Friends! Americans! Non-countrymen!

[yakalskovich]

I finally caved in to the suspense and peeked, and what did I see? Nobody has won again!

I just wonder (rhethorically, of course): who were these people who voted for Bush? All the Americans on my flist didn't, that much is certain. Underworld, it looks as if all of LiveJournal in its entirety didn't. All of the Internet didn't, possibly. And "my" State (Wisconsin) certainly didn't, nor my distant relatives by a cousin's marriage (Yay! Go Annemarie!). So the suspicion befalls me that the people voting for Bush must all have been Sims, specially bred for the occasion.

On the other hand, nothing is decided yet. Ohio says who wins, and Ohio is gratefully taking its sweet time to thoroughly count everything, so anything like the Florida hullaballoo the last time around will be averted.

Comments

[woelfle.livejournal.com]

I'm not for the slow countage at all. Heck I stayed up till 5 a.m., and for what?
Well, one TV report said that Americans often decide what is their priority, and vote according to that one thing only. So, if you say my priority is beer, then you vote Bush.

Hope your evening with the captain was good!

[yakalskovich]

I think my evening with the captain was lots better than your evening with the TV, poor Yap!

[woelfle.livejournal.com]

Yes, poor me. *pats self on shoulder*

Well it wasn't so bad, at least I got challenged to understand a variety of US accents, and I didn't get tired at all (as opposed to now).

Butnowitseitherwaitingelevendaysorbushikinsaaargh

[wiebke.livejournal.com]

Remember, Martina, that "like attracts like," so the people you interact with on the Internet, the fandoms you participate in, the web communities you visit are all self-selected to (largely) agree with you. Sometimes it seems that "everyone" agrees (or hates Bush) but in fact there is a very large section of the Internet which is Christian, Right Wing, Fundamental, supports the war, etc. However, I doubt there are Right Wing Christian slash writers...

[yakalskovich]

Heh - it's all due to the slash. Good thing. Liking slash filters out all these unpleasant critters...

Nah, I knew. It just felt so odd because truly, everybody can see how stupid and evil Bush is. It just makes my mind boggle that he might actually get re-elected.

[wiebke.livejournal.com]

Apparently they've done surveys of Bush voters and 85% of them chose them because "moral values" are their #1 issue. By contrast, 75% of Kerry voters chose the war in Iraq as their #1 issue.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Moral values? But the man's doing the Devil's work! Argh! *tears hair*

I mean, I'm sure he believes he's on the side of the angels, but just look at his track record.

Sorry, I'm incoherent.

[vaysh]

But them gays is BAD! Them gays is goin' ta HELL!

Basically, that's why Bush will win Ohio (even though I'm in Ohio and everyone I know here has voted Kerry*sigh*). Ohio is VERY conservative and VERY republican and VERY anti-gay. They just voted in a ban on gay marriage and even recognizing people living in the same home who aren't married.

The worst part of this election is that people went out in huge numbers to vote SPECIFICALLY to get Bush out of office. People who felt their vote didn't count now felt that yes, it DOES count. And the result of their effort is their vote not making a difference. I'm expecting alot of unhappy people and few turning out to the polls next time around*sighs*

Theologische Exkursion

[woelfle.livejournal.com]

Much as I agree with you, as an almost-Christian I must protest the assumption that Christians are right-wing or war-supporting. Actually, in my personal dogmatism, it's a contradiction in itself, and as easily to be seen as the fact that Dubya is bad.

Err, yes. I shudder at how Americans still mix it up. Jesus might, too. ;-)

Re: Theologische Exkursion

[wiebke.livejournal.com]

I think you can trust me that I know what a "real" Christian is about. And the people I'm talking about aren't.

Re: Theologische Exkursion

[woelfle.livejournal.com]

Yep, I do. No hard feelings. It's just that it really irks me how the fundamentalists of any religion get so much more attention than the others, and the whole religion gets labelled one way or the other. There are officially gay ministers and stuff.

What Bush does is a sheer perversion of Christianity.

Funny how I always feel I must defend christian religion against criticism, but criticise it to no end myself when talking to religious people.

Re: Theologische Exkursion

[yakalskovich]

"If he found Jesus Christ preaching on the village green, he'd have him arrested for blasphemy inside five minutes."

from The Charioteer by Mary Renault; Laurie, the main character, talks about his stepfather, an Anglican parson.-

Re: Theologische Exkursion

[woelfle.livejournal.com]

LOL! Yes indeed. And Dubyah would just arrest him without any reason.

