Over the Instant Messenger….
Germ:
elections are less about how good a candidate is
and more about how bad the other candidate is
1:22
i’m normal germ, nothing special…
1:23
but wade, he [does unfortunate things to] unicorns in the ass while slaughtering seals with aborted fetuses.
vote for me.
1:24
my name is germ, and i approved this message…
This morning I woke up to see that my state had inexplicably selected Hillary Clinton as their choice for the democratic nominee. As the sun went down i was pushing my bike up a 700ft tall hill due to another round of flat tires. Some nice symmetry there.
The bike i can deal with, the politics, I dunno.
I’m not sure whether to be pissed, sad or just completely disheartened by the whole debacle. The only solace I can take from the whole thing is that, barring a national emergency like the inevitable impending zombie war, there’s at least a 75% chance that George Bush will not be president next year. I guess that’s something.
Here’s the thing – I’m a mildly progressive Democrat in a largely republican state. And make no mistake, I love this state. On the whole, I respect the opinions of the Republicans I know even if i do disagree with them. Maybe some times I call them fascist bastards, and maybe sometimes they call me a liberal hippy, but its all in the spirit of spirited debate. That’s what I thought this contest started as, a debate. An intellectual discourse on the very trying issues that face this country. That is until one candidate lost 11 primaries in a row. Then it was the attack ads, the planted media stories about diplomatic incompetence and rumors of being sworn into congress on the Koran (by the way anyone who gives a flying crap about that please see the Bill of Rights, bullet one). This from the woman who still won’t release her tax returns (come on internets, why have we dug that up yet..?). The salient point is, it’s stopped being a debate and started being an American-style election again. How sad.
The sad part, the really horrifyingly depressing part, is to see 50% of the voting populace of my state buy it. I feel like as a whole, as a state, we’re smarter than this, that we should know to see through the bullshit (We’re Texans we invented the stuff). We’ve had a Bush or a Clinton in charge for the last twenty years, or rather, two-thirds of my short life–have things really got better? Has your corporate-sponsored-federal government done anything for you lately besides murder and maim a lot of promising young men in far-off land for no good reason? Has the media (who despite her claims to the contrary is giving one candidate a pretty easy time of it) done anything for other than spoon-feed you hype to feed a 24-hours news cycle ? No. Corporate media (now with touch-screen-on-demand-graph goodness!) keeps us happy by reporting on Britney and keeping any eye who’s going to pull the best ratings six months down the line (imagine the hype when they catch slick-willy pulling another Moncia…moreover imagine the advertising revenues). And the meta-corporate-hegemony that runs the country will always back the known quantity, especially if its good for the bottom line. While we fret over Brit, they’ll be working to swing the election on asinine issues like abortion and gay-marriage, while the middle and lower classes are hemorrhaging from $3 gas, 80% increases in food costs and an uncertain future of failing banks and oil wars.
We buy it, again and again. Even the great people in this state I’m normally so proud of.
Related Depressing Stuff
Getting Screwed by Canada
Why McCain was Actually the Big Winner
Clinton wins bragging rights, Obama wins in delegates
This morning I was confronted with a myriad of transit problems. First, they (the city or the terrorists, I can’t figure out which) are doing some nebulous type of construction at Westlynn where I use the light to left-turn onto the main drag, to get to the highway, to get to the work. Thus, I have to use the intersection by my house (sans light), which is challenging. Today, executing the bonsai-left-turn was like trying to merge into an in-progress nascar race, so I threw it in reverse and hit the back streets.
Opps. Turns out that one of the churches on the small-roads is a polling station and traffic was, in a word, fuckered. Normally this would enrage the pre-coffee-morning-wade, but the fact that a polling station for a primary is causing traffic jams at 7:30 is actually kind of cool.
Later, in line for coffee (which keeping with theme of the morning was packed), It occurred to me that Starbucks could be using their corporate-mega structure for good if they could go out and buy a company like diebold and incorporate voting into the order process – walk in to touch screen: Venti drip with some ice and Obama for president. The republicans could have theirs at McDonald’s so they don’t have to get out of their cars. Increase voter turn-out while in increasing profits. That’s so American, it’s like John Wayne just served you a slice of red-white-and-blue apple pie. And Starbucks always offers me a paper receipt, which is more than you can say for most electronic polling stations.
For the first time since Spam was considered a viable and healthy food-stuff, voting in a Texas primary actually means something.
For a take on all the candidates running, the League of Women Voters publishes the most comprehensive, bi-partisan guide, so you can make your own choices, (although it’s a bit of a read). For those with a little less time on their hands, the Austin Chronicle also has a more-than-adequate endorsement section that generally aligns with the mildly liberal types (although not much to say on the Republican side of things). Early voting can be done at any of these locations, anytime before Friday.
