Perks

"You're college students--you could totally get your meals free today," I told my class. "Play your cards right, and you could have coffee and a doughnut for breakfast, have a late lunch/dinner of a chicken sandwich, and then have ice cream for dessert." I was talking, of course, about the freebies places were offering for people who voted. They laughed; I think they thought I was joking.

As I wandered about campus for this and that, I could feel a humming sort of energy. Shoot, in spite of my pessimism, I felt a bit charged after penciling in my scantron ballot. And it occurred to me: voting is as much social as it is political. It's a way of at least feeling like one is part of something bigger, like one has done what one has been obligated to do.

It's... a cynic might call it brainwashing.

That said, I bought into it, voting across party lines and voting on a couple issues in a way that my 18-year-old-self would've been surprised to see. And I got a free, bitter cup of coffee that was worth every penny I paid.

Flip sides of the same coin

I've been accused of lofty idealism, and I've been accused of dour pessimism. Which is more accurate? Both, probably.

I have ideas of how the world should work, how it could work, could be better. I believe, remote though the possibility is, that a better world is possible. I once harbored the idea that I could even have some say, some contribution to that betterment. I think part of me still hopes that's true and hasn't entirely given up on the notion.

And, as they say, the higher you walk, the farther you fall. The zeal that led me to joyfully participate in my first presidential election in 2004 met head-on with the reality that I could vote either for a candidate who could be elected or a candidate whom I could believe in. That realization stung, and the pang has stuck with me. As with 2004, this year I am faced with a choice between two candidates, neither of whom I can in good conscience support--and neither of whom I want to legitimize with a ballot cast.

I will vote on state matters; I realize, pragmatically, that the local and state levels are ones I have some say in. But I'm leaving the presidential spot blank because my idealist wants a candidate she can believe in, and my inner pessimist thinks the whole process is a sham.

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Now playing: Thrice - Cold Cash and Colder Hearts
via FoxyTunes

Election madness

Here's one for the WTF files: a recent poll asks which presidential candidate respondents would 1) prefer teach their children, and 2) sit down and watch football with them.

...Because, y'know, the way to pick a president is by whether or not you can bond over a bunch of burly guys squabbling over an oddly shaped ball. If that by itself weren't asinine enough, the comments from people within the article are: one thinks McCain's stories would be interesting, but another thinks he'd have a fiery temper if his team lost. A 29-year-old thinks he'd have "more in common" with Obama, though, and another poll respondent thinks the younger candidate is "someone you could be comfortable and at ease with."

Thank you, pollsters. Were I planning to vote in November, I feel comfortable knowing that the media have done an adequate job of informing me on the important issues. Actually, not quite. There are a few things I need to know more about before I could in good conscience cast my hypothetical ballot.

As a concerned citizen, I must know their stances on caffeine. If McCain's not a coffee drinker, that's a deal breaker. If Obama likes a little bit of coffee in his creamer, it's a no-go. Furthermore, McCain's look really isn't doing it for me; my candidate needs style. And cute shoes. Lastly, and definitely not least, I must know where they both stand on the issue of soapbox derby racing. It's crucial to the running of this country.

I would like to know more about their stances on kittens, doilies, NASCAR, and wrasslin', but I do understand the constraints of time and will try to make do with what information has already been provided.

Who needs satire. . .

. . . when you've got election coverage?

If Clinton were Obama, she'd have left her church based on the remarks made by the pastor.

Puh-lease. Enough of the sanctimonious "I'm patrioticker than you" bullshit.

Oh. Wait. It's election season, innit?

If I were a Democrat, I'd be a little worried about the mainstream media coverage of the Democratic Party's in-fighting garnering so much attention. As is, I'm disgusted by the media's treatment of the election overall.

It's sad that it's taken so long for us to face an election where the primary contenders are not just stodgy white men. The novelty aspect has been overdone, though, and the candidates have almost been reduced to demographic figureheads. Why else would each article following the primaries break down exit poll results into how many white women voted Clinton and how many blacks voted Obama? Surely (hopefully?) those are not the only factors people use in determining their votes. I voted for neither because the only reason I could cast my vote for one of them was if I judged them on a different set of criteria than I would a comparable white guy. That, to my mind, would be its own form of discrimination (a latter-day separate but equal scenario). I digress.

