domestic disturbance
now playing: dan fogelberg, "along the road"
ok, i'll do my little rant thing, and then we're gonna try to move on from here.
i think i have some "coming to terms" to do. i listened to mike malloy last night on air america, and he was quite obviously irritated...his message, though, wasn't about how GOTV failed us, or about our message being off base, or any of that - it was centered almost entirely on how our voting method failed us. many of you are probably familiar with the pseudo-scandal regarding diebold and their CEO's letter to bush pledging his absolute best efforts in helping him secure ohio, how there's still no paper trail for votes, how the exit polling was spot-on in every other state but OH and FL, et cetera. he's convinced that diebold secured the election for bush, and i'm not convinced he's wrong.
but this is our world as it stands, and should we choose to, we have to live in it.
i've had very few thoughts about anything but what happened on tuesday night in the time since i ambled up the stairs to bed at 3am on wednesday morning to lie in the dark and stare in the direction of the ceiling aimlessly for an hour or so before i drifted off to sleep, and i can't really give this feeling a name.
it's a combination of a lot of things, really...anger and frustration are givens, i suppose. sadness, as well.
it all kinda mixes into a pretty potent blend of "fuck 'em all, then" in my head.
there are a lot of folks on the internet who have voiced some post-election thoughts that are somewhat in line with what i'm feeling right now. jesse taylor at pandagon, cliff schecter and paul waldman at gadflyer, balta, tom tomorrow, amy sullivan at washington monthly, josh marshall, nick confessore at the prospect, jim capozzola at rittenhouse review...they've managed to cover just about everything that's crossed my mind at some point and so, so much more.
david corn gets the quote:
"Does history not count? After winning the presidency in 2000 in a bitter and divisive contest, Bush pledged that he would reach out to the other side. He claimed he was a "uniter not a divider." He then did little to bridge the gulf. He appointed John Ashcroft--perhaps the most divisive member of the Senate at the time--attorney general. He forced his tax cuts package through without seeking any compromise with the Democrats. He ripped up the global warming treaty without offering any alternative--in essence telling the rest of the world to go take a hike. He assembled an energy task force that listened to corporate executives but did not hear out environmentalists, and he refused to say who was working with it. After 9/11, he campaigned against Democrats and claimed they did not care about the nation's security. And in the 2004 campaign, he repeatedly lied about Kerry, mischaracterizing his positions, distorting his words, assailing him as weak. And he stood by as his allies launched unsubstantiated attacks on Kerry's military service and character. That is how he won: by mocking Kerry and hurling false charges against him. And now he says he wants to win over Kerry's supporters?
Bush had his chance. In fact, he had three chances. When he assumed the presidency, he could have made good on his promise. He did not. After 9/11, he had another opportunity, yet after a short interval he was back to the politics of fear, division and accusation. Then in this campaign, he could have endeavored to maintain a serious and somber discourse on the most pressing issues and challenges we face as a nation: the war in Iraq, the threat from al Qaeda and Islamic jihadism, the faltering economy. Instead, he resorted to cheap shots and disinformation.
Bush has governed and campaigned in a divisive manner. A few sentences in a victory speech will not alter that. The slate is not wiped clean. Over 1100 Americans and thousands of Iraqis are still dead in Iraq for a war that was launched on the basis of untrue assertions. The tax burden still remains shifted toward the middle class. Bush's undeclared war on environmental protections still continues. He still supports amending the constitution to ban gay marriage. He still has in place a ban on effective stem cell research. He still has done nothing to remedy the gargantuan deficit.
Forward motion--progress, that is--is not guaranteed in America, or anywhere else. It only comes out of effort. A Supreme Court loaded with Bush appointees could quickly undo rights that were achieved over the course of years through hard work and struggle. America's standing in the world could--and probably will--continue to decline. The gap between the nation's well-off and poor has grown. Poverty rates have gone up in recent years. The number of Americans without health care coverage has increased. And there is no telling whether the United States is any safer today due to Bush's war in Iraq and his decisions regarding homeland security. It's arguable that the nation is less safe.
