Mein Gott in Himmel

[pecunium]

I think I just chased a couple of people out of the Peet's I'm in. They were talking politics, basically encouraging each other in their support of McCain. Which was whenI heard her (early twenties, still living at home, going to college; but ready to be done with it) say, "He's such an amazing orater, but I'm not sure he believes what he says, and that's really scary, because that's how Hitler came to power"

Which led to me to pay more attention... and when I heard her praising Palin, and saying she wanted to ask Obama supporters how they could compare the experience of the two... I went over and told them how and why.

The shocking thing... when I listed the qualification, including eight years in the Illinois Senate, and the con-law professorship and the Editor of the Harvard Law Review... she thought I was listing Palin's credits.

When I said that was Obama, and listed her failings in Wasilla, her companion (mid-twenties, male) said, "Well I guess you know who you're votong for."

They didn't look all that pleased when I said, "I was only anwering the question you asked," and went back to my work.

And they gathered up their things and left.

Comments

and, finally:

[wolodymyr.livejournal.com]

In other words, unless our democracy is already destroyed, we may in the best shape we've been in, in a while. We'll need it, because things will start to get very bad, soon, on many other fronts. And maybe democracy won't hold up then.

But when I hear about girls who think Sarah Palin is Great! The first thing I think is, I wonder what that person's life looks like. Because the one thing I know is, I don't know anything about her. I don't know how she puts her world together, I don't know if she's "just stupid" or if she's been savaged and humiliated into that way of thinking. My mother was.

And we can get into the whole deal of how people have to be responsible for themselves, and how excusable are women, really, for accepting oppression, etc. etc. But - people often let themselves be blackmailed, morally, personally, etc., in exchange for a sense of security. And as frustrating as it is, I don't think that can ever be solved through the application of yet more force.

Thanks!

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful - and very detailed and well-thought-out! - response.

The problem that you allude to in the last paragraph - the sense of security, and what people will do for it - is probably the biggest one these days. To unpack it: in order to feel secure, people seem to want to keep all people they see as "others" far, far away from themselves.

A very successful democracy-killer is a large-scale otherification of persons. It's sort of "divide and conquer", and it happens within a single society. (I've seen it, close-up, both in Israel and in the United States, and read all about how it is put into place in other societies.)

That is the "real crime" that I see - a destruction of the identity of "American" (member of this great experiment) and an imposition of those divisions that cannot be bridged.

Re: Thanks!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

One of the basic premises a democracy needs, if it is to survive, is the idea that those who vote, are enough like, "me" that I can trust them to not screw "me" over.

Which is why we have the need for a "melting pot", and the British are so, well, British.

Once that sense of trust in the rest of the voters is lost, the nation will have to change, usually for the worse. I ponder leaving the US. Not because I am so dispirited by the presence of Bush, et al., in office, but because of the rabid dogs being unleashed to keep them there. The othering of those who aren't white Xtianists is scary, and is the sort of thing to dissolve the bonds of poltity.

Since I want to have children, and to have them live in a place I think civil, staying here may become something I don't want to do... not for me, but for them.