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pecuniumOrcinus has a terrifying bit up today... things which always seem to be far away, but not so.
Maia's folks have neighbors who are a tad to the right of them (they supported, with yard signs, the, pointless, law which duplicated Calif. man and woman = marriageable law) and she was lamenting that she was unable to get a Kerry/Edwards sign, because the local office was out.
It also seemed odd to me that the area had zero people with Kerry/Edwards signs. I saw more in the area of Ft. Hood than I did in Arcadia Calif., though I do see bumper stickers.
I think I know the reason... Maia put out a pair of signs on Friday afternoon, on at her folks place, one at her grandparents. There was also one sign on the other N/S street (so we have a U shape). They were gone Saturday, before sun-up.
And there was, according to the Washinton Post a Maryland woman who woek up to find turkey feet and, some sort of blood, on her lawn and porch, but no Kerry/Edwards sign in her lawn.
I'm going to quote from the article Dave Neiwert was quoting, in case you don't feel like following the link.
"... Looking at the small knot of protesters, many of whom were chanting, "Four more days," 22-year-old Nick Karnes, wearing a knit ski cap and baggy jeans, yelled, "Shut up!" Then he turned to his friend and said, "We can take 'em."
"I'm definitely gonna vote for him," Karnes said of Bush. "Because he's been the president for four years and nothing bad has happened since Sept. 11. He's kept me alive for four years." If Kerry becomes president, he said, "We'll be dead within a year....
... A few of the protesters, meanwhile, were red-faced from yelling at their antagonists about homophobia and budget deficits and a senseless war. Republicans were incensed. A blond woman dragged her young redheaded son toward the protesters, pointed to them, and said, "These are the Democrats," speaking as if she was revealing an awful reality that he was finally old enough to face. As she walked away with a group of other mothers and children, she was so angry she could barely speak. A friend consoled her by promising her that Bush would win. After all, she pointed out, "Look how many more Bush supporters there were on the street!"
That calmed the angry blond woman down a little. But she was still mad. "We," she said, stammering and gesturing contemptuously at the demonstrators, "we are the way it should be!"
I am dumbfounded, sometimes almost literally, when I ponder that Bush has a chance of winning. I look at the lies, and the dissembling, the lack of planning (the problem with the RDX isn't so much the quantity, because the country is/was awash in explosives, but the lack of foresight in going after the stuff we knew was there, and then the lack of admission; when the error was brought to light. To my mind the most telling indictment of the man isn't his crass use of things like bin Laden (the little gift as they termed the recent tape) or his, "trifecta" fibs, or his twisting things like the recession, or his misrepresenting himself [he was going to pay down the debt, and cut the taxes, becaus the money was there... oops, we spent it, well we need to cut revenues more, so they'll increase... didn't work last time, but this time it's better... Sorry, I'm ranting] it's that when asked what he's done wrong, he can't think of one thing. The first time he begged off that he wasn't prepared, that the question had caught him by surprise... the second time he said... "nope, can't think of any, unless it was appointing some of the wrong people," He could ahve used that moment for political gain, but he didn't, and I think it's because he can't think of himself as being wrong, and that terrifies me. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice sha... You won't fool me again.").
But for all the things which have gone wrong (are you better off than you were four years ago?), for all the lies (how many lines are there for stem-cell research) for all the failed policies (abortions are up in the U.S., and I can only assume they are up elsewhere, where we have denied money to all family planning; if they so much as mention that abortion is an option), the deficit is huge, the economy is pretty much stagnant and we can't even get him to ballpark a figure for the war; for next year. His Secretary of the Army is quoted in Soldiers magazine as saying they are trying to increase the active Army by 30,000 troops, but when Kerry says we need 40,000 more, they call him an alarmist, and say the troops are just fine, no problems there.
I look at it, and then I see the polls, and I don't see a Reaganesque number for Kerry... I don't even see Clintonesque numbers for Kerry... I am afarid I see Nixonian numbers for Bush, and I am afraid.
Ben Franklin said we had a republic, if we could keep it, and I am afraid we can't, that we are about to piss it all away, that as Churchill said, at the beginnig of WW1, "We have seen the light of civilization go out in Europe, and it shall not be rekindled in our lifetime."
I don't like thinking such thoughts, but the thought that my fellow citizens can look at this man's record and still believe in him, enough to let him have another four years... that his supporters can engage in the sorts of things they have been doing, and he won't repudiate them...
Jesus wept.
Maia's folks have neighbors who are a tad to the right of them (they supported, with yard signs, the, pointless, law which duplicated Calif. man and woman = marriageable law) and she was lamenting that she was unable to get a Kerry/Edwards sign, because the local office was out.
It also seemed odd to me that the area had zero people with Kerry/Edwards signs. I saw more in the area of Ft. Hood than I did in Arcadia Calif., though I do see bumper stickers.
I think I know the reason... Maia put out a pair of signs on Friday afternoon, on at her folks place, one at her grandparents. There was also one sign on the other N/S street (so we have a U shape). They were gone Saturday, before sun-up.
And there was, according to the Washinton Post a Maryland woman who woek up to find turkey feet and, some sort of blood, on her lawn and porch, but no Kerry/Edwards sign in her lawn.
I'm going to quote from the article Dave Neiwert was quoting, in case you don't feel like following the link.
"... Looking at the small knot of protesters, many of whom were chanting, "Four more days," 22-year-old Nick Karnes, wearing a knit ski cap and baggy jeans, yelled, "Shut up!" Then he turned to his friend and said, "We can take 'em."
