Political Musing
Oct. 2nd, 2008 06:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhiannonmrI have a bumper sticker from the last election sitting in a drawer here. I never put it on the car because my roommate is actually a republican. The slogan? 'Republicans for Voldemort'. It was popular in the last election. Roomie's ex wife countered there should be one that said 'Democrats for Umbridge'. Right about now that bumpersticker is looking more appropriate.
I had the thought earlier that Palin reminded me of Bellatrix LeStrange, but then I realised something. Bella was actually very competent at what she did. Batshit insane but bloody competent at being a DE. Poor Sarah isn't. Not really. She claims that because some Alaskans can see Russia and that because her state is bordered by two foreign countries she has expertise in foreign affairs. Hmm I lived in military housing in Munich Germany for 3yrs. Does that make me a foreign policy expert? Or does that make me an expert on government housing since I not only lived in it there, I lived in it in Georgia(our state Georgia) and here in Texas. I don't think so myself, but hey if she can puff up her resume, why the hell can't I? Oh right, it's dishonest.
McCain said he knows veterans and they know him and he loves them and they love him. Funny that. The major veteran's organisations give him failing grades for consistently voting against us. Yes I am a vet as I have stated on many occasions in this journal. I don't feel the love from a man who has canned his whole Viet Nam experience into a platform to launch himself as a politician. Most vets I know who went to Nam don't talk much about it. The vets I know from the first gulf war don't talk much about it, same with the current batch. He promises 100% honesty in his campaign, he reiterated that on monday in Des Moines IA, but his campaign airs ads that are quite bluntly untruthful and gets downright pissed when called on it. Swears up and down they are the truth. Makes you wonder what color his sky is in the morning. He reminds me of Cornelius Fudge, the minister of magic who denied the truth of Voldemort's return for an entire book which gave him time to rebuild his operation and continue infiltrating his government.
But these are not fictional characters and I find myself less tolerant of them because of it. To me this yr the republican ticket is frankly scary as hell. They want us to elect a 72yr old man with 1100 pages of medical records, who has had 3 separate bouts of cancer? And a 44yr old ex beauty queen who governs a state with a population roughly equal to Austin TX? They want us to vote for a man known for a bad temper and a woman who can't string a sentence together that isn't a talking point that makes sense. A woman who can't even name one periodical she reads regularly. A man who flailed as I said last week harder than the economy.
And for the first time in years the so called 'wedge' issues just aren't getting the play. In 2004 they used wedge issues to sway voters when they weren't outright stealing the election. I heard more in that year about gay marriage and abortion than I'd heard throughout the first 4 yrs of the Bush presidency. And then they went away. As soon as he was re-elected they stopped mattering with small bubbles of discontent coming up through the torpor. San Francisco issued marriage licenses, but got smacked down. MA legalised it(gay marriage) and the world didn't end but a lot of states said they'd not recognise those MA marriages. And then recently in CA it became legal again through a court decision that tossed out a state constitutional amendment. Oh yeah they got Prop 8 right now and I hope that bastard goes down in flames myself. Right now same sex marriage is a bloody patchwork and I am thinking it's going to take a Supreme Court decision like Loving V. Virginia to solve it. As for abortion? De facto it's getting harder to get one, and the wingnuts are getting pharmacology degrees so they can deny women their birth control perscriptions. Uh dude? You get a job, you cannot just decide to do only part of it. Birth control pills are not just used for that purpose.
Now we have an election cycle being driven by something the Republicans cannot run, it's running them. The economy is in the toilet, and there is blame a plenty to go around. But they cannot change it, and a fix is not going to be quick or easy. The bail out voted on last night and passed, is essentially a band aid, and it may not contain it longer than the money the 'masters of the universe' are getting lasts. We have a few very large financial organisations now that quite frankly scare me. Merrill Lynch is part of Bank of America which has already gobbled up many smaller banks and become a superbank. WaMu went under. Wachovia was sold to Citigroup which used to be Citibank. And so on. It's scary times and the only thing that keeps it from getting worse is that Americans have not run on the banks. There is real fear out there. And someone leadership that is calm is valued right now. We had cowboy leadership, and it got us war, wedge issues, and this financial mess. And I know I like others want to see someone go to jail for it. I suspect we won't. But I want those 'masters of the universe' to hurt as much as the rest of us do financially.
