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In this Discussion
- 000 November 2012
- 1234 November 2012
- Dr_William_Hayward November 2012
- flossy_log_lady November 2012
- joey November 2012
- kdawg November 2012
- Leland November 2012
- lolo November 2012
- Loose_Thread November 2012
- Lucy November 2012
- Matthew November 2012
- MirandaJuly November 2012
- Nick November 2012
- Schlabe November 2012
- ThickeningAgent November 2012
- UncleBoatShoes2011 November 2012
- YoursTruly November 2012
Well it's happening
I can't believe it's tomorrow
fuck
fuuuuuuuuuuuck
at the dipshit tiny town Texas airport I was at at 6 a.m. yesterday morning the gate agents were talking in hushed whispers about how they wished the election was over
we're all suffering
\what's going to happen? Do you guys think you know? I totally don't
fuck
fuuuuuuuuuuuck
at the dipshit tiny town Texas airport I was at at 6 a.m. yesterday morning the gate agents were talking in hushed whispers about how they wished the election was over
we're all suffering
\what's going to happen? Do you guys think you know? I totally don't
Comments
I hate how close it is
like even if Obama wins we still have to know we are fellow countrymen with MILLIONS of people who voted for Romney. Romney!!!!!
But the countrymen aspect is true. There is a crazy divide in this country (again) and getting crazier. It feels like it will get worse before it gets better. There are fervent young Republicans. This shit isn't going away.
I think it is real.
Thing is, even if the polls weren't so close I would still be agonizing over it because honestly I won't believe in Obama winning until it actually happens.
I was so burnt out and disappointed in Obama months ago, but I have been watching political documentaries lately that made me feel sentimental about him once again.
I am also amazed that so many people would vote for Romney. I was amazed that so many people voted for McCain with Palin on the ticket, but now it feels especially disheartening to see a soccer mom in Ohio tell the BBC "Well, I voted for Obama in 2008, but I am not impressed with the last four years so I am voting for Romney this time.".
So many people think they are sending some sort of message while really they are just giving more fuel to the aspiring fascist beast that is the union of the religious right, billionaires, and the Tea Party.
I cry.
We need more money to go around! Someone print more money please.
Dear Mittens, no more can goods please, only cash and blood.
Math makes you feel better. It's smart.
This is Nate Silver's zone
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com
Things are SO much better than 2-3 weeks ago.
And then Talking Points Memo in between, just to get updates and see what folks are talking about.
Sometimes it feels good to read the comments from internet strangers who are "on your side". Even if they aren't super informative. It's petty but I am starting to like when people make fun of Mitt.
@UncleShoes: It's true that things are better than they were weeks ago.
??? she remembers THAT????
(but yeah, i'm nervous too, and agree that we probably won't go to bed tomorrow night knowing who won)
And I think there is a civil war happening, it's just mostly a cold war so far and casualties on the losing side (the poor and the middle class) don't get much attention. Something like 12 million foreclosures since 2008? Sheesh.
To me, America feels like an old friend that still doesn't recognize his personality disorder. Not a great feeling.
It's just, like, I've been aware of the atmospheric carbon problem for close to 40 years. And I'm just a guy. There's nobody running the ship and I don't see that anybody even knows how to find the control room.
I agree with DrJ that we are experiencing some sort of cold (civil) war. There are distinct sides and most of us are struggling to look into the other side's eyes. If some of us really said what was on our minds, we'd get into fistfights constantly.
I would.
Living in a small town election time can be so dark because it is then that you realize that some of the town people you really like, good hard working folks, are actually Republicans.
Just last week during Hurricane Sandy I was at the dentist and while we were waiting around we talked about the storm hitting NYC and I casually said "If anyone doesn't believe in global warming by now, here's the proof." and my sweet dentist who is a cycling enthusiast looked so pained and started explaining to me that the Earth has its own weather cycles and we have hundreds of years of data proving that this is normal.
I recommend watching a recent episode of Frontline about the recent changes in the way average Americans view global warming:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/
When a Tea Party Republican, who speaks the language of the right wing, who shares all their views on everything else, gets voted out of office by other Tea Partiers because of his belief in global warming you know shit is bad.
@Matthew: Way back in early 2003, when I first met Bret, I remember asking him if these times were worse. After all, he had lived through Reagan in the eighties. And Bret answered that times were worse. Nine years later, having lived in the U.S. through most of the Bush years, I feel convinced that things are falling apart more urgently than ever.
I think Obama is a great example of how seriously in deep shit we are. He had the potential to change the system. I truly believe that he is a good man. But everything is tainted and corrupt and the minute you get involved you have blood on your hands.