The country has not moved forward in the past four years, and it is unlikely to do so in the next four."
i'm a person who - it has to be said - has varying degrees of compassion for people, depending on their situation. i'm pretty sure i've always been that way. people upon whom geniune misfortune has fallen will always have my sympathy, but people who bring misfortune upon themselves tend not to get as much.
hurricane victims? yes.
drug addicts? not so much.
terminally ill? absolutely.
battered spouse? unlikely.
and right now, that's how america strikes me - as a battered spouse.
i know i'm gonna get shit for saying this, and i've made peace with that...but i can't seem to get inside the concept of remaining in a situation that's so blatantly and obviously self-destructive. i know that making drastic and sweeping changes can be scary in life, especially where kids are involved, but how much worse can it be than staying in a literally destructive relationship? especially when kids are involved?
it's something i've never understood, and at this late hour in my life, i'm not so sure i ever will.
on november 2nd, america had the police on its doorstep, ready to take the wife-beater into custody. america's family was on the phone, saying, "get outta there and come live with us while you sort your life out"...the kids were huddled at the top of the stairs, listening intently to what was happening downstairs.
america's personified battered spouse was standing in the doorway, with the voices of our children and our family in one ear, and the lying, abusive husband in the other. the police were on the porch, ready to enforce our will to do the right thing and carry his ass off to jail.
this was our moment of truth...our opportunity to do the right thing. all we had to do was sign the warrant.
but we sent the cops away, let the wife-beater back into the house, and went off into the kitchen to take our whoopin'.
concerned family members eventually stop calling, because it's uncomfortable for them to watch you make excuses for your piece-of-shit husband, and painful for them to see the evidence of his abuses in plain sight while you try to explain them away with preposterous lies.
so they turn their backs eventually.
your children see the situation for what it is, but they are acutely aware of their powerlessness...and they wait, full of anticipation, for the day that they can get as far away from you as possible. they love you, but they're appalled at your inability to do the right thing for yourself, and for them...and they can't wait to have no part of you for it.
this is america in 2004. a battered spouse.
our allies don't call as much as they used to, starting to see the situation for what it is...and so many of america's children have completely lost faith in the dream that used to be america that they're beginning to ponder, for the first time in their lives, a life outside of the house they grew up in.
we went to the polls on tuesday with the bruises on our arms and back from four years of breakneck deficit spending, dead soldiers returning from iraq under a veil of secrecy, civil liberties being eroded at a breakneck pace, jobs being sent overseas, corporate piracy, and empirical ambition.
we looked in the mirror as we applied makeup over the black eye and we listened to him saying it again, just like he did every time it happened - "i don't know why i do the things i do. i can change, though. this time it'll be different. you know i love you, don't you, baby?"
and we walked into the voting booth and promptly discarded all our evidence....
...and cast our vote for More Of The Same.
so what do i do now?
i guess i go upstairs and hide under my bed, just like i did when i was a kid, and hope that this time, he doesn't decide to beat my ass, too.
then when i'm all grown up, i can get as far away from this bullshit as i can and try to forget it ever happened.
ok, i'll do my little rant thing, and then we're gonna try to move on from here.
i think i have some "coming to terms" to do. i listened to mike malloy last night on air america, and he was quite obviously irritated...his message, though, wasn't about how GOTV failed us, or about our message being off base, or any of that - it was centered almost entirely on how our voting method failed us. many of you are probably familiar with the pseudo-scandal regarding diebold and their CEO's letter to bush pledging his absolute best efforts in helping him secure ohio, how there's still no paper trail for votes, how the exit polling was spot-on in every other state but OH and FL, et cetera. he's convinced that diebold secured the election for bush, and i'm not convinced he's wrong.
but this is our world as it stands, and should we choose to, we have to live in it.
i've had very few thoughts about anything but what happened on tuesday night in the time since i ambled up the stairs to bed at 3am on wednesday morning to lie in the dark and stare in the direction of the ceiling aimlessly for an hour or so before i drifted off to sleep, and i can't really give this feeling a name.
it's a combination of a lot of things, really...anger and frustration are givens, i suppose. sadness, as well.
it all kinda mixes into a pretty potent blend of "fuck 'em all, then" in my head.
there are a lot of folks on the internet who have voiced some post-election thoughts that are somewhat in line with what i'm feeling right now. jesse taylor at pandagon, cliff schecter and paul waldman at gadflyer, balta, tom tomorrow, amy sullivan at washington monthly, josh marshall, nick confessore at the prospect, jim capozzola at rittenhouse review...they've managed to cover just about everything that's crossed my mind at some point and so, so much more.
david corn gets the quote:
"Does history not count? After winning the presidency in 2000 in a bitter and divisive contest, Bush pledged that he would reach out to the other side. He claimed he was a "uniter not a divider." He then did little to bridge the gulf. He appointed John Ashcroft--perhaps the most divisive member of the Senate at the time--attorney general. He forced his tax cuts package through without seeking any compromise with the Democrats. He ripped up the global warming treaty without offering any alternative--in essence telling the rest of the world to go take a hike. He assembled an energy task force that listened to corporate executives but did not hear out environmentalists, and he refused to say who was working with it. After 9/11, he campaigned against Democrats and claimed they did not care about the nation's security. And in the 2004 campaign, he repeatedly lied about Kerry, mischaracterizing his positions, distorting his words, assailing him as weak. And he stood by as his allies launched unsubstantiated attacks on Kerry's military service and character. That is how he won: by mocking Kerry and hurling false charges against him. And now he says he wants to win over Kerry's supporters?
