aw, crap. 11.03.04

there is a lot to say about the election, but oh crap kind of does it.

not that i thought that kerry would make great changes, or last a second term; the senate and house would stonewall him in the same way they stonewalled president clinton. it's okay to have opposition; we're not all the same in this country. but it is not okay to have an activist president who wants to insert an interesting, warlike, old school God, "I am right and you are not" into the proceedings-- you know, the big guy he talks to on affairs of war.

whose voice sounds ridiculously like dick cheney's?

there are the domestic issues -- the economy that neither candidate could really change (but it would be nice to leave some cash in the coffers, especially when in a long, protracted elective war), the tax cuts whose effect we can't agree on, civil liberties issues, the legislation of marriage institutions...

but, looking at the red states and the blue states, i can't get past the fact that all the attractive targets are voting blue, democratic. those diverse metropolitan areas? blue. except for texas, and florida. we're the people who should be afraid.

and while the rest of the nation is posturing on being tough on terrorism from their cul-de-sacs, w is stirring up more terrorists in iraq. where were those iraqi terrorists before our occupation?

for the guy who will likely write a moronic comment (wait for this one, folks, it'll be funny), i am not a "kerry-style pseudo intellectual whiner." i am my own whiner. not as loud and crass a whiner as you. but this nation-building crap has never worked. see: central america, vietnam, koreas. it works even less when you try to impose our democratic, judeo-christian values on an islamic nation whose non-violent members aren't hot on American influence. aren't they people too?

kicking osama's ass? good. getting him out of afghanistan, a nation that did support al-qaeda? good. overthrowing saddam? a distraction when we could try more subtle or better planned methods to keep down terrorist threats. the axis of evil? rogue nations? polarizing, simple-minded ideas made for sound bites, spin meisters, and people whose sole purpose in life is to think they kick ass.



whichever. this is barely a political blog. but i live in an actual threat zone and i don't want more people trying to come up with ingenious ways to blow me up. we could have taken the threats on in a systematic way.

hey, anyone want to guess what w will do with his four more years?

really, i think we will perservere. we'll maintain our dominance in the world. because we are huge. that terrorist guy could never take our freedom. none of them can. there have been terrorists for years and years. the original AD 200 christians ran around in caves and hid their faith. we've fostered terrorist regimes to fight the soviets. israel has been dealing with terrorist with a lot less than we have. emerging nations deal with chaos all the time, struggling, as we should, to maintain what makes us great and appealing in the first place. not our huge cocks, but our actual freedoms of expression. for all people.

they can only goad us into using our power like a big slab of meat. into losing our legitimacy, which a few years ago would have afforded us to easily obtain-- or shame and cajole-- the rest of the world into making the middle east a more secure place.

they can only goad us into being scared of each other. into increasing our polarization within and without, and into taking out a few of our and their citizens while sending us home years later asking what happened.

and they are doing a good job.

we'd still be at war with kerry in office. it's funny that people think he's so different than bush (and his people who have the actual opinions); he would never be able to push forward a completely liberal mandate. he would be able to get our reservists some help, calm down fears of our imperialist desires, and perhaps reach some resolution-- versus a war with no exit strategy, a vietnam-esque quagmire that was brought up in some circles prior to the decision on iraq.