Something Positive in Politics!

In this time of troubled economic stability and a worldwide panic, it has been hard for most Americans to think about much else. People’s investments, college funds, pensions, savings accounts, and more have taken deep hits. It’s also been shown that more people are confident about Senator Obama’s ability to stabilize the stock market and clean up wall street, and all the other political rhetoric they both use. As such, it has been pretty imparitive that the McCain camp either distract people from the economy to present his stronger qualities, or convince people other issues need more attention. Both pathways of attack have been used, and both have seen limited success.

I apologize in advance because this will be a dry statement of my opinions on this topic without much humor, wit, or sarcasm.

The Palin half of the ticket has been launching some pretty inappropriate attacks that have only been fueled further by FOX news. After calling Obama friends with domestic terrorists, she was called out on it, and only defended it by repeating it. Pretty pathetic, right? It is insulting that that’s how low of an opinion she has about our collective intelligence. But it worked on so many people it just amazes me. With the aid of FOX news, namely, Sean Hannity, it was the Ayers “scandal” was perpetuated and repeated and now some people believe that Obama must be buddy buddy best friends with him and other domestic terrorists who hate America and went to WAR with America.

Is this really how far we’ve come? We’re going to be as petty as we can and treat the highest office in the nation, and dare I say, world with this sort of immature contempt?

The effects of this spread fast. Friday, the 10th of October, a man at a McCain town hall style event got up and made a couple stupid coy jokes and said he was scared to bring his daughter up under an Obama presidency. I mean, seriously, is this best political discourse some people can come up with? Another woman later on just laid it out and said it. She said… that she’s a racist. Basically. Faulting Obama and his campaign for being an ARAB, McCain cut her off and defended Mr. Obama from the second distressingly ignorant insult-in-the-form-of-a-question of the day. People in the audience demanded McCain show no mercy, and when he said he would remain respectful, the assholes actually got pissed off. Are they supporting their candidate, or just reveling in the opportunity to hate and spout off whatever uneducated garbage comes to mind?

I have to say, despite the lower level of commitment to clean and fair campaigning for the last few months, McCain showed some true guts today. Getting booed at his own fucking rally, he defended his opponent and defended clean and respectful politics. I liked that. A lot. It doesn’t excuse him for not always playing fair, but at least he drew a clear line where he would venture no further into the dark slanderous campaign path. It certainly doesn’t make up for all the ridiculous stunts some of the more outspoken and hostile groups have pulled, in their own names though, not under Mr. Mccain’s banner.

So I say again, Good for you, Mr. McCain. It took some real character to take on your own booing audience for a good cause. You said you were commited to a clean campaign in the beginning, and that’s how it should remain. It speaks better of both parties when both commit to it, and it demonstrates America’s good grace and our values and virtues. It’s frankly, rather embarrassing to see smear tactics.

Support the Troops, or else.

I’m not sure I can say this enough times, or if I can say this in a convincing enough way for all the hostile, indoctrinated fools out there.

Disagreeing over the motives and leaderships of a war is not equivalent to dishonoring the soldiers who fight in it.

One of my colleages tells me that because I question the value of the war, I am unpatriotic and shaming the brave men and women who serve our country. Really? Because last I heard, they are fighting to defend freedom. One of those freedoms is to participate in our country’s political system. Dare I say, it might even be a sort of civic duty.

There are some people who oppose war for all but the most severe situations. Being generally opposed to warfare, bloodshed, suffering, and unbridled distruction must clearly be the mark of an unpatriotic anti-establishment terrorist, right?

Forgive this rant, it’s more characteristic of me than I would normally like to admit.

An Open Letter to Democrats.

Dear members of the Democratic Party, elected officials hailing from said party, and left-leaning political spectators,

Please, please, please, please don’t fuck this up (catch the J. Stewart reference, anyone?). We need this election, and we need ti badly. I think we can safely say we’re within striking distance of a united Congress and President.

Put your minor differences in liberal ideals aside for a moment, and think of the unifying concerns we all face. Health care, gas prices, defense spending, social security, declining housing market, unemployment, global social welfare (like contributing to disaster relief funds), and the list goes on (and was only in a marginally intentional order). While we, as democrats, may have minor differences in opinion about the best outcomes and procedures to procure such outcomes, we all have the same vague ideals in mind. Now, think about what we could get done with either of the two nominees. I won’t name them since that could be read as endorsement. Your favored or your less favored will still accomplish many of the goals of our party when paired up with the democratic Congress.

So is getting YOUR nominee to be the nominee in November worth risking throwing the high office to McCain? Let’s knock off the in-fighting; focus on constructive ways to strengthen your candidate and our party at the same time so that no matter who it is, our candidate doesn’t enter November with a black eye courtesy of the Democratic Party.

Sincerely,

Metadnauseam

Another Post About 9-11

Had I not been reminded a few times yesterday about the looming shadow of today, I could have forgotten that which today marks the six year anniversary. I think I saw one flag at half-mast today. I didn’t really watch much TV today, which is to say, I watched slightly more than I usually do (big fat none). Nothing was said while I was watching; surprisingly no commercials used it as a shameless marketing device.

