Can't write... McCainbot will eat me
Nov. 3rd, 2008 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capri0mniI'm too antsy and distracted to think about my NaNo novel until after tomorrow. I'm stuck, emotionally, between the eager anticipation of Christmas Eve, back when I was seven, and the dread of an impending root canal. There's a 95% chance that this time, Wednesday, I'll be feeling like singing "Joy to the World." But that 5% chance of pain is still hanging over my head like a dark cloud.
And no, I'm not filtering or f'locking this, because I think this is too important to preach to the choir.
I'm just thinking how long and depressing these past four years have been for me.
As someone who is a Joyful Troll (and I'm using that term in as serious and sincere a way as possible), what's been more depressing over the last eight years is not so much Bush's policies per se (as much as I disagree with them, for various logical and philosophical reasons), but more that those policies have been promoted and supported by appealing almost exclusively to fear and hatred.
And that's what depresses me about a possible McCain presidency.
Way back when McCain was one of seven or eight Republican candidates (and an underdog within that group), he sat down for an hour-long discussion on Charlie Rose. As I listened to him speak, I thought: "Well, I disagree with about eighty-five percent of his policies, but at least he's against torture, and believes global warming is real. So he'd still be much better for the country than Bush has been."
And then, when he became The Candidate, it was like he drank from Karl Rove's potion beaker, and turned from a Dr. Jekyll into a Mr. Hyde. His campaign has been even more negative and fear-based than Bush's. As dispicable as the Swiftboat ads against Kerry were, even the worst of them never got close to questioning Kerry's U.S. citizenship, or suggesting that he wished to overturn the fabric of our government. But that's been the unrelenting drumbeat of the Republican commercials, from the Presidential ads to the local people running for congress.
I just hope that tomorrow, I will be vindicated in my belief that people are, inheriently more generous and kind than fearful and greedy.
I'd be much more complacent about the outcome of tomorrow's election if McCain's campaign had been carried out with the same thoughtful tone and careful explanation of his positions as he demonstrated on that Charlie Rose interview.
The fact that he never did, but allowed his campaign to be shaped by the hardest core partisans in his party, says volumes about his judgment, imnsho, and doesn't give me any confidence that he'd return to his more reasonable self if he should finally succeed in getting into that chair in the Oval Office. I'd also be more convinced that he really is a maverick, if he'd stood up for his choice of Lieberman for VP -- someone who is an old friend -- rather than allowing his spin doctors to pick a stranger for him.
And no, I'm not filtering or f'locking this, because I think this is too important to preach to the choir.
I'm just thinking how long and depressing these past four years have been for me.
As someone who is a Joyful Troll (and I'm using that term in as serious and sincere a way as possible), what's been more depressing over the last eight years is not so much Bush's policies per se (as much as I disagree with them, for various logical and philosophical reasons), but more that those policies have been promoted and supported by appealing almost exclusively to fear and hatred.
And that's what depresses me about a possible McCain presidency.
Way back when McCain was one of seven or eight Republican candidates (and an underdog within that group), he sat down for an hour-long discussion on Charlie Rose. As I listened to him speak, I thought: "Well, I disagree with about eighty-five percent of his policies, but at least he's against torture, and believes global warming is real. So he'd still be much better for the country than Bush has been."
And then, when he became The Candidate, it was like he drank from Karl Rove's potion beaker, and turned from a Dr. Jekyll into a Mr. Hyde. His campaign has been even more negative and fear-based than Bush's. As dispicable as the Swiftboat ads against Kerry were, even the worst of them never got close to questioning Kerry's U.S. citizenship, or suggesting that he wished to overturn the fabric of our government. But that's been the unrelenting drumbeat of the Republican commercials, from the Presidential ads to the local people running for congress.
I just hope that tomorrow, I will be vindicated in my belief that people are, inheriently more generous and kind than fearful and greedy.
I'd be much more complacent about the outcome of tomorrow's election if McCain's campaign had been carried out with the same thoughtful tone and careful explanation of his positions as he demonstrated on that Charlie Rose interview.
The fact that he never did, but allowed his campaign to be shaped by the hardest core partisans in his party, says volumes about his judgment, imnsho, and doesn't give me any confidence that he'd return to his more reasonable self if he should finally succeed in getting into that chair in the Oval Office. I'd also be more convinced that he really is a maverick, if he'd stood up for his choice of Lieberman for VP -- someone who is an old friend -- rather than allowing his spin doctors to pick a stranger for him.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 05:19 pm (UTC)"And we must be vigilant against the nurses. They steal our clothes when we're in the shower. And they tell us no-one's come to visit when we *know* our grandkids promised to see us every weekend. I blame this internet thing everyone's talking about these days."
no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 06:09 pm (UTC)Viewing this campaign from the outside, as you have been, you might not have gotten the angle that he was running on -- that he had "proven experience as a fighter" because he was tough, and survived being a prisonor of war in Vietnam... That was an important experience, and no doubt shaped who he became as a mature adult. But what, exactly, sort of experience, was it?
Closed away from other people: a lone man tortured by enemies (for nearly the entire war). Yes, he did turn down a chance to be freed early (because he was the son of an Admiral), so that prisonors who had been there longer than he could go free, first. And that was noble. Very noble.
But, I don't believe that experience of isolation and pain is something to draw on and learn from, when faced with the challenge of leading a diverse people, and seeking just compromises, and solving complex problems.