Finally, to quote the Chronicle, regardless of who you vote for…
….our strongest endorsement is that you all take seriously your right and responsibility to vote.
Look, someone else trying to get elected on a technicality that goes against the popular vote.
Now who does that remind us of?
Clinton — who initially joined other Democrats in opposing Michigan and Florida’s decisions to go ahead with early primaries — now wants the votes of those primaries counted. The Obama camp thinks that idea is unfair, since candidates were not allowed to campaign in those states, and Clinton alone kept her name on the Michigan ballot, meaning Obama did not have a chance at getting even provisional delegates. (more)
I wonder how you go about requesting that the U.N. monitor your elections for fairness and transparency. Is there like an online form somewhere?
In an unprecedented move of NOT nominating someone with high negatives, Democrats in Iowa have pushed Obama to the front of the the ongoing political menage a trois. If Middle-America can elect a black man with a muslim name, we may yet get out of this crazy hand basket we’ve been riding in for the past eight years. And the ‘change’ message is nice and all, but lets face it, that sans-serif typeface they’re using is what’s really driving people to the polls (or maybe that’s just me).
Oh yeah, and that other party went for another white guy who likes to shoot at people. Nice trend guys.
Hillary Clinton will be the best president ever. Everywhere she goes, she fosters unity and patriotism, flowers sprout in her footsteps, puppies and kittens play together in her wake and god-fearing, apple-pie-eating-children flock to her warm manner as if she were a very skinny, east-coast-débutante version of Santa Clause. Like in Iowa where she’s encouraging college students to vote:
In a jab at Obama’s efforts to encourage out-of-state students who attend college in Iowa to caucus, Clinton said the caucuses are only for people who live in this state.
“This is a process for Iowans. This needs to be all about Iowa, and people who live here, people who pay taxes here,” she told the Clear Lake crowd. (Daily Kos)
Or the way she embraces her fellow running-mates…
A day after the Hillary campaign hit the Obama camp for bullying voters in nasty phone calls, the Hillary crew has just acknowledged that an Iowa county chair volunteering for the campaign passed along the now-notorious email that smears Obama as a Muslim by repeating the false claim that he attended a madrassa as a child. (TPM)
Ok, so maybe the dog is actually eating the kitten, the flowers are fakes planted by the CIA and the children are being herded by tazer-welding day care attendants. I’m as ready for an upgrade in leadership as anyone who’s been paying attention the last seven years, but is this really the best we can do?
Texas will keep you guessing, that’s one of the reasons I like living here. In a state as Red as this, something like the proposed border fence would pass with flying colors. Or maybe not. Several Texas border towns are quietly refusing to allow federal workers on to their lands to begin preliminary construction work.
Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada said Tuesday that he refused two weeks ago to sign documents granting federal workers permission to begin work if it was to be on city property. Del Rio granted limited access and El Paso allowed workers only on its outskirts, said Monica Weisberg Stewart of the Texas Border Coalition, a group that represents local officials.
“This is exercising our rights. This is our property,” Ahumada said. “We are not going to make it easy for them.” – Houston Chronicle Full Article
Let me be clear – the immigration problem is a clusterfuck. No one has presented a viable solution for immigrant/human rights while securing the borders from various nefarious elements (and to be sure there is some wacky business going on down there). But a wall, a $1.2 billion fence? There was a town in Germany that tried this for while – Berlin was the name, I think ? I seem to remember that not going too well, but I’m sure that Mike Chertoff and the gang at Homeland Security will be able to do a better job than an oppressive Soviet regime. Look at the bang-up job they did with Katrina…
Calling the Race – Slate uses Google suggest and other web-trend metrics to take stock of the presidential race.
It’s been two years since Katrina turned a large swath of the gulf coast into mish–mash of gutted towns, empty foundations and broken lives. A place like America is too big to be categorized in one broad stroke – there are micro-cultures, sub units, the parts that make up the whole. Mine is clearly Texas, but we are part of the south and it physically pains me to see what’s happened, or rather what hasn’t happened over the past two years and to know it could happen here as well. To borrow an over-used phrase: the storm washed away more than just houses – it exposed the poor and the desperate living within our own borders. Two years on, they’re still there, still poor, still desperate, and we still haven’t done a damn thing differently. Working at a non-profit has led me to doubt the validity of entitlement programs, but this is just absurd.
We won the WWII, The Cold War, landed on the moon, settled an entire continent, but we can’t get our act together to help our own people.
From about the web
NPR’s highly comprehensive coverage of the anniversary
ACLU’s Broken Promises Report
Hurricane Recovery – Republican Style (Salon)
On this Site
At what point is a city no longer redeemable ?
Moving the Masses
Economic Impact