Since I've gotten started blogging about shit, I might as well keep going. Advance apologies for the prolonged analogy, but it serves a purpose.
I was recently chastised for being too critical of Obama and not sufficiently critical of McCain, thus supporting a McCain presidency. I thought I'd made my opinion of each candidate fairly clear, but let me clarify.
John McCain is a warmongering idiot who will say or do anything at all to increase his power, and is probably starting to become senile. Of the three remaining candidates, the thought of a McCain presidency is probably (but not certainly) the worst.
Barrack Obama is an elegant and charismatic speaker whose lofty rhetoric almost disguises the overwhelming similarities between him and McCain. Obama has demonstrated no principled objection to McCain-style warmongering, and has shown that he too will say or do anything at all to increase his power. He'll just do it more smoothly. Of the three remaining candidates, the thought of an Obama presidency is probably (but not certainly) the least offensive to me.
So that's my position on those guys. So, why the focus on Obama criticism? It is a function of the audience I'm addressing. In regards to my blog posts, I don't imagine that I need to convince many of my readers that McCain is a lunatic (though I've made that point repeatedly, just not very recently.) The same logic applies to personal communication. I just assume that this position is well established. John McCain the presidential candidate is a big steaming pile of shit.
Why criticize Obama so much if he seems to be the best of the viable candidates? Because he's still a terrible candidate! Obama the presidential candidate is a big steaming pile of shit, but with a slight sprinkle of deodorizing baking soda on top. This is a point that I believe needs to be made loudly and often, and the idea that this is de facto support for McCain can only come from a mind so beholden to power as to fail to recognize that an individual has more than two fixed choices on election day. I'm a fucking anarchist, not a fucking Republican. Yes, Republicans and I have a common interest in not wanting an Obama presidency. But Democrats have far more in common with Republicans than I do: both of them want huge steaming piles of shit in the most powerful office in the history of the world, but one of them prefers the huge steaming pile of shit that smells a slight bit less shitty. I don't want a pile of shit at all! And while I'll certainly get one, I'm not going to vote for one, and I'm not going to be shy about complaining how much it stinks.
This shitty post might serve as a good prequel to a series I'm thinking about writing on the topic of why I won't be voting. But I'll leave you with this last stinking nugget for today. If everyone who didn't want a steaming pile of shit refused to eat it, instead of eating the least stinky one, what would happen? Or conversely, what happens when people who don't want a pile of shit will continually eat shit anyway, if that is all they are offered? Is there any chance they'll be offered anything else?
4 comments:
I assume you are an anarchist because you know that at this point in our history it is impossible for Americans to elect a President that you could accept as palatable. Think of the political person you trust and admire most, force him or her to raise the money it takes to run for President, make him or her choose a staff to run the campaign, make him or her try to convince the public to vote for him or her, and the only way to raise the money and raise the staff and garner enough votes to win, and you won't like him or her anymore because the only way to get enough people to vote for him/her is to compromise. And fudge the truth a bit. No, a lot. Compromise values, compromise on program details, compromise, compromise, compromise.
The point is, the kind of people we would really like to lead our country can't possibly win.
I will vote. I will vote for Obama (I hope!) not because he will lead us out of the wilderness, but because he is at least palatable to me versus John "Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran" McCain. I respect your decision not to vote, but if 499,999 others do the same, we might get McCain. McCain is just stupid enough to do something that could trigger WW III - with us as the target.
"I assume you are an anarchist because you know that at this point in our history it is impossible for Americans to elect a President that you could accept as palatable."
I'm an anarchist because I can't think of any reason why we should have a federal government. No person should hold the power that the president holds, however (s)he gets there.
"I respect your decision not to vote, but if 499,999 others do the same, we might get McCain."
So one person's decision not to vote is respectable, but half a million isn't?
You see a lot of the rotten core of this stinking system, and yet you still support it. Your unyielding assumption seems to be that Democrats must always receive our votes, no matter how bad they are. How on earth do you think anything will ever get better if you keep voting for these scumbags? All they have to do is hoist out a worse scumbag to threaten you with and you immediately give up!
You worry about 500,000 people not voting. What if 280 million people refused to vote? 299?
You see a lot of the rotten core of this stinking system, and yet you still support it. Your unyielding assumption seems to be that Democrats must always receive our votes, no matter how bad they are. How on earth do you think anything will ever get better if you keep voting for these scumbags?
You're an idealist. I'm a realist. I have three kids and six grandkids and I want them to live in a reasonably stable world. I work to make it better and they will have to work to make it better still.
I'm responsible for bringing my kids into this world and I feel responsible for their families. I'm not convinced your solution would lead to a better life for them, but I am convinced John McCain has the potential to order our bombers to do something that could destroy the lives of many innocent Iranians and I can't withhold my vote, an act that could put him in power.
What makes you think that Democrats will provide a reasonably stable world? Look who Obama has as his foreign policy advisor - Brzezinski, a man who brags about how he used innocent Afghan lives as pawns. Does that tell you that Obama will be the least bit hesitant to bomb innocent people? Democrats have been complicit in every single war crime committed during the Bush regime, and Clinton was killing innocent people with bombs before him.
I too am a realist, and as such I recognize that there's no meaningful distinction between these scumbags, and no way to predict who will wreak more havock throughout the world. That's what is real. Everything else is just bullshit smoke and mirrors designed to make sure well-meaning people vote against their own interests.
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