Lest we forget.

[tim]

Seven years ago, about 3000 people died in a terrorist attack in the United States. Ever since, at least 87,000 civilians have died in Iraq in a war that the US started as a misguided attempt at retaliation or a cleverly calculated use of pretext. The war has met with little domestic protest, and in 2004, those who thought it was at least a little bit important to stop it failed to gather enough of a majority to elect a president who cared at least a little about ending the killing.

But let us put aside our past failures. This year, we have a chance to redeem ourselves. It would be wrong to say that anyone has absolute confidence that Barack Obama can or will end the war, but he is at least unbeholden to the corporate interests that keep the war going. And thus, we have no reason to believe he won't make a good-faith effort to stop the killing.

This is an area of moral certainty. If you're American, are you going to do everything you can to elect a leader who will shift our resources away from killing foreigners and back to healing our sick, employing our unemployed, cleaning our environment? Or are you going to assume that history is something that other people make and politics is other people's problem?

This is not the year for namby-pamby platitudes about how you should support whichever candidate makes you feel the warmest and fuzziest inside. If you're American, and you're not giving your time to talk to your fellow Americans about why they should support Barack Obama, then -- in a far inferior tack, but one suitable for those with crippling social anxiety or without physical energy -- you can at least write a check. If you can't write a check, and can't talk to people, then [nondenominational-deity] bless you. I'm guessing that's not so for most people reading this.

If you were going to tell me I should leave my politics out of this day, then don't. Leaving my politics out of it means leaving my politics out of it so that there's more room for your politics to fit into it.

To those of you who are eligible to vote in the United States: Nonvoters, McCain voters, I'm not asking you to defend yourselves and so I don't need to hear your defenses. Please, just go sit in the corner for a while and think about why you hate your country so much.

Comments

[r-transpose-p.livejournal.com]

I assume, since this is not attributed, that you wrote it yourself.

It was well-written enough that I scrolled down to look for such an attribution.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

I wrote it myself, and thanks! (Uh... I think it was a compliment, anyway :-)

NAMBLA and other things

[splogs.livejournal.com]

OT: The first thing that came to mind after the phrase "namby-pamby" was the organization called NAMBLA (http://www.nambla.org/). Don't ask me how I actually know about it.

Back on topic: Nice statement. I agree that Obama is the lesser evil of the two. I just hope he and congress actually do something constructive.

Re: NAMBLA and other things

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Doesn't everybody know about NAMBLA? I guess this might be like "niggardly", though... I knew the word far before I would have thought about the unsavory connotations, but maybe other people didn't.

I don't know that Obama is evil at all, actually, because if there was any dirt on him, the other guys would have brought it up by now. The only thing I can think of is rubbing shoulders with homophobes, but well... if that's the worst thing, he's doing pretty well, right?

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

Please, just go sit in the corner for a while and think about why you hate your country so much.

Can we banish them all to the actual corner of the country? (By which I mean Alaska.)

[anemone.livejournal.com]

This is an area of moral certainty. If you're American, are you going to do everything you can to elect a leader who will shift our resources away from killing foreigners and back to healing our sick, employing our unemployed, cleaning our environment?

I lack moral certainty. I fear that leaving Iraq will result in more civilian deaths than staying there. (We shouldn't have gone in in the first place, but that's a done deal.)

[heinousbitca.livejournal.com]

yeah i echo the above poster's sentiments.

i should mention that i saw another rainbow stripe on a car with a fucking mccain sticker when i was on the bus this morning. seriously.

[heinousbitca.livejournal.com]

hey, Alaska doesn't deserve that.

FLORIDA.

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

You mean America's wang?

That's not fair to wangs.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

... maybe it was a Christian rainbow? Or at least I'd like to think so (not that McCain is particularly in line with Jesus's teachings, either, but...)

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

People say this. I don't understand it. We fucked up their country. How are we going to do anything by staying there other than continuing to fuck it up? The definition of insanity comes to mind.