And, Charioteer? :-D

Re: Theologische Exkursion

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

The Charioteer kicks arse. Well-written, believable, sympathetic gay male protagonist in World War II--written in the 1950s.

Who's voting for Bush

[supiluliumas.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder what it could possibly be about George W. that made him so desirable to a little over half the American electorate. He cannot offer us prosperity; statistically speaking, the stock market fares better under the Democrats, I'm thinking for one reason possibly because they like nothing better than taking potshots at the corporate socialist conglomerates that comprise a large portion of Republican war chest funding. He cannot offer us liberty. In fact the Patriot Act suspends civil liberty in the name of security and "freedom", a nebulous concept philosophers debate endlessly but which I have a sneaking suspicion isn't something a politician is entitled to arbitrate. Despite this, he can't offer us security, either. Despite millions of dollars and two undeclared wars on foreign soil he has yet to capture our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden, and in fact has somehow managed to convince a large proportion of the population that this enemy is actually irrelevant. Our own servicemen and women in Iraq simply keep slipping through our fingers, perhaps due to the fact that he disbands the native Iraqi army for the sin of trying to do its job and brutally tortures its serving field officers for the fact that they were raised by the same code of military honor and conduct in battle that most of ours were, yet were somehow supposed to abandon this code of values and quite possibly their self-respect the moment the first Marine crossed the Kuwaiti border. In our country the citizens live in a climate of fear of another terrorist attack, while at the same moment the FBI incarcerates who it pleases without a trial, without due process and without even bothering to explain why.

What he has offered instead, I think, is the idea that the national honor is at stake, that it somehow resides within him personally, and to elect his opponent is to abandon the struggle that both he personally and his neoconservative organization worked so hard for; using the Presidency as a base from which to eliminate his opposition within the Republican party (anyone remember Bob Barr, by chance? Trent Lott? Wonder what happened to them? Admittedly, not that too many people miss them that much) cooking the books, deceiving the gullible general public who pay attention to names and titles rather than content, selectively quoting and then discounting the testimony of the very intelligence assets he uses to justify his actions, as well as the advice of his intelligence apparatus - who he would later blame for his own failings - and firing anyone (George Tenet, director of the CIA, who meekly voiced his objections to being a sacrificial goat) who got in his way. The world would laugh at us if we give up now, he said. Apparently a little over half of my countrymen have decided that now is the time to exert our will, or that which the President has informed us is our will, for good or ill, right or wrong, simply because we have been seen to have willed it. No president has ever had such a mandate from the American people (though some in our history have taken it upon themselves to assume it on their behalf). Our role in world politics has traditionally been narrowly and simply defined in the minds of our citizenry, even if it's a model we haven't been entirely faithful to (I'm employing a gift for understatement): "peaceful unless provoked". A turning point has been reached, now that our country has abandoned even the pretext of that ideal. The American electorate has spoken. "What he did was not important," they've stated, albeit only 51% of them and with a hesitant equivocation marred by the lure of lower taxes and pork-barrel executive decrees. "What is important is the fact that right or wrong, the world should obey, because we're America and we're in charge, jack."

Of course I'm sure I'm over-generalizing and talking about things I don't know anything about, for which I will be quite properly chastised and flamed for. Nothing creates more passion, more fire, more fierce loyalty to a cause than when it is vague, morally ambivalent, and possibly unjustifiable by conventional logic.

Re: Who's voting for Bush

[woelfle.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just wow. I mean: Word. Every single one. Were I half as eloquent as you, I'd have become a campaign manager.

May I link this? Not that it'll do much good anymore.

And of course, though it may seem uncincere after your serious approach to the matter: *ding* Officially Good American! Have the icon if you like!

Re: Who's voting for Bush

[supiluliumas.livejournal.com]

I don't mind at all! Thank you. You may link to your heart's content. I will accept the icon with pride! =D

At the risk of being even more solemn and possibly pompous, I once had a Danish friend who said that the real value of American culture is that what defines our greatness more than anything else isn't military might or the Protestant work ethic or the fact that we really like to win a lot or anything like that. What he really admired is that we can joke about almost anything - the key to our survival has been the idea that we can generally keep our good humor in the face of overwhelming adversity. At the moment, I think we could all use a little extra good humor right about now. So, that icon is cute and it made me smile, and that's more important than a thousand years of partisan politics. :D

Re: Who's voting for Bush

[woelfle.livejournal.com]

LOL! You're welcome!