I remember immediately after it happened I wanted people to refuse to talk about it. I wanted people to just observe the unfolding events, mourn, and say nothing. That was certainly not the case. Immediately there were all sorts of wild speculations about liberation fronts, neo-Oklahoma City bombers, the CIA, the complete breakdown of society, et al. I was in high school when it happened (my first tell of my age I think I’ve made in my blog), and I remember immediately following, about 10 people were called to the office. Someone said that they were being called down to be told their parents had died. It was too soon; I knew it couldn’t be the case, but what if it was? It just made me want to be in denial longer. Not out of denying the reality of the day, but denying the wild, whispered ruminations.

This is sort-of akin to my treatment after the Virginia Tech shootings.  Even know, when people take sagely or knowingly, pretentiously and callously about either the shootings or 9/11, it makes me annoyed or even angry. I’m not one of those “get over it” people, but in some ways, that is what people need to do. For some, trying to probe and scrutinize a tragedy must be a sign of greater compassion or insights into the human condition.

So where do we go from here, then? Do we continue to remember in marginally declining amounts each year? Will 9/11 always represent this sense of weightiness and somberness that we have experienced on these days in the past years? Will our post-modern skepticism win out and we will explicitly decide to refute the sense of mourning as an empty self-conscious form of coping?

I seem to have started a little bit of trouble.

Original post is somewhat irrelevant, but check out the comments.

Link

Support The Troops

I got an email from a friend of mine about the need to support the troops. The email compared the hardships a hypothetical “you” feels with the hardships a soldier serving in Iraq. Here are a few excerpts:

You stay up for 16 hour.
He stays up for days on end.

You take a warm shower to help you wake up.
He goes days or weeks without running water.

You put on your anti war/don’t support the troops shirt, and go meet up with your friends.
He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.

You’re angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.
He’s told he will be held over an extra 2 months.

You make sure your cell phone is in your pocket.
He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.

You see only what the media wants you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying around him.

You sit there and judge him, saying the world is probably a worse place because of men like him.
If only there were more men like him.

If you don’t support your troops well, then don’t repost, it’s not like you know the men and women that are dying to preserve your right…

This is not some humble request from some ubiquitous entity known as “the troops” to be respectful; this is a bunch of absurd tear jerking comparisons someone thought it would be appropriate to slap together and turn into a chain email. Everyone has their own challenges, and it is wrong to say that your challenges don’t matter because someone else faces different challenges. It is wrong to say that someone’s struggles matter less because someone else struggles more. Life isn’t measured by comparisons unless you want to try to shame someone, like this attempts to do.

This email is cavalier enough to assume we all run around wearing “fuck the troops” t-shirts and criticize soldiers in our spare time and then live self-indulgent, hateful lives. But, it’s not bold enough to mention the politicians who started the war; the politicians and business war profiteers who are financially benefiting from the war; the military officials who signed stop-losses on soldiers; the politicians who won’t set specific objectives, goals, or deadlines.  No, this email tells you that it is your fault the soldiers are shaken awake by mortars and forced to stay months after their contract is over.  It is clearly your fault “the troops” don’t have enough food, water, or supplies (or combat armor).

I would like to go line by line and rail against this email, but it would be far too long and some are too easy.  The clutching the cross next to his dog tags sure is a heart-breaker, isn’t it?  It definitely evokes images of Platoon or Saving Private Ryan in my mind.  Must be absolutely true, because obviously all of the troops are devout Christians who pray to Jesus while clutching their cross on the battlefield.

These are the sound-bytes that are hurting free speech in this country.  The nation needs to learn that dissension is not unpatriotic.  Dissension is part of the democratic process – the very thing we are attempting to instill in other countries.  It’s true that not every nation grants as much liberty as the United States, but it doesn’t mean that your right to disagree is some cushy privilege that you don’t deserve since you aren’t serving in the military.  I dare not even imagine what the country would be like if everyone who wanted the rights provided for in our founding documents was required to actively serve in the military.  Criticizing the government, in the situation we’re currently faced with, is support for the troops.  Supporting the troops means criticizing the government that uses stop-loss tactics and doesn’t provide adequate armor. Supporting the troops means criticizing the government that attempts to increase troop levels arbitrarily with no end in sight and no clearly defined goals or objectives.

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Not to drag this out much further, but the “anti-war/don’t support the troops shirt” line made me kind of laugh, actually.  Does anyone have a “don’t support the troops” shirt?  I’m not sure I have ever seen one.  Though, I have seen plenty of yellow ribbons with the affirming version of the catchphrase on plenty of SUVs.  Maybe, instead of paying $1 to a charity for a yellow ribbon sticker, you could not drive an SUV that fuels the instability that fuels the war.  Does anyone else get angry, and I mean really ANGRY when you see a shiny pick-up truck or SUV (that has clearly never seen a day of heavy hauling) with a “Support the Troops” sticker planted 12 inches above the exhaust pipe that churns out, literally, TONS of CO2 every year?