November 07, 2004

• Just as a majority of Americans voted for Reagan as he stood silent and let gay people die, this election brought out the ugly side of this country once again. This country's majority should be ashamed of itself for voting for Bush. Kerry should be ashamed for conceding without a fight. The DNC should be ashamed for putting forward a cheap umbrella for a candidate. I'm ashamed of myself for voting for the Democratic party.
• Never have words been so very, very true. If we have to depend on and support redneck middle america to win an election, screw it. Let's do everything we can to knock them out of the picture. They've done the same to us. Now let's do it to them. Don't worry about the red states, concentrate on our own, on running a candidate that appeals to *our* REAL values and not moronic simpletons. Who do we support? Moderates or. . . The American Taliban?
• God, if he exists, bless Adam Felber.
• One of the funniest men on NPR, maybe the funniest.
• I had an extremely sarcastic reply written, which I deleted to keep the peace but: this is not funny, or helpful. Not funny because it is cliched and the same ideas that have been floating around for months and years and the author only knows he can get away with it because it's about the favorite punching bag of the PC, poor white people (no mention of the Cuban-Americans who decided 2000 and maybe 2004 in Fla.). Not helpful because demonizing a certain social or economic group is never right, whether it comes from the right or the left. They call us immoral liberals, we call them stupid hicks, there's more of them, we lose. And if this kind of cheap namecalling is the best we can do, we deserve to lose.
• Wow. I know our perceptions of a red vs blue America are strongly shaped by the electoral college. And I know that even in the reddest of states often 40% or more of the people voted for Kerry, but DAMN that felt good to read, even if it is as simplistic a caricature of the right as they've been doing to the left for all these years.
• drjimmy11 - I know what you mean about calling names being unproductive, but it does in its ascerbic way raise a few important issues. It draws attention to the inconsistencies and hypocrisies in certain platforms - people who blame hollywood for declining morality while continuing to be the consumers of that entertainment, who dislike taxes while receiving more benefit from government spending, who wish to say what the U.S. should do about terrorism when they are not the direct targets of it, and with misinformation on even the facts of the terrorist threat. The Daily Show made similar points, but in a more subtle way. About stereotypes - you are right to decry the one in this piece. I think it is also reacting in anger, however, to the continuing stereotypes which is promulgated in many places about liberals. I know someone who's father thinks eating soy products will turn him into an evil latte-sipping lefty. Since when should lovers of high quality coffee face such prejudice? Maybe I shouldn't talk - I am, afterall, an elitist graduate student from the east (or at least Ontario, which is worse in Canada); I am also the first person in my immediate family to graduate from university. I guess I must be half'n'half. Though my grandparents, neither of whom finished high school, were socialists in the 50s and 60s (my grandma likes telling me about being called a dirty commie) - are they the elite left? Was Tommy Douglas, the rural preacher from the prairies who fought for the rights of the poor to receive health care? But that was another era; I don't know if it will come back. Poor people vote against their own economic interests, some because they have been convinced (economically) that black is white, but most because the cultural issues are more important to them. The parties of the left don't know how to speak to them anymore; some want to even give up, others think that if they just explain more and more fervently, they will get their way. But I don't know if they are listening to who they are talking to; the graduate union campaign here doesn't, and they lose so many people who might be sympathetic because of it. I'm just rambling now - it is all such a quagmire. I did laugh at the post; I understood his anger and bitterness. But what to do, other than to be bitter? I don't know.
• This Livejournal post might be a place to start trying to communicate and understand people better, to get beyond the name calling - It's about ideology, religion and conservatism, from someone who understands both sides. (via mefi)
• Actually - I like it so much, I think I will post it as an FPP so that more will see and read it. Sorry if this offends anyone's sense of organisation :)
• There are larger issues at stake than hurt feelings, like core values of personal freedom that this country was founded upon. Reducing the argument to "name calling" is garbage. I call shenanigans on this tactic.
• All you guys who disagree with Adam Felber are stupid, red neck, banjo pickin', Walmart shoppin' idiots. I keeeed, I keeeed...
• I AM A SELF HATING FAG TRAPPED IN THE BODY OF A SELF HATING JEW
• I AM A SELF HATING FAG TRAPPED IN THE BODY OF A SELF HATING JEW *applauds*
• I'm a gay man trapped in a straight woman's body.