Bush had his chance. In fact, he had three chances. When he assumed the presidency, he could have made good on his promise. He did not. After 9/11, he had another opportunity, yet after a short interval he was back to the politics of fear, division and accusation. Then in this campaign, he could have endeavored to maintain a serious and somber discourse on the most pressing issues and challenges we face as a nation: the war in Iraq, the threat from al Qaeda and Islamic jihadism, the faltering economy. Instead, he resorted to cheap shots and disinformation.
Bush has governed and campaigned in a divisive manner. A few sentences in a victory speech will not alter that. The slate is not wiped clean. Over 1100 Americans and thousands of Iraqis are still dead in Iraq for a war that was launched on the basis of untrue assertions. The tax burden still remains shifted toward the middle class. Bush's undeclared war on environmental protections still continues. He still supports amending the constitution to ban gay marriage. He still has in place a ban on effective stem cell research. He still has done nothing to remedy the gargantuan deficit.
Forward motion--progress, that is--is not guaranteed in America, or anywhere else. It only comes out of effort. A Supreme Court loaded with Bush appointees could quickly undo rights that were achieved over the course of years through hard work and struggle. America's standing in the world could--and probably will--continue to decline. The gap between the nation's well-off and poor has grown. Poverty rates have gone up in recent years. The number of Americans without health care coverage has increased. And there is no telling whether the United States is any safer today due to Bush's war in Iraq and his decisions regarding homeland security. It's arguable that the nation is less safe.
The country has not moved forward in the past four years, and it is unlikely to do so in the next four."
i'm a person who - it has to be said - has varying degrees of compassion for people, depending on their situation. i'm pretty sure i've always been that way. people upon whom geniune misfortune has fallen will always have my sympathy, but people who bring misfortune upon themselves tend not to get as much.
hurricane victims? yes.
drug addicts? not so much.
terminally ill? absolutely.
battered spouse? unlikely.
and right now, that's how america strikes me - as a battered spouse.
i know i'm gonna get shit for saying this, and i've made peace with that...but i can't seem to get inside the concept of remaining in a situation that's so blatantly and obviously self-destructive. i know that making drastic and sweeping changes can be scary in life, especially where kids are involved, but how much worse can it be than staying in a literally destructive relationship? especially when kids are involved?
it's something i've never understood, and at this late hour in my life, i'm not so sure i ever will.
on november 2nd, america had the police on its doorstep, ready to take the wife-beater into custody. america's family was on the phone, saying, "get outta there and come live with us while you sort your life out"...the kids were huddled at the top of the stairs, listening intently to what was happening downstairs.
america's personified battered spouse was standing in the doorway, with the voices of our children and our family in one ear, and the lying, abusive husband in the other. the police were on the porch, ready to enforce our will to do the right thing and carry his ass off to jail.
this was our moment of truth...our opportunity to do the right thing. all we had to do was sign the warrant.
but we sent the cops away, let the wife-beater back into the house, and went off into the kitchen to take our whoopin'.
concerned family members eventually stop calling, because it's uncomfortable for them to watch you make excuses for your piece-of-shit husband, and painful for them to see the evidence of his abuses in plain sight while you try to explain them away with preposterous lies.
so they turn their backs eventually.
your children see the situation for what it is, but they are acutely aware of their powerlessness...and they wait, full of anticipation, for the day that they can get as far away from you as possible. they love you, but they're appalled at your inability to do the right thing for yourself, and for them...and they can't wait to have no part of you for it.
this is america in 2004. a battered spouse.
our allies don't call as much as they used to, starting to see the situation for what it is...and so many of america's children have completely lost faith in the dream that used to be america that they're beginning to ponder, for the first time in their lives, a life outside of the house they grew up in.
we went to the polls on tuesday with the bruises on our arms and back from four years of breakneck deficit spending, dead soldiers returning from iraq under a veil of secrecy, civil liberties being eroded at a breakneck pace, jobs being sent overseas, corporate piracy, and empirical ambition.
we looked in the mirror as we applied makeup over the black eye and we listened to him saying it again, just like he did every time it happened - "i don't know why i do the things i do. i can change, though. this time it'll be different. you know i love you, don't you, baby?"
and we walked into the voting booth and promptly discarded all our evidence....
...and cast our vote for More Of The Same.
so what do i do now?
i guess i go upstairs and hide under my bed, just like i did when i was a kid, and hope that this time, he doesn't decide to beat my ass, too.
then when i'm all grown up, i can get as far away from this bullshit as i can and try to forget it ever happened.
posted by tom at 11:22
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