And I'm glad to hear this about humour being an integral part of the otherwise rather scary American culture. Spontaneously, I felt more reminded of the British, and after seeing some of those Mid-Western provincial concrete-brains interviewed on TV, it's a little hard to believe. But then I turn around to my American LJ friends, and can totally see it.
And of course, there are two originally American art forms without which the world would be much more boring: Jazz and Western films. :-)

Re: Who's voting for Bush

[ironmelf.livejournal.com]

Bob:

Regardless of how I feel toward any one idea or person, and how loathe I am to reply to one of your political comments, I feel compelled to mention the de facto CIA success measure:

You have succeeded in your task only when, after having reached your goals, a majority of the people believe you have failed.

And there is another thought I have about this whole Bush/Kerry thing: did the Democrats field a challenger simply because they had to? After America was attacked, and Bush vowed to rebuild and recover, did the Democrats have to come out against all that Pro-American sentiment all in the name of the party?

Thus?
1. America was attacked.
2. The sitting administration vows reprisal.
3. The rival party, driven by simple political motives, vows to stop the sitting administration.
4. Half the electorate sides with the 'Pro-America' party because it's their party, the other half sides with the 'anti-current-administration' party because it's their party.
5. No one stops and thinks about the actual issues, they just side with a party.

I don't know, it's ridiculous to me. But, strangely, I cannot get an image from Orwells's 1984 out of my head. It is a demonstration, a gathering of the populace against the enemy--and enemy as clear to everyone as anything could possibly be--and then, suddenly, after watching the televisions and listening to Big Brother, the people are told that the enemy isn't really Africa, it's Oceania (Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia--everyone knew that) and so the people do what is best for The Party, because 2+2=5. And therefore we aren't really at war with the people who attacked us, we're really at war with the ones who retaliated, because they are the ones who aren't in The Party.

I've said enough, I should go to bed and be strengthened by my ignorance.
__
Alan
ironmelf

Re: Who's voting for Bush

[supiluliumas.livejournal.com]

Why are you loath to reply to one of my political comments? ... Do I even make that many? Wow, I didn't know I was intimidating. Must be my length. Size IS everything!

Anyway I have the sneaking suspicion that your conspiracy theory is worthy of the Princess herself, but I'm finding it difficult to wrap my brain around it. So what you're saying is, everyone's doing their jobs because they've been pre-programmed to by the televisions. ... Um, and ... we're not really at war with Osama bin Laden, because he's not a Republican, we're really at war with Iraq. Which we are, because they're not ... uh ...

I am sorry. The computer chip the government put in my brain to cloud my mind from the truth is apparently drawing some extra voltage, no doubt because you're probably onto something. You're just going to have to dumb this one down. I'm not proud to say it, but there it is. Sorry.

Re: Who's voting for Bush

[ironmelf.livejournal.com]

Bob:

The point I think I'm trying to make is that the range of political debate has been narrowed by the media. The media has done this because the audience is lazy and (also generally dumb) needs to see things in terms of pros and cons.

It is a mentality that has been conditioned by a firm belief in black and white, right and wrong, god and the devil, Yankees and Sox . . . indeed this attitude limits our perspective.

On the world stage there are many forces at work, but it takes a broad knowledge of too many subjects for the average audience member to make any sense of it.

Instead, the audience member, with the media holding their hand, has a limited perspective: Osama attacked America, Republicans took action, and Democrats must be against the Republicans.

I'm not blaming the media since they so often give us what we ask for, I'm just annoyed because life isn't True-False . . . it's an essay question.
__
Alan
ironmelf

PS: And I'm not really afraid of you, Bob, but your voice does carry weight around here. If you were to dismiss my notions--even if they have merit--most people would go along with you simply due to your 'scholarly' reputation. That fact can be intimidating--especially when we enter a discussion that poses the danger of sharp criticism.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

i am scrolling backwards through my flist, from despair to hope.
you posted the one question i also had - whothefuck are those voters. i only heard anti-bush things everywhere. always.

*head and stomach ache*

[yakalskovich]

All this smells rattish to me at the moment. If I post the suspicion I have, my mail will go dongle-dee-dong, dee-dong at me all night. I love the way people started talking on my LJ, though.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

i admit i did not read what they wrote. the general numbers on my flist are typical though, epicyclical has 160+ comments, the artists all dual figures, the rest single digit replies.

post rattish stuff.

[cpt-tantony.livejournal.com]

Tomorrow morning, if it's still stuck in my brain. I'm refusing it all at the moment; made a post to that effect on my LJ.

See, I'm already the Captain again. There are no bloody elections in Bonk or Ankh-Morpork...

Only werewolves and vampires. And Lord Vetinari.