. You must know that, but you never trusted that you could actually win this thing on your own, did you? Watching you and Joe Lieberman up on the stage during your run-through, I couldn't help but think: an Independent party, the end of bi-partisanship. Too bad you didn't have the courage to try. And what I said the other day, I'll say again. In fact, I may have it printed on T-shirts and done up as buttons: John McCain--the Hanoi Hilton didn't break him; the Republican party did.
Monday, September 01, 2008
A Lesson for Myself...and you too maybe
Last night when I went to bed, I had the feeling that Sarah Palin would become McCain's Harriet Miers. The allegations that Palin's youngest son, the four month old, was really her grandson--it all seemed familiar to me and I couldn't figure out why. Oh yeah, Desperate Housewives: didn't Bree banish her pregnant daughter to a home for unwed mothers, fake her own pregnancy and then palm her grandson off as her son. This is exactly the case that was being made about Sarah Palin. But Desperate Housewives, that's a comedy, isn't it? A satire in which Bree plays the most extreme of feminized women, the Stepford Wife. Was it really possible that the GOP didn't know that, that they were using the TV program's plot line as a model case? Then when I got up this morning, the story had changed. Now Palin's daughter, the one who rumor had it was the actual mother of the baby, was presented to the world as, yes, pregnant, five months alone, which seems to preclude any thought of the four month old being hers.
Whatever. My point isn't the state of Sarah Palin's uterus or her daughter's because, really, it's all a non-issue for me as far as considering Palin a viable candidate for Vice President. She's not, as far as I'm concerned, for reasons that have nothing to do with her children or her children's children. The story is significant to me, however, not for what it may say about Palin, but that it reveals the assumptions that I, that so many of us are ready to make about the Republicans: they will say or do anything to get what they want, so suspect everything.
Here's the lesson: I--we--must try to separate the candidate from the Party. The latter sucks; the former is human. The Party (either one, the Democrats are no angels either) is like some huge demonic being, and it swallows good people, chewing them up and regurgitating them in some new form, recognizable perhaps, but no longer human. That's what they've done to McCain; they've processed him like some soy-based sausage so that he is palatable to the Party. In so doing, though, he is lost to those of us who hoped he truly could be the maverick reaching across the aisles to create change. He withstood the Viet Cong and the Hanoi Hilton; the Republican Party, unfortunately, did him in.
It makes me sad to see McCain on TV now, because I like him. I do. And I think he is honest and well-intentioned and on his own, he might not have been that bad for America. On his own--without undue influence from the Party--I might have been able to trust him to do what was right for the country, rather than what was expedient to the GOP. But he's not on his own, is he, and therefore a good man is lost to us. I feel sad that Sarah Palin is taking the flack for the Party's choice. I'm sure she too is honest and well-intentioned, but she's a pawn now in the Republican playbook, and we all know that pawns never win the game.
Whatever. My point isn't the state of Sarah Palin's uterus or her daughter's because, really, it's all a non-issue for me as far as considering Palin a viable candidate for Vice President. She's not, as far as I'm concerned, for reasons that have nothing to do with her children or her children's children. The story is significant to me, however, not for what it may say about Palin, but that it reveals the assumptions that I, that so many of us are ready to make about the Republicans: they will say or do anything to get what they want, so suspect everything.
Here's the lesson: I--we--must try to separate the candidate from the Party. The latter sucks; the former is human. The Party (either one, the Democrats are no angels either) is like some huge demonic being, and it swallows good people, chewing them up and regurgitating them in some new form, recognizable perhaps, but no longer human. That's what they've done to McCain; they've processed him like some soy-based sausage so that he is palatable to the Party. In so doing, though, he is lost to those of us who hoped he truly could be the maverick reaching across the aisles to create change. He withstood the Viet Cong and the Hanoi Hilton; the Republican Party, unfortunately, did him in.
It makes me sad to see McCain on TV now, because I like him. I do. And I think he is honest and well-intentioned and on his own, he might not have been that bad for America. On his own--without undue influence from the Party--I might have been able to trust him to do what was right for the country, rather than what was expedient to the GOP. But he's not on his own, is he, and therefore a good man is lost to us. I feel sad that Sarah Palin is taking the flack for the Party's choice. I'm sure she too is honest and well-intentioned, but she's a pawn now in the Republican playbook, and we all know that pawns never win the game.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Why I Hate National Holidays...