My ceramics mentor pointed out that perhaps things could have been better if Hillary had been President. I liked Obama so much more, but I wish he hadn't gotten so dirty playing the game. Hillary at least was well-versed in these types of politics.
but then you have to think about the smaller issues that actually do matter
pro-life supreme court justice vs. pro-choice = pretty major difference affecting our lives
stuff like that I guess
although I'm also someone who points out that abortion wasn't made illegal under GWB and it certainly wouldn't be under Romney either so who knows
I just know
Justice Roberts = Ultimate Bummer
and I assume Mitt's Justice will be just as much so, and Obama's less so
stuff like that
I guess
I do agree about the cold civil war for sure
but
is this because we are narcissistically melancholy, or just because this is true?
how does the Black Death measure up against global warming
or smallpox against AIDS
or the Holocaust against Rwanda
or feudalism against capitalism
file under: me no know
We are better informed (or so we think), we have more tools, more science, more technology, more resources and yet the struggles are still there.
To me the proof is that there is barely any progress on issues which have been in the public eye for decades.
I have Playboy magazines from the sixties in which people debate gay rights and abortion rights in letters to the editor. Priests, pastors, writing to say that in their own opinion not allowing homosexuals to marry is cruel. That love is just love.
Abortion didn't use to be a religious issue, it was mostly a safety concern. People didn't want a woman to abort back in the days of coat hangers and potions because the chances of that woman dying were too high. Now a woman has many more chances of dying from childbirth than dying from a legal and safe abortion procedure.
Religious people only made it an issue much later, as it became more widely popular for women to have sex before marriage.
This is very judgmental of me but I think one of the greatest flaws of Americans as a people is this addiction to optimism you have. So few people ever want to admit they've hit bottom, or they've failed, or they just suck at their job. It's always "look at how lucky we are", "look at the positive side". I feel like you have to admit you've hit bottom to turn around and make it better. Repeating that things are going to be ok, or things aren't as bad as they were dulls your need for action.
>or smallpox against AIDS
>or the Holocaust against Rwanda
>or feudalism against capitalism
>
>file under: me no know
___________________________________
Under what practical conditions would anyone ever need to compare these things? LEt's just take things one step at a time, take what is put before us.
and geez, maybe i'm nuts, but to suggest that things are significantly worse now then ever before seems way off. 50 years ago environmentalism was a word few had even heard, civil rights leaders were routinely assassinated, and violence against homosexuals was the norm. less than 100 years ago labor organizers were tortured and killed, women couldn't vote, and we were still practicing genocide against native americans. It might be a disservice to those who have fought so hard in the past to make things better to suggest that things didn't actually get better.
and it's also important to remember that not all republicans are evil selfish monsters, nor are all liberals wonderful saintly people. my Ann Rand loving Libertarian leaning dad, through relentless/obsessive volunteer work over the past three years, has turned the once struggling food pantry in the rural Montana town where he lives into a nationally recognized shining example of an awesome food bank. since taking over as the director of his local food pantry he has increased the annual operating budget by more then 500%, started a nutrition education component, and expanded operations throughout the county. He has even started crock-pot cooking classes geared towards people living in motels, hoping they'll prepare their own food instead of eating at MacDonald's. He has done more feed poor people and educate them about the importance of healthy eating then all of us put together, and he'll likely be voting for Mitt tomorrow.
I still totally disagree with you, but that's ok.
I am not sure who said that all Republicans were evil selfish monsters, but I didn't. What I said is that it's awful to discover that people whom I find to be kind and intelligent every other day of the year are going to vote for Romney tomorrow.
The fact that we can't even convince the people we like/love to vote for Obama paints a very negative picture of where we are headed in my opinion.
As for comparing the situation we had 50 years ago to current day stuff: we didn't know to which extent we were killing the environment 50 years ago. People used to think smoking was great. Now we know better on so many fronts and still are barely doing anything about it. Countless politicians who believed in global warming back in 2008 have now swept it under the carpet as a non-issue.
I do agree that violence towards gays and women was never good, but it is still here with us, just in a different more socially acceptable way and hopefully when we look back on it in the future there will have been a change where women can move on from fighting for their reproductive rights all the fucking time, can get equal pay for equal work and gay people can marry in every state.
As for slaughtering first people, yeah, we are not doing that anymore. But that doesn't mean the way we fail at taking care of some of the population isn't criminal. We are still hypocrites. When @YT says "smallpox against AIDS" I know she means it only as an example of "How do we know it is worse?", but let's use AIDS as an example. AIDS is not only an epidemic in Africa, it's also an epidemic in some African-American neighbourhoods of the USA. Yet an other example of full American citizen suffering the type of plight one would find in the third world.
