2 posts tagged “election”
I know that some people are finding it hard to decide who to vote for in November. I'm not sure why, since the choices seem so clear to me, but I hear and see the hesitancy around me and I've heard too many people say that they are just going to sit this election out.
Please don't.
Even if you don't vote for Obama, which I wish you would even if it is just to keep someone like Palin out of our highest office. But even if you don't support Obama, please register and please vote.
Your vote matters, today more than ever.
A product of the California public school system (which doesn't suck everywhere but sucked a lot in my district) I grew up ignorant and apathetic about my civic rights and responsibilities. I thought my vote didn't matter and even if it did, the system (even 26 years ago) was so screwed up that I believed nothing I did would change anything. I registered to vote when I was 18 but didn't actually vote until I was in my 20s. My voting record since hasn't been perfect but has been stereotypically American: I show up for the big stuff and skip the smaller elections. I'm not proud of this. I should be more involved especially now that I understand how much it can make a difference.
This is a big election, maybe the biggest ever. And there are two groups of people I would like to send a message to: young people and white women (I answer to the latter).
Kids (and please forgive me for calling you that): three days ago our government saddled you and me and everyone we know with a debt unlike any we have seen before. Why? Because 20 years of deregulation and cronyism have finally come home to roost and in order to save the financial system they had to send us the bill. You should be pretty pissed since you will be paying off this debt for a long time and the savings your parents were counting on to get them through their retirement and to get you through college are now seriously at risk. These are the same geniuses who started the war in Iraq, who doubt the scientific realities of global warming and are allowing their corporate buddies to rape the planet for profit. They don't personally worry about global warming because a) they will probably be dead before it really starts to matter and b) if they're not dead, the underground bunker they'll be moving into will have chandeliers and an indoor swimming pool.
Go here and here and here and here and here to learn more about how and why and where to vote.
Watch the video below to get an only-somewhat humorous-because-it's-so-freaking-scary explanation of what happened last week.
At the end of the day I was very torn between her and Obama and when he beat her I was glad for him and sad for her. But I don't hold it against him for not picking her as his VP. At the time most of the political world was saying that picking her would have been a terrible mistake. Now of course, Fox is pretending to love her because it raises Palin up if you can favorably compare her to Clinton (which you can't).
But Obama and Clinton had too much negative friction. Picking her would have appeared politically motivated without actually attracting significantly different voting audiences. Or so I thought. If white women are opting out, or switching to vote for a woman who is as anti-choice, anti-Hillary and xenophobic as they come, maybe not picking Hillary was a mistake.
Regardless,Sarah Palin is a slap in the face. It is their way of saying "you wanted a women, here you got one." Not the right person or the smartest person. Not even the best woman they could find for the job. Just someone with ovaries who was available and willing, someone who would read the script and focus on her primary role which is to look like one of us. Someone we can identify with because she's a working hockey mom. She's pretty (but not too much), well spoken (if you don't actually listen to the message) and approachable. Last night author Naomi Klein characterized her as "Bush in drag." I'm not sure Palin is as smart as Bush, I think it's more like Quayle in drag.
Okay. I did not really mean to digress into another rant about Palin although clearly I could rant about her all day. She makes me mad and she frightens me. Frankly if McCain wanted to manipulate women he should have picked Condaleeaza Rice. She also scares the shit out of me and I don't like her very much, but I can't say that she's not smart enough to be president or experienced enough in foreign policy.
But back to my point. I do have one and it goes beyond Palin:
Regardless of who you support, think you like, or even slightly lean toward voting for, whether or not you agree with anything I've said. Please vote. I can take losing if everyone in America votes. I will be devastated at the loss but at least I will know this is the will of my fellow citizens.
What I can't take is losing because we were too jaded, too pissed off or just plain apathetic to do something about it.
Please allow me introduce you to a great nonpartisan site called Smartvoter.org. Plug in your zip code and they will show you great information about what's on your ballot, what the different opinions are and where to vote.
Your vote counts. Please vote.
I often use the term "shiny object" to describe situations in which I willingly - sometimes gratefully - allow myself to be distracted from the thing I'm supposed to be thinking about but don't because it’s too hard, too serious or too important to contemplate. I never know enough about the subject in question and I rarely have the time to learn what I should.
The shiny object can be my salvation. It relieves stress, provides entertainment and since everyone else is talking about it, I fit right in with the collective. With so many of us playing with the shiny object I don’t have to feel bad about not paying attention to whatever it was I was supposed to be paying attention to.
I think the shrinks call this codependency. As long as I have someone (or in this case, lots of someones) to be bad with I’m not so bad. As long as nobody else is thinking about the big issues, I don’t have to either.
A good shiny object involves high levels of emotion and low levels of reasoning. It's better if the shiny object involves a topic that's easy to understand, something one can form an opinion about simply by gleaning half the facts and listening to our gut. The best ones are those that are just plain none of our business. (Salacious is ideal.)
Critical thinking and reasoned arguments are usually not necessary (or welcome), because we just know.
You can’t live in Shiny Object Land, the amount of change that occurs there makes it impossible to settle down anywhere. One can only visit for short periods of time. But it’s fun to go there, it’s so exciting. Bright lights, no challenges, lots of spin and comfortably numb.
Sarah Palin is the quintessential shiny object. As long as she is in the room we don't have to talk about McCain, his record, his plan for the future, the war in Iraq, the state of our union or anything else that matters. Because what we really need to talk about is whether or not that 5th baby is hers. And we need to talk about how hypocritical it is to preach against sex education when one has a pregnant 17 year old daughter planning a shot gun wedding to a guy who says "fuck" a lot on his MySpace page. We need to talk about whether or not she's a good shot, and a good mother.
As long as we do this we don't have to dissect the truth about government pork (she kept the money). The allegations of abuse of power. That she may have wanted to ban books in her town library. That she would rather not separate church and state. That she would like to outlaw abortion in every circumstance unless the mother is actually going to die.
But who cares about that, let's talk about whether she should be at home with her children.
No one likes a shiny object more than me, but with the future of my country at stake I am working harder to stay focused and engaged. Every minute we spend discussing Palin is time we don't spend comparing McCain to Obama and talking about the issues that matter. Can we make judgments about whether or not she's a good mother? Sure. But is being a good mother relevant to being an effective (vice) president? I don’t think so. Has anyone ever voted against a man because they thought he wasn't a good father?
Just as I don't think that being a war hero is enough criteria to be president, neither do I think being a good or bad mother is relevant to this critical conversation about our future. By letting it seep in, we allow it to take our eyes off the ball. And with McCain ahead in the polls, I worry if we have enough balls left to win.
The good news about shiny objects is that they never last. Our collective ADD will provide us with a new shiny object before you know it and there will be pictures and blog posts and links galore – providing us with everything we need to keep our minds off our troubles.
The question for me is, will this shiny object last long enough for them to win the presidency? They popped this genie out of the bottle only 60 days before the election. Only time will tell if we, the collective, will get bored of her before we go to the polls, in time to do something about our future, or if we will wait until later, when it will be too late.