And dammit I think this time that bumper sticker is hitting my car. Along with an Obama sticker.
I had the thought earlier that Palin reminded me of Bellatrix LeStrange, but then I realised something. Bella was actually very competent at what she did. Batshit insane but bloody competent at being a DE. Poor Sarah isn't. Not really. She claims that because some Alaskans can see Russia and that because her state is bordered by two foreign countries she has expertise in foreign affairs. Hmm I lived in military housing in Munich Germany for 3yrs. Does that make me a foreign policy expert? Or does that make me an expert on government housing since I not only lived in it there, I lived in it in Georgia(our state Georgia) and here in Texas. I don't think so myself, but hey if she can puff up her resume, why the hell can't I? Oh right, it's dishonest.
McCain said he knows veterans and they know him and he loves them and they love him. Funny that. The major veteran's organisations give him failing grades for consistently voting against us. Yes I am a vet as I have stated on many occasions in this journal. I don't feel the love from a man who has canned his whole Viet Nam experience into a platform to launch himself as a politician. Most vets I know who went to Nam don't talk much about it. The vets I know from the first gulf war don't talk much about it, same with the current batch. He promises 100% honesty in his campaign, he reiterated that on monday in Des Moines IA, but his campaign airs ads that are quite bluntly untruthful and gets downright pissed when called on it. Swears up and down they are the truth. Makes you wonder what color his sky is in the morning. He reminds me of Cornelius Fudge, the minister of magic who denied the truth of Voldemort's return for an entire book which gave him time to rebuild his operation and continue infiltrating his government.
But these are not fictional characters and I find myself less tolerant of them because of it. To me this yr the republican ticket is frankly scary as hell. They want us to elect a 72yr old man with 1100 pages of medical records, who has had 3 separate bouts of cancer? And a 44yr old ex beauty queen who governs a state with a population roughly equal to Austin TX? They want us to vote for a man known for a bad temper and a woman who can't string a sentence together that isn't a talking point that makes sense. A woman who can't even name one periodical she reads regularly. A man who flailed as I said last week harder than the economy.
And for the first time in years the so called 'wedge' issues just aren't getting the play. In 2004 they used wedge issues to sway voters when they weren't outright stealing the election. I heard more in that year about gay marriage and abortion than I'd heard throughout the first 4 yrs of the Bush presidency. And then they went away. As soon as he was re-elected they stopped mattering with small bubbles of discontent coming up through the torpor. San Francisco issued marriage licenses, but got smacked down. MA legalised it(gay marriage) and the world didn't end but a lot of states said they'd not recognise those MA marriages. And then recently in CA it became legal again through a court decision that tossed out a state constitutional amendment. Oh yeah they got Prop 8 right now and I hope that bastard goes down in flames myself. Right now same sex marriage is a bloody patchwork and I am thinking it's going to take a Supreme Court decision like Loving V. Virginia to solve it. As for abortion? De facto it's getting harder to get one, and the wingnuts are getting pharmacology degrees so they can deny women their birth control perscriptions. Uh dude? You get a job, you cannot just decide to do only part of it. Birth control pills are not just used for that purpose.
Now we have an election cycle being driven by something the Republicans cannot run, it's running them. The economy is in the toilet, and there is blame a plenty to go around. But they cannot change it, and a fix is not going to be quick or easy. The bail out voted on last night and passed, is essentially a band aid, and it may not contain it longer than the money the 'masters of the universe' are getting lasts. We have a few very large financial organisations now that quite frankly scare me. Merrill Lynch is part of Bank of America which has already gobbled up many smaller banks and become a superbank. WaMu went under. Wachovia was sold to Citigroup which used to be Citibank. And so on. It's scary times and the only thing that keeps it from getting worse is that Americans have not run on the banks. There is real fear out there. And someone leadership that is calm is valued right now. We had cowboy leadership, and it got us war, wedge issues, and this financial mess. And I know I like others want to see someone go to jail for it. I suspect we won't. But I want those 'masters of the universe' to hurt as much as the rest of us do financially.
And dammit I think this time that bumper sticker is hitting my car. Along with an Obama sticker.
