yakalskovich | Friends! Americans! Non-countrymen!

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Friends! Americans! Non-countrymen!

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.

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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.

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!

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

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. :-)

As far as the British goes - well, we had to get it from somewhere. Perhaps in a few hundred years we'll catch up to them. ;)

The same with jazz and Western films, in that we had a little help there, too. Jazz wouldn't have been the same without Claude Debussy, and what would the Western genre have had to offer without Sergio Leone? No cultural form develops in a bell jar, isolated from outside influences. I've noticed that sometimes it's just as hard for many Americans to accept the idea of cultural evolution as it is for biological evolution. I wonder why. Probably a lack of research or rigorous scholarship!

Ah yes, good point. All great cultural products are true mongrels. Tango comes to mind. My favourite bastard child.
And, as it is, I love Leone and Débussy. And Leone also made such important films about America after the Spaghettis.

Once Upon a Time in America comes to mind. ... The version not butchered by the studio, anyway. Thank goodness for DVD!

Oh yes! They once even aired a TV version where they had cut everything into chronological order. *shudder*

And I've got a nice and shiny The Good, the Bad and the Ugly DVD. Yay!

Do you know Finnish tango?

*is totally refusing to do any politics at the moments, lah lah*

Yep, a bit. Although I must admit I expected a bit more of it before I heard it for the first time. It's very much like classic Argentinean tango, but with Finnish lyrics. Still, I think it's great that the whole country has been so tango-crazed for ages.

:-)

I recommend M.A. Numminen. Definitely different. Weird. Utterly Finnish.

Sounds good. I shall try and find him. Or inquire with the Monsters tomorrow. :-)

What monsters?

~~Vampi~~ ~~Werewo~~ Tango Monsters. My Monstrous Tango Band(tm) who will be rehearsing tomorrow.

Oh, I see. And one of them will have heard of Numminen, I am sure.

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

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.

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.

Put that way - you make a compelling argument. It's a self-fulfilling cycle. People find the news and entertainment that boil complex political issues down to binary logic more palatable and thus, the news agencies spoon-feeding it to them get more ratings and advertising revenue. As the audience becomes more and more used to this new operating paradigm of 'news McNuggets', the level of complexity at which the news is presented becomes lower and lower. Hence the success of soundbites, slogans, political platforms and sensationalism.

I get what you're saying now. Their insidious little staged erosion of consumer intellect hasn't dumbed me down completely! This is a very good point, sir. I wonder if this is the result of concious design, however, or simply the pressure of economic forces.

PS. My voice carries weight? :O Since when? What scholarly reputation? I didn't even know I had a reputation at all! Why does it take this long for someone to tell me I have all these things?

Let me reassure you right now, I don't think I've ever dismissed anything anyone ever said to me in my life. And even if I was inclined to dismiss opinions out of hand, I certainly wouldn't dismiss one of yours, chief!

Bob:

I'm still trying to figure out your icon. It looks like you. Could you send me a large version?

ironmelf@earthlink.net

Also, include your cell phone number. I'll reply with my own. Thanks!
__
Alan

ironmelf

I'm afraid it is me, sir! For BEHOLD!

http://ninestitches.keenspace.com/chibi/0005.html

For even further revelations, check out the archives of

ninestitches.

Unfortunately I have yet to actually purchase a celphone. I keep getting sidetracked. ~_~;;

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Friends! Americans! Non-countrymen!

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