Hey, I can be wrong

[pecunium]

I have to confess, I am not a big fan of Garrison Kiellor. It seems to me he plays his audience for saps.

But this,... this reminds me that no man is all of a piece.

I wish I was being more interesting, not so single minded, but the past couple of years have made me more passionate about matters political. libertango and I were sitting with my, then, girlfriend's father on the night Bush pere beat Dukakis. He wanted to know why we were so blase about it. He said that if this had been Kennedy losing he would have been devastated.

He figured that the passions of youth had burnt out of him, but wondered where our fire was. It wasn't for Dukakis. It wasn't against Bush. Yes, we thought him the lesser of the two candidates, but he wasn't a menace to the Republic.

This time around... I can't imagine, don't want to ponder what another four years of this man will do to the country. I'm an American. I look at Korea, and Iraq, and Ukraine, and ponder what I would be like, how I would look at the world, were I born a bred in one of those places. But I wasn't, and I don't like the way I see things going if he wins, and can't, quite, see myself leaving if he does, so I really want him to lose.

So, this is what Kiellor had to say... The stink of this election

"There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.

Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.

This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm."

Read the rest

Comments

[spacecrab.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a longtime Deadhead, I believe that, just as with science fiction fans, the Democrats are the party of the ones with more allegiance to bettering the LCD quality of life for as many human beings as possible than to protecting the status quo and furthering specific class interests.

As that flamboyant Republico-Democrat Deadhead John Barlow says (http://www.lyricstime.com/lyrics/30880.html)....

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

This is the most passionate I've been about an election since 1980, and then I was much younger and very excitable. I hated that Reagan won, but I did not *fear* it. I fear another four years of George W. Bush, and I grieve my beloved country.

[fritz-freiheit.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I'm very disturbed. Read the fourteen characteristics of fascism (don't get caught up in the word "fascism") and ask yourself how many of these characteristics you see in America today. If saw the same things happening under a Democratic president, I would be equally disturbed.
"Those that give up their liberty for a little security deserve neither."

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks for that link. I read that or a similar list a while back and then didn't keep track of where it was.

[fritz-freiheit.livejournal.com]

Hey, no problem! I have a few other variations on that and some other fascism links here: http://del.icio.us/fritz/Fascism

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I was listening to Democracy Now yesterday afternoon as I drove home, having as I do, a really low tolerance threshold for Republican rhetoric just now, and being that KUOW, my usual source for NPR news, is doing running live coverage of both conventions. Democracy Now was doing a segment with Paul Krugman talking about the Bush administration and their economic policy and the media reaction to it. Prof. Krugman was making a lot of sense, as usual, but the point he made that was my take home was that people like him, called 'liberal' but really "the position formerly known as moderate," had been asleep for a very long time, letting the radical right movement that has (thus far) culminated in the Bush II administration build up steam. The truth is that the Bush administration is very much of a piece with the sustained libel media [stet] attack barrage that was waged against the Clintons, and with the meme war ground work being laid by pundits like Rush Limbaugh, which have been building up for years. The key to winning this battle is that a lot of those moderates are awake now, and they need to stay awake and engaged. And one of the things we need to realize that the battle doesn't end in November, even if Kerry wins the election. But to tie this back to your post, I think you are far from alone in having been less impassioned up to now, and I think you are far from alone in being more politically engaged this time out than ever. Certainly, my experience mirrors yours.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I'm with Fritz... and in fact a lot of what was done under Clinton disturbed me (telling anything untrue to a Fed, whether identified, or not, regardless of intent is punishable by 7 years; and has been used to get people who were not charged... with anything else... Bad precedent)

But yes, I am a lot more passionate. I was moderate, I am still moderate, but I am becoming a radical moderate. I've been sniping at people who spout praises of the Swift Boat Boys, pointing out they are liars, and flip-floppers. I've been doing this in the mess.

TK

Greetings

[antiquated-tory.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the Keillor article. His humor usually escapes me as well, but this time he's right on the money. I've emailed it on to a number of friends, including one dyed-in-the-wool right-wing but secular Republican who I grew up with--he recently sent me an email saying 'KERRY MUST WIN THIS ELECTION.' Could have knocked me over with a feather, I tell you.

Oh, and TK, I've just discovered your LJ via your comment at Better Angels of our Nature and put you on my friends list, if you don't mind.