Re: NAMBLA and other things

[splogs.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think he's evil at all. In fact, I'm very optimistic about the "change" that will happen if he's elected. Rather, I'm just afraid of being let down by another politician who doesn't do what he says he'll do.

Re: NAMBLA and other things

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Rather, I'm just afraid of being let down by another politician who doesn't do what he says he'll do.

That's fair enough, and when someone told me much the same thing on the phone when I was calling for Obama a few days ago, I didn't really have a good response. We can never be sure anyone will keep their promises, but at the same time, if we were always afraid of that, we'd never act.

[arisrabkin.livejournal.com]

My brother is actually over there. He thinks that in his limited corner, we're accomplishing useful things that the Iraqis couldn't. Like training the Iraqis.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

[heinousbitca.livejournal.com]

I thought McCain couldn't stand those fundamentalist Christians he's pandering to now!

Then again, i could just be hating...i never really have been one to wear my religious faith on my car. That's about as Ugly American as you can get. I figure i'll live it in my heart and mind and actions rather than slapping a cheesy fake metal fish made by slave labor in China on the back of my car.

Re: NAMBLA and other things

[photonsrain.livejournal.com]

At first I was like, "wtf why are they talking about nablas?"

[photonsrain.livejournal.com]

Yah word.

[anemone.livejournal.com]

(1) Their country was fucked to start with.

(2) It was only kept from being more fucked by brutality that kept everything organized and understandable.

It's superfucked now largely because there's disorder. No one knows who the ultimate "winner" is going to be, and they are making plays to be that winner. We have imposed some sort of order on the country, and our troops do some stuff there. When we leave, there will be more frantic clamoring for whatever empty spots we leave behind. Maybe when the dust settles, all will be better than now, but the dust won't settle for a while.

[sethg]

IIRC Obama's Iraq plan allows for troops to remain in Iraq for training the Iraqis. It's just the combat troops that are going to be (gradually) withdrawn.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, I guess I'm just saying (and you can see this as me revising my point ex post facto if you want) that the area of moral certainty is this: One candidate will not, as far as anyone can tell, make a good-faith effort to promote long-term peace in Iraq (or anywhere). The other will, as far as anyone can tell, and whether that means pulling the troops out immediately or not, I don't know.

[arisrabkin.livejournal.com]

*nod* Remember that if you're going to have a lot of trainers, you're going to need a lot of troops to protect the trainers and their logistical tail. You might get down to 50,000 troops, over a year or two.

But that looks suspiciously like the McCain/Bush plan. Which is fine and dandy, but makes it much less of a salient issue for voting purposes.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

...the difference, if nothing else, being that Bush has never acted in good faith before, so we have no reason to think he's planning otherwise. And to the extent that McCain hasn't differentiated himself from Bush, the same applies to him.

Re: NAMBLA and other things

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I would almost prefer him to be evil.

Let me explain.

Actually, let me first make clear that I will be voting for Obama, am encouraging others to do so, and really hope that he is our next president.

However, watching this election cycle has made me aware of how much I am creeped out by charismatic idealists. I don't know if I can blame him for the charisma. And hey, I can appreciate it. The idealism... I guess I worry that idealists, confronted with political realities, are a bit likely to be loose cannons. Or ineffectual. He's impressive. I don't know if he has the skills to do the job. Then again, the bar is awfully low and I'm sure he will be a big improvement.

Discussing this the other day, K's comment was that there are apparently three stages politicians go through -

1. This must all be some dreadful misunderstanding, and we can sit down and work it out.

2. Everyone's evil!

1. I am evil.

(To which I replied that even before the current administration I was pretty sure I preferred evil to incompetent... though of course this administration has been working on unity there.)

Re: NAMBLA and other things

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

I don't think he's naive enough to think "we can sit down and work it out". Community organizers know that imbalances of power are not the results of dreadful misunderstandings, but of people with power acting dreadful to people without it in order to keep their power. And that's really the only political reality there is, isn't it?

But yeah, it's a sad world where we expect idealists to be more likely to be something else in disguise than to be authentic. And that's also a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy; people rise to the heights that others expect of them, usually.