THE USA SUCKS AT LOOKING AFTER ITS OWN PEOPLE. MORE THAN EVER.
It's wonderful that your Dad did so much for the poor in rural Montana and I understand your love for him, but when he'll be voting for Romney tomorrow he'll be shoving his own head up his ass.
Like @LT says: "Here's to looking at the dark side!"
We have problems. Let's fix them.
Except for @kdawg I know very few people who get involved in political matters, myself included. The situation won't get better on its own.
Otherwise, I believe we have similar political leanings, and I truly wish you luck in changing the world, but I don't think anger is the key to getting anything done. Your comment about my dad is rude and insensitive, and certainly no foundation to starting a discussion with someone who might have different views then you. But really, good luck with your efforts.
Fair enough. I was being over the top with the comment about your Dad. Sorry to be using such strong harsh words involving body parts. It was unnecessary.
Overall my comments were meant to communicate that I feel the amount of time and effort we are putting into changing issues as a society is disproportionate to the actual progress that is happening.
One last comment that may be interpreted as harsh and I apologize for it ahead of time:
Americans deserve whoever is elected President of the United States. The rest of the world doesn't.
If there is one thing that gets me angry around election time, it's all of crazy black-and-white thinking that happens on both sides. It's easy to get sucked into it, but here's what I do, in case anyone cares. When I watch some clip of Romney seeming like a total asshole and start to get upset, I take a few breaths. I think about the context. I think about all of things I don't know about whatever "information" is being presented to me. I think, "What are the subtleties here?" I think, "Could I really come up with a solution to this (whatever it is)?"
[redacted: long, hypocritical rant about why everyone should just stop ranting]
What If Liberals and Progressives Could Learn to Talk to Southern White Men?
"it’s impossible for me to see them as strangers."
Thanks for posting.
What a weird country we live in.
But then this outward caring manifests differently somehow. Both sides think it is so obvious that their way is the more caring way, and that the other side is disgusting and stupid and harmful. I don't understand the way Romney voters believe their choice is the good, caring, helpful choice, but I do understand THAT THEY BELIEVE IT IS. No one goes to the polls saying "at last, my chance to vote for evil and destruction." Nobody believes they are filled with hate and fear.
I don't understand it, but it's true. And knowing it makes it really hard to demonize people, even though I demonize them all the time. Matt's dad is a great example. So much caring and hard work and taking care of strangers, but then making the political choice that I feel is demonstrably worse for the very underprivileged people he wants to serve. In his mind this makes sense somehow....and god, I don't know, maybe he's right. How do I know I'm right. Or maybe he hates abortion so much that no other issue matters to him. In a way, I can even understand that. I feel like I am becoming a single-issue voter too. Just like, Jesus, whichever candidate won't threaten to close planned parenthood. That's all I care about. If one candidate even mentioned the phrase "climate change" I would just vote for him. We are ALL being beaten down into single-issue voters.
I get so filled with rage that I can't sleep, and it's a terrible feeling. And I feel so weird knowing that this is how a lot of Romniacs feel towards me. And I feel weird when I'm believing that voting Democrat is more caring and loving but I'm doing it in this spirit of rage and sorrow. Something's not matching up, for us Americans, and it's this out-of-whackness that is the problem.
to say there has been no real progress in the realm of social issues is simply wrong. I really don't like when people make this argument. There's still racism so that means nothing fundamental has changed in this realm? How can you say this when we have a black president? The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES is a black man named "Barack Hussein Obama." This would have been beyond inconceivable even one generation ago. Less than that! When Obama's mother was a child, lynching was still essentially legal in the south. Black people couldn't drink out of the same drinking fountains as white people. They had to go to their own schools. They were barred from almost all careers outside of the service industry. Yes, there is still racism, but I really don't understand how it's not completely obvious that racism IS slowly but surely leaching away from our society. People are still racist but now that racism manifests in vague judgmentalism and cartoons of the president eating watermelon, instead of what amounted to a CULTURE-WIDE acceptance of MURDERING PEOPLE. To think that 200 years ago black people were literally owned as slaves, and now we have a black president. Not only does that represent real social progress, it represents ASTONISHING LEVELS of real social progress at AN ASTONISHINGLY FAST SPEED. 200 years is nothing, historically speaking. It took France 200 years just to finally become a stable democracy. 200 years is the blink of an eye, and we've gone from owning slaves to having a black president. It's unbelievable. It's fucking awesome.
And this is true of all kinds of social issues. Women, gay people, etc. Unions! We used to not have a weekend and 10 year olds were legally allowed to work in factories. Things we decry in other countries like China. Things that no American now could even conceive of being legal.