...because they make me feel inadequate. They point up the wide gulf between what my life is and how other midlife women are spending the day. Actually, there was never a point in my life when I liked national holidays. When I was a freelancer, it always seemed as if I had a deadline the day after the holiday, which meant that I got to spend said holiday bowed over my keyboard, rather than celebrating with my fellow Amuricans. Now that I'm deadlineless and actually could fire up the barbie (if I hadn't sold it at the yard sale a couple of weeks ago), I have no one to share the flippin' steak with. If you recall, on the Fourth of July I had my own private, personal barbecue. But ya know, that gets old by Labor Day. So today when I was at the supermarket, surrounded by hoards of people buying beer and hotdogs and cupcakes and chips, oh the chips, I studiously minded my own business and eschewed any festive food. And I worked at not falling into the Slough of Despond--oh woe, oh me.
Today I spent in my studio creating great works of art. That means I spread a plastic cloth on the dining room table and brought out my various and sundry bits and pieces, pencils and paints. What I'm learning--okay, I've learned it, but I keep hoping it will change--is that I like to work small and I like to work with pencils and I like to do swoooping shapes of color and I have grand ideas that rarely come to fruition. Mainly I suspect it's because I don't trust myself.
Do you really think Sarah Palin is palming her grandson off as her son? I'd like to know how she expects to parent her children while on the campaign trail. That doesn't seem to be very good for her family's values, does it? I dunno; I think McCain's VP choice is gonna blow up in his face. Today, he was touting her greater executive experience, compared to Obama, and he listed all the things she has managed, ending with the PTA.
A note to my disaffected readers: If you're going to write political comments, please do so without:
Today I spent in my studio creating great works of art. That means I spread a plastic cloth on the dining room table and brought out my various and sundry bits and pieces, pencils and paints. What I'm learning--okay, I've learned it, but I keep hoping it will change--is that I like to work small and I like to work with pencils and I like to do swoooping shapes of color and I have grand ideas that rarely come to fruition. Mainly I suspect it's because I don't trust myself.
Do you really think Sarah Palin is palming her grandson off as her son? I'd like to know how she expects to parent her children while on the campaign trail. That doesn't seem to be very good for her family's values, does it? I dunno; I think McCain's VP choice is gonna blow up in his face. Today, he was touting her greater executive experience, compared to Obama, and he listed all the things she has managed, ending with the PTA.
A note to my disaffected readers: If you're going to write political comments, please do so without:
- any ad hominem attacks
- resorting to canned talking points
- insulting the intelligence or integrity of ANY of the candidates involved. The parties themselves--be my guest and have at it with them. As organized religion is in matters of spirituality, the political parties are the root of all evil in matters of government.
Friday, August 29, 2008
No Way, No How, No Palin
Sarah Palin is the nail in the coffin as far as any thought I might have had about supporting McCain. I really was willing to listen with an open mind next week, but his choice of Palin as VP shows me that it's just business as usual for the GOP: pick a candidate that has some personal appeal and figure you can blind the electorate to the reality of their experience and beliefs. That's exactly what they did with Bush, and they actually succeeded in making enough people believe that the most important thing about a presidential candidate was whether you'd want to have a beer with him. I'm going to misquote Bill Maher here: "The American people are stupid and they deserve the presidents they get."
I'm one of those middle-aged, educated white women who supported Hillary. I find it insulting, not to mention pathetic, that the Republicans truly believe that I'm only interested in the gender of the candidate. Palin's social conservatism is anathema to Democrats who supported Clinton. The women the GOP is trotting out who are just loving loving loving Palin are Republicans, the proverbial converted choir. The thinking in the McCain camp seems to be: well, Palin's got a vagina too and isn't that what these women really care about? Besides, we can use that "cracking the glass ceiling line with her", and maybe no one will notice that her strongly held beliefs are antithetical to women's rights and women's lives. How stupid can they be--or, better question, how stupid do they think we are. Best question: how stupid are we?
Can you imagine if McCain died in office, that Palin would be President? They'd probably spirit her away to the Tower like they did with the Two Princes, and then bring Darth Vader back to rule the land. History is filled with all sorts of vile chicanery, and this may only be the beginning. Be afraid; be very afraid.
I'm one of those middle-aged, educated white women who supported Hillary. I find it insulting, not to mention pathetic, that the Republicans truly believe that I'm only interested in the gender of the candidate. Palin's social conservatism is anathema to Democrats who supported Clinton. The women the GOP is trotting out who are just loving loving loving Palin are Republicans, the proverbial converted choir. The thinking in the McCain camp seems to be: well, Palin's got a vagina too and isn't that what these women really care about? Besides, we can use that "cracking the glass ceiling line with her", and maybe no one will notice that her strongly held beliefs are antithetical to women's rights and women's lives. How stupid can they be--or, better question, how stupid do they think we are. Best question: how stupid are we?
Can you imagine if McCain died in office, that Palin would be President? They'd probably spirit her away to the Tower like they did with the Two Princes, and then bring Darth Vader back to rule the land. History is filled with all sorts of vile chicanery, and this may only be the beginning. Be afraid; be very afraid.
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