So there's the pigeonholing aspect of the election. Then there's the catty "he said, she said" sniping. Seriously, how is it relevant to policy whether there's a flag pin on a candidate's lapel? That brouhaha can at least be blamed on the pundits. But what of the childish, "I'd have done __________ different because I'm more prouder of my country than you, so nyah"? At the end of the day, even the most open-minded people have close-minded bigots they're acquainted with. You just have to quietly hide your cringes when they go to speak; they may run off at the mouth, but otherwise they're decent folks who pay taxes and give to the community.

It's a non-issue.

If the media spent as much analytical energy conveying candidates' plans and voting records, we'd have a much more informed voting populace. An educated populace is crucial to democracy, and a media apparatus that does not contribute to said education is complicit in any damage to the nation committed as a result. If I were a Democrat, I'd insert a Bush-bashing remark here. I'm not, though, and I know enough well-informed folks who voted for the guy back in 2000.

The DNC thinks I'm a Democrat, though. Sent me another survey/plea for donation mailing. I have an entire four lines to voice my suggestions for the Party's direction. That's double the space they gave me last time! In exchange, I think I'll double the amount of money I contributed back then.*

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Now playing: The Suicide Machines - Stand Up
via FoxyTunes

* - $0 x 2 still equals $0.

A swift kick in the ass

I can never decide which party I hate more: the Republicans for their policies, or the Democrats for acting like they're significantly different. I've said it before and will say again that I despise the major parties and despise the process by which we are so generously given the choice between picking the good cop or the bad cop.

I wonder how long before the Democrats get their panties in a wad over Ralph Nader announcing a run for presidency. Now, I'm not a starry-eyed Naderite. I cannot vouch for any purity of intention in his previous campaigns, and indeed, I'm suspicious by nature of any person who aspires to one of if not the highest office in the Western world. That said, even if I don't vote for the guy, I applaud him for the perspective he brings to the race and for rightfully calling out the parties on their little bait-and-switch game.

. . .

I had more to say than that, but lost it in transmission between brain and keyboard. Or brain, I think that's where the problem is. I know I haven't been updating as faithfully as I used to, and I apologize for the accompanying lack of content and quality. I'm trying to get back into the groove, but I pretty much have to catch an "up" day or milk an otherwise insignificant incident for (dubious) blogability factor, and those are both fleeting as of late. I guess you could say I'm trying to work through a rough spot in my personal life.

National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo has apparently gone year 'round, and there's now an option to pick and choose months. I'll try to post daily in March, see if I can at least lift this writer's damper.

Reading Orwell in an election year

A few excerpts from George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language":

"Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.

...

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a "party line." Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

...

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.

...

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs.

The full text of the essay is available here.

Can the election be over already, plz?

Look, call me Cassandra, but I can already tell you who will win the election: someone with an inside edge in Washington who knows how to pander to cameras and populist sentiment whilst working hand in hand to promote their favorite corporate lobbyist.

It's that simple, there's no need for all this hoopla--the commercials, the junk mail, the news "coverage," and the polls. Oi, those polls.

My first encounter with polling was in 2004, the first presidential election I was able to vote in. A woman was going door-to-door and just caught me on my way out. She was clearly Republican; all her questions were about Republicans. The first was "Do you support the President?" Loaded much? Yes, and you're a good Amurrkan, no, and you're disloyal. After a pause I answered, "I don't support his policies" and watched as she checked the "no" box.

*sigh*

This time round, two have caught me on the phone. So far. It's a long way to November, after all. The first was a Republican pollster. He explained each question; the first was which candidate I would support if the election were held tomorrow. Before I knew which party he was polling for, I asked if there was a "none of the above" option. He chuckled; I ended up selecting the "Not planning on voting" option. The other questions, to their credit, weren't that loaded: which three of a list of issues were of most importance to me, and which of a range of neutrally worded options described my stance on Iraq?

Then, a Democratic pollster called, asking first if I supported So-and-so for governor. I replied that I wasn't familiar enough with his positions to make that call yet. Then, my ever favorite question: Which party do I identify with--Democrat or Republican? Argh. I asked, "Is there a neither option?" "Independent." So why not have that as an option, you nimrods?

Even though I'm not planning on voting in either the primaries or the big one in November (more on that in another post), I will answer the pollsters when they come around. I don't know what they do with their results, but I will register my voice as a discontented one.

Nine more months of this nonsense is a long time. It makes the prospect of going off to live in an isolated cabin with no connection to the outside world mighty tempting.

Damn it.

I have no reason to vote in the upcoming primary now. Damn it.

Election shenanigans

Is it just me, or is watching politics a bit like watching a disastrous wreck? It's horrifying, there's nothing significant you can do to help, but you can't turn away. At least, that's what it's like for those who care about such things; everybody else just drives past without blinking, hardly registering the atrocity.

