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Inside: Cultural Sausage. ~ Ludic Lists. ~ Skullbucket. Outside: Man, I get more hits on this thing for image searches than anything else these days. Ain't nobody readin' it. "journeymen home runs" "Flash's Rogues Gallery gayest" "Chateau LePen" "little shitty concrete box" "Love Boat Veterans for Truth" "I don't think you can win Bush" "history of geek civilization" "Robitussin dangers" |
08.31.2004
John Kerry has already said it, and George W. Bush will say it Thursday night: this November, you'll be asked to make a choice. Both candidates are going to frame the choice you'll make in pretty self-serving terms; neither will make reference to the many ways in which it's not much of a choice at all. Bush won't talk about how if it were up to him, you won't get to make the choice in the first place; Kerry won't talk about how he's not the first choice for a lot of people in his own party; neither will talk about anything troublesome like abandoning the electoral college, or reforming the default two-party system, or presenting you with different choices like a viable labor party. But it hardly matters at this point; it's almost a certainty that everyone reading these words has already made their choice. I hope I know which one of the two they're choosing, though I worry more with each passing day that it won't be enough. Still, plenty of people I call friends -- fellow progressives, liberals, radicals, union men and women, lefties of every stripe -- don't have a lot of good things to say about the Democratic Party. They'll vote for Kerry (most of them will, at least); but he's not inspiring, he doesn't fight back, he isn't who they wanted, he's bland and lacking in passion, he doesn't represent them on this or that issue. And believe me, I don't need to be told. I didn't vote for Bill Clinton either time he ran. I'm not a Democratic partisan. For me, the current system is an abomination, the Democratic Party is a compromised sham, and the entire political process is bought and paid for before we ever have anything to say about it. I'm still, at least in principle, an anarchist, for goodness' sake. It took someone as repulsive as George W. Bush to get me to vote in 2000 (and look where that got me). Spare me the lectures about how Kerry voted to give Bush war powers, or isn't especially progressive about drug legalization, or hasn't been outspoken on gay marriage: I know it already. I know, believe me, I know. Does it make me happy that it's either vote for a candidate I don't fully support or don't bother to vote at all? Am I pleased that a vote for anyone other than Kerry is a vote for Bush? Does it make me feel good about myself that this ...this...is the choice I'm given? No. It certainly does not. It's no choice at all. But there are times when we must make compromises. There are times when we must face up to reality. There is a reason I voted in 2000 instead of planting a bomb under a car or taking shots at a cop from a rooftop (although the reason is becoming more vague by the day). There comes a moment when it's time to shut the fuck up about what you'd rather have, and just bite the bullet, wave the banner, and pick the best one you've got. Once your man is in office, spend the next four years shoveling shit on him -- God knows the Republicans will. But get him in there. Get him in there no matter what. Get everyone you know to vote for him no matter what it takes. Because here is the choice you're really making: You're choosing between someone who at the very least won't start another war, and someone who led a thousand of our troops to their death under circumstances he knew to be false. You're choosing between someone who is merely silent on gay marriage, and someone openly hostile to it. You're choosing between someone who may not fully support labor unions, and someone who would like to see them disappear forever. You're choosing between someone who has a plan for expanding public health care, and someone who sold America a completely bogus prescription drug plan and will see to it that Medicare will wither and die. You're choosing between someone who may not have the best plan for combating terror and someone who has no plan at all. You're choosing between someone who has a bland and uninspiring personality and someone who has an arrogant and malevolent one. You're choosing between someone who's overly hesitant to use smear tactics and someone who's used nothing but smear tactics. You're choosing between a party who, if they wins, will try to govern, and a party who, if they lose, will do nothing but twist the skewers into the winner for the next half-decade. You're choosing between someone who wasn't his party's favorite candidate, and a president who didn't even win his office. You're choosing between someone dull and middle-of-the-road, and someone nakedly self-centered and extremist. You're choosing between a centrist technocrat and a nakedly dictatorial plutocrat. You're choosing between someone who may not represent you on every issue and someone who does not represent you on any issue. You're choosing between someone who thinks we need allies in the world, and someone who things the rest of the planet can go to hell. You're choosing between a mild environmental progressive, and someone who doesn't give a fuck what happens to the planet. You're choosing between someone who will at least attempt to address the needs of the poorest in society, and someone who has sold an economic program that is fraudulent from top to bottom, based on cooked numbers and outright lies, which blatantly enriches the wealthiest of the wealthy while pretending to help the poorest of the poor. That's no choice at all. |
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| TODAY'S DRIFTWOOD: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." (Upton Sinclair) |