Wednesday, November 08, 2006

It's a happy day in America

I am overjoyed today.

The American voters have restored oversight to our federal government by electing a Democratic House and, it very much looks like, a Democratic Senate. And the rest of the world will see, hopefully, a country that rejects the lawlessness, corruption, incompetence, doublespeak, and cronyism of the Bush administration. I know there is a big international audience for this blog and I hope you all know that we are taking our country back from the edge of the void.

I wept after the previous presidential election and felt dead inside for months. I despaired. I tried with a very heavy heart to understand how people I care about (including conservative members of my family back East) could choose to re-elect the same administration that lied to us about Iraq, passed tax cuts we couldn't afford, gave us the Patriot Act, traded on homophobia, and on and on and on... I know to some this will sound awful, but talking to people who voted for Bush and other republicans again in 2004 was like talking to people who reject evolution and want to teach intelligent design in public schools. It's like a willful ignorance, a conscious choice to screw other people to keep your own fantasy world intact. I'm sorry if conservative readers are offended by that, but honestly, I believe that the damage caused by re-electing Bush in 2004 is so severe that we are owed a public aplogy by every single person who voted him back in. I consider yesterday's election of democratic candidates in so many previous republican strongholds a very good start on that apology.

But... but... but. Today is a new day. It is hard to describe how overwhelmingly good it feels to watch Nancy Pelosi speak on TV, to watch a political leader speak who is not a scumbag, who isn't filled with rage and hate and self-righteousness. I love Nancy Pelosi. A woman speaker of the house! It is a great day in America.

I am relieved, optimistic, and above all else happy that there is hope for change.


Anonymous said...

And best of all, the Daily Show/Colbert Report were pushed to new hieghts of broadcasting excellence.

Systemically speaking, the real places where American democracy needs some oiling don't have to so much to do with either party (power will corrupt either way) but in three major factors:

- How campaigns are financed and marketed.

- Bringing the incumbency retention rate closer to fifty percent.

- Writing referendums that actually make sense to most people (allowing more than just the educated elite to vote on them effectively) and have no semantic bias.

A horrific example of the last is a Virginia referendum I voted on yesterday. The wording was roughly:

"Should the Virginia State Constitution delete a provision which prohibits the incorporation of churches, (double negatives already, had to read that clause three times to be sure what it was asking) which was previously ruled to be unconsitutional and is therefore now obsolete" (who ruled it unconstitutional and in what context? Isn't the judgement of the provisions obsolescence the matter for the referendum voter to decide, not the writer of the referendum?)

The amendment passed 65/35, hundreds of thousands of conservative, religous Virginians, whose best interest it is in not to have Churches incorporate (they can make profit and seek tax breaks for it, upping the ante of Clerical corruption. Jesus had no investment fund.) were mislead by the adgenda ridden wording and voted yes, as it would apparently be unconstitutional to vote "no". Of course, if there was a basic understanding of American law at play, you'd know that a Supreme Court ruling would pretty much rule out the thing being voted on in the first place. The most direct form of political influence is perverted by lawyer tricks, and it takes a lawyer eye to see past those. Most people do not have such insight.

Magiske said...

Congrats from Denmark!!!

I am really happy on your behalf, and of cause the world as a whole.. Nice voting, keep it you, just 2 more years to go..

Wouldn’t it be cool if you got a woman for president.. !!

WriTerGuy said...

Jane, you echo my own feelings - thank you for speaking them out loud. To your litany I will add the thing that has appalled me the most about the present Administration: the attack on science. Appointing lawyers to vet scientific reports, and to fire scientists who offer up evidence that one does not want to believe, is to deny that there is such a thing as objective truth. It goes a long way toward explaining why so much this Administration has done - from global warming to WMDs to Katrina to the war on terror - has just been a disaster.

Anonymous said...

"Wouldn’t it be cool if you got a woman for president.. !!"

Be careful what you wish for, Hillary Clinton will probably be in the democratic primary, if she's elected her anti-game adgenda might just sweep down on the whole industry.

I'd like to note that George Allen, whom I helped depose, and Rick Santorum, famous for his anti-gay grandstanding, were actually being helpful to the ESA in improving the ESRB's rating performance, and that the politicians trying to restrict the expressive range of the medium are mostly democrats.

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Anonymous said...

I'm stunned to find that an intelligent person such as yourself would prefer democrats to republicans. I'm stunned that you feel so strongly about our current President. I hope the democrats lose in 08. The party of Bill Clinton will prove inept as it always does.

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