But speaking as one of the horrified onlookers, I'm appalled on many fronts--the candidates, the debates, the stances, the media treatment. Back in 2000 or so, one of my heroes Ralph Nader said that if people had a choice on the ballots, they'd choose "none of the above."

He wasn't far off-base.

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Now playing: The Dropkick Murphys - Which Side Are You On?
via FoxyTunes

War is peace.

My kid sister is in high school, her junior year. She's a pretty smart kid--runs in the family, clearly ;). She reads books for leisure and can usually understand by context unfamiliar words. She's a whiz with math. She can place most countries at least in their correct vicinity. She knows who some of the major candidates are in our upcoming elections, and she knows who Benazir Bhutto was. In short, she is not an illiterate ignoramus.

In her Social Civics course, she was reading about the executive branch of government and the President's Cabinet today (winter break can be significantly shorter for home-schooled kids). The book gave a brief overview of some of the different departments, noting that the Department of Homeland Security was implemented after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"There was no Department of Homeland Security before 9/11?" she asked, surprised.

And in other news, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia.

They're going to regret that...

I believe I've been added to some mailing lists--leftist causes and the like. They ask for a small donation to combat this social ill or that global issue or sometimes a certain devastating disease. Some of them even send me mailing labels to sweeten the deal, or at least, heap on some guilt.

That sounded cynical; the mailings don't really bother me. I don't mind giving small donations, and hey, labels are cool even if they probably sent me more than I'll use in five years. The literature I don't want I put in the recycling bin. No sweat.

I usually eye the mailings with relative indifference, maybe setting them to the side to look at later. One made me light up with glee, though (no, it wasn't the jury duty summons...). You see, the Democratic Party wanted my input for their presidential campaign (and a donation of at about $35, but that's irrelevant, I'm sure). I mean, the big thing is, they care what I, a common peon, feel. They truly are, well, democratic, ensuring that I have a say in the direction of our nation. Would the Republican Party court me, a lowly worker (and walking womb woman to boot)? Hell, no, those big-business-loving-war-mongering-rich white guys wouldn't.

(Was that too much? Sorry. I couldn't see through my partisanship.)

Eh. First of all, I don't much respect letters--like the one enclosed--that employ arbitrary text formatting . . . and overuse of ellipses . . . and Gratuitous Capitalization. Granted, I do use those too, sometimes, but I'm a blogger, not someone trying to prove my fitness for the leadership of the country. Picky point, but first impressions are important.

First question: "Thinking strategically about Democrats' role in the 2008 campaigns, which of the following strategies do you think is the key to electing Democrats in 2008? Please choose one answer only." Dangling modifier aside, the question is representative of the thinking I despise in most liberals. None of the options have anything whatsoever to do with policy; instead, they have to do with voter recruitment and advertising. Getting into office is more important than actually offering an alternative.

The questions only get worse. They're very loaded, too. One asks, "How important is eliminating the Republican culture of corruption in Congress to restoring the public's faith in our government?" That's right, kiddies, Republicans hold the monopoly on corruption. Give the Democrats a chance to get in on the action already, will ya? Oh... wait...

Another question asks, "How important is raising the minimum wage to the economic security of working families?" It's pretty obvious what the "right" answer is. I am a proponent of raising the minimum wage, which hasn't kept up with inflation and cost of living, but I dislike the slant. I'm a relatively intelligent person; I do not need to be led to the right answer.

Or try this one: "How seriously will the Republican failure to fund No Child Left Behind Act impact our children's future?" That's right; any negative consequences of NCLB are due to poor (Republican) funding, not, y'know, any flaws in the legislature itself, which passed with bipartisan approval.

Then, there are a few questions about which party I "trust most to combat terrorism and protect America against future attacks" or "trust most to guarantee your retirement security." The options? Democrats or Republicans. I wrote "neither" by those.

So, after more loaded questions with insufficient options, they provide two lines for "additional comments." Two. Lines. But... but, Chris Van Hollen, I thought you said you valued my input in the Democrats' direction. Either you assume you covered all the ground you needed to with the questions, or you're only looking to find affirmation. Hmm. After some thought, I finally wrote, "Questions are very leading. Criticism of the Republican Party is valid, but try providing real alternatives, not just lip service." It lacks the vitriol I wanted to put, but I've got a blog for that ;).

What good will come of it? Nothing, I'm sure. As long as we're entrenched in the two-party system and campaigns are based on sound bites and image and don't forget corporate financing, elections will be an exercise in deciding between Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dumb.