post-election thoughts

[dianec42]

Okay. Our guy lost. The other guy won. Four more years of OMGWTF. So what?

Voting out Bush would have been a good start. So, logically, voting in John Kerry would have been... a good start, but just a start. Not a magic wand; not fairy dust to sprinkle on all our problems to make them go away. We still would have been left with a huge mess to clean up in Iraq (and no reason to believe President Kerry would clean it up any quicker, or any better, than anyone else). We still would have been left with the huge mess that is the economy. Most to the point, we still would have been - and we are - left with some disturbing questions about the will of the American people.

Do people not know they're being lied to, or do they just not care?

Does anyone NOT know that Iraq is about oil money?

Do the majority of the American people really believe that blood for oil is okay, as long as not too much of that blood is American?

What is it going to take to wake these people up?

There is a lot of work to do. I am reaching the unavoidable conclusion that the way to make America a better place is not by electing Our Guy and trusting him to do all the work for us; but by somehow getting each and every American to wake up, look around, and say, "This isn't right, and we're not going to take it any more." This will mean some of us will pay more to fill our cars with gas. This will mean some of us who are "too polite" to talk about politics will have to learn to talk about it anyway. This will mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. It won't be comfortable, and it won't be easy; but if we do nothing, things will get a HELL of a lot harder and more uncomfortable for just about everybody.

Okay, so the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Are we just going to sit back and watch, or pretend everything is okay? Or are we going to do something about it?

Comments

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Do people not know they're being lied to, or do they just not care?

I'm sure they do, but they don't care about the same things we do. I mean, did you get anxious about whether Clinton was telling the truth about his little fun sessions with Monica?

Do the majority of the American people really believe that blood for oil is okay, as long as not too much of that blood is American?

Well, someone once said

Yes, many of us opposed it when it happened, and would oppose it again
in a second. "No blood for oil!" was our cry. And that WAS the
deal. Our leader was a real shifty bastard, too. Former head of the
CIA. I hate Bush, but he knew how to fight a war.. turn it over to the
Generals.

And in retrospect, we won, blood flowed like a river, but it was THEIR
blood for THEIR oil, and that makes for a victory in my book. Sure,
most of the dead were civilians. But not OURS.

But if you want to bring the masses around to your opinions, you first have to listen to them. Even the Globe notes that one of Kerry's failings was being seen as the ambassador of an elitist New England culture that despises most of the rest of the country, and from personal observation, that seems to be a correct analysis.

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

But if you want to bring the masses around to your opinions, you first have to listen to them.

Yeah, these days anyone listening to anyone seems to be a pretty far-out concept. Imagine a world in which our leader had said on 9/11, "Gee, we seem to have done something to piss some people off. I wonder if they maybe have a point?"

Even the Globe notes that one of Kerry's failings was being seen as the ambassador of an elitist New England culture that despises most of the rest of the country...

Wow. The Globe said that? I am impressed. (One assumes they stepped carefully away from the brush to avoid being tarred with it themselves...)

[gypsy0131.livejournal.com]

I really appreciate your comment today. I totally agree with you. This is the basis of yellow-dog grass-roots democracy. Instead of us being there for our government (to exploit and manipulate!), they need to be there for us. But the only way a citizenry can get the government it needs is to do most of the work themselves- a collectivisation or a movement if you like. But first there has to be a vision. Rememember the 70s when we thought we HAD a vision? [And there was no fear of being considered rude or non-pc at the dinner table if you had a political thought to express..?]