These things do matter, even as in other areas no progress has been made whatsoever (global warming), and even as we also acknowledge that yes, there is still racism. There is still sexism. We still live in a patriarchy. The fact that these things take centuries to finally fix should not make us believe they never get fixed. Western society is unrecognizable from what it was a thousand years ago, and yet here we all are. And in another thousand years we will be unrecognizable to our descendants. Our pan-racial, non-gendered descendants.
I get really upset too but I really try to remember that I do believe this. Even as the corporatocracy takes over the world, these other changes are also happening. Even as the planet dies, other stuff takes on new life. I don't know what it means or what's going to happen but this idea that "everything is worse than it's ever been before" is senseless, and shows an unhealthy disregard for actual human history, and doesn't help us move forward. Not a one of us on this board would actually want to go back in time and live in a previous era, and that means something. I don't want to wear a corset and not be able to own property. I don't want rape to be legal. I don't want to be a laughingstock for petitioning Harvard to allow me to take classes. I don't want my dad to marry me off to a business associate. I don't want to live in a world where I don't have gay friends and friends of other races. And I don't want to wear those ugly lace-up Victorian boots. YUCK
Inequality is measurably worse than before, it's there whether you wish to recognize it or not, and it hurts everybody. If someone doesn't crow about it, it will continue its trend.
Bill and Flossy, I call trolling on this Romney business!
UHX has always been trolling free and to claim that they are trolling by simply humanizing the other 48% of Americans is asinine and sad.
This country's path to a better society lies is compassion and understanding and a lessening of the dark binary that splits the nation and sends either side kicking and fighting hatefully further away from each other.
Obama is gonna win today in part today because of compassion and care for EVERY CITIZEN no matter affiliation in the wake of last weeks hurricane.
The right bends when they are faced with love.
When bigots are faced with those who they hate for no reason and love looks back at them 90% of the time the hatred is dropped.
Our President has an official policy that he support GAY MARRIAGE. What a cool thing.
There are 2 ways to really change this country: tearing down the state through revolution and starting over (an interesting idea, but are people really willing to give up their nice little lives and die for this option), or erasing the hatred and divide between the right and left. You don't have to be a centrist, you just have to love those who you disagree with and show them why what you believe has positive impact.
Let's win this thing!
Then Hillary 2016
When bigots are faced with those who they hate for no reason and love looks back at them 90% of the time the hatred is dropped."
I love this
But my challenge to myself is figuring out how to say "you are wrong" without saying "you are evil and a bad person and I hate you and wish you would die," which is a struggle for me.
no one's mind will ever be changed with hate rhetoric like that. I think I need to remind myself of how I contribute to the widening terrible partisan football team mentality of America when I also demonize the right like they demonize me.
it's the whole "stooping to their level" thing. The best people are those who relentlessly rise above it, no matter how wrong the other side may be. State what you think and believe clearly and kindly, without recourse to FUCK YOU ARRRRGH feelings.
This is hard for me but I think it really is the only viable option, the only way to continue. As frustrating as it is, I do find something beautiful in Obama's relentless bipartisanship. That's what it's going to take. Years and years of a few people being relentlessly, ideologically bipartisan. Like everything, this shit won't change overnight.
Lot's of people are wrong, but it's not our job to convince them. It's our job to get money from the people willing to give it to us. Or time. Or love. Or whatever the fuck you want from people. If you run into people who are wrong then move on to the next person. Eventually you'll find someone out there who will fund your kickstarter.
same thing
I like this that I found on Salon... it's flattering to my identity as a Catholic (as in ethnicity)
What are the big issues for Catholic voters?
In terms of moral issues, a majority of Catholics, even the most observant Catholics, say social justice and the obligation to help the poor is more important than issues like abortion and the right to life. It drives some conservative Catholics crazy, but most Catholics actually support same sex marriage by a moderate margin. And they are evenly divided on abortion, slightly in favor of a woman’s right to choose. And its important to understand that although the bishops don’t like it there really is a readiness on Catholics’ part to take the Joe Biden position: I’m personally opposed to abortion but I don’t think I should impose my religious views on others who don’t share those.
Is there an issue that can distinctly appeal to Catholics as Catholics?
Catholics, like any other kind of American, are embedded in communities and have particular jobs. If you’re a Catholic auto worker in Toledo, then that’s going to be a big issue when Obama emphasizes his role in the auto bailout. If you’re a Catholic coal miner in southeast Ohio and Romney is talking about more coal and Obama is talking about green energy, then it could push you the other way.
Let my people vote... for O