"I'm definitely gonna vote for him," Karnes said of Bush. "Because he's been the president for four years and nothing bad has happened since Sept. 11. He's kept me alive for four years." If Kerry becomes president, he said, "We'll be dead within a year....
... A few of the protesters, meanwhile, were red-faced from yelling at their antagonists about homophobia and budget deficits and a senseless war. Republicans were incensed. A blond woman dragged her young redheaded son toward the protesters, pointed to them, and said, "These are the Democrats," speaking as if she was revealing an awful reality that he was finally old enough to face. As she walked away with a group of other mothers and children, she was so angry she could barely speak. A friend consoled her by promising her that Bush would win. After all, she pointed out, "Look how many more Bush supporters there were on the street!"
That calmed the angry blond woman down a little. But she was still mad. "We," she said, stammering and gesturing contemptuously at the demonstrators, "we are the way it should be!"
I am dumbfounded, sometimes almost literally, when I ponder that Bush has a chance of winning. I look at the lies, and the dissembling, the lack of planning (the problem with the RDX isn't so much the quantity, because the country is/was awash in explosives, but the lack of foresight in going after the stuff we knew was there, and then the lack of admission; when the error was brought to light. To my mind the most telling indictment of the man isn't his crass use of things like bin Laden (the little gift as they termed the recent tape) or his, "trifecta" fibs, or his twisting things like the recession, or his misrepresenting himself [he was going to pay down the debt, and cut the taxes, becaus the money was there... oops, we spent it, well we need to cut revenues more, so they'll increase... didn't work last time, but this time it's better... Sorry, I'm ranting] it's that when asked what he's done wrong, he can't think of one thing. The first time he begged off that he wasn't prepared, that the question had caught him by surprise... the second time he said... "nope, can't think of any, unless it was appointing some of the wrong people," He could ahve used that moment for political gain, but he didn't, and I think it's because he can't think of himself as being wrong, and that terrifies me. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice sha... You won't fool me again.").
But for all the things which have gone wrong (are you better off than you were four years ago?), for all the lies (how many lines are there for stem-cell research) for all the failed policies (abortions are up in the U.S., and I can only assume they are up elsewhere, where we have denied money to all family planning; if they so much as mention that abortion is an option), the deficit is huge, the economy is pretty much stagnant and we can't even get him to ballpark a figure for the war; for next year. His Secretary of the Army is quoted in Soldiers magazine as saying they are trying to increase the active Army by 30,000 troops, but when Kerry says we need 40,000 more, they call him an alarmist, and say the troops are just fine, no problems there.
I look at it, and then I see the polls, and I don't see a Reaganesque number for Kerry... I don't even see Clintonesque numbers for Kerry... I am afarid I see Nixonian numbers for Bush, and I am afraid.
Ben Franklin said we had a republic, if we could keep it, and I am afraid we can't, that we are about to piss it all away, that as Churchill said, at the beginnig of WW1, "We have seen the light of civilization go out in Europe, and it shall not be rekindled in our lifetime."
I don't like thinking such thoughts, but the thought that my fellow citizens can look at this man's record and still believe in him, enough to let him have another four years... that his supporters can engage in the sorts of things they have been doing, and he won't repudiate them...
Jesus wept.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 05:21 pm (UTC)Certainly, I've been party to a number of "fall of Rome" conversations recently, but I have to say, I'm particularly struck having heard it from you, this woman, and my father within the last twenty-four hours -- because the paths by which that worry has been arrived at are so vastly different.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 06:04 pm (UTC)And there's other skews going on. MyDD was reporting a polster who had been involved in a Florida poll that CBS decided not to release because it showed Kerry up by 5-9 points, and CBS decided that just wasn't believable. Makes you wonder how many other numbers are being suppressed, don't it? And one of the most often quoted polls, Gallup, is among the worst for showing larger numbers from Republicans than turn-out produces. And Karl Rove has been quoted as saying the Preznit needs a four point lead in the polls to win at election time, because undecideds/new voters always break for the challenger, and this year that will be more true than ever. In fact, if you go back to the 2000 election you'll find that around this time Bush had on the order of a 4-5+ point lead in the polls, and we all know how that panned out. So be of good cheer. I think the American people are smarter than the press representations of them would have you believe.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 09:05 pm (UTC)If you head on over the the dailykos, lots of people are logging their early voting experiences. There are so many people in line to vote that are considered "traditionally dem" votes.
It may take awhile to clean out the mess of ... well, what Orcinus has been tracking. That alarms me more than the polls do. I think just about everyone I know is sick of me starting every conversation with: "Did you read Orcinus today?"
no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 07:53 pm (UTC)A dear friend told me she reads him not so often, because it depresses her, I told her depression isn't what I get from that, it's rather an urge for more ammunition... metaphoric, and real.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 07:07 pm (UTC)Even if Kerry wins on Tuesday (or more properly, weeks and weeks from now after voting challenges are decided in the courts), we still have a situation where a large number of our fellow citizens have been blinded and will likely continue to be blinded by lies and rhetoric from the extreme right. Can a country so divided continue to stand?
If that is the state of this country, then do we really deserve to keep our republic?
Ben Franklin would say, "no."
no subject
Date: 2004-10-31 07:14 pm (UTC)That shows Kerry winning.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 07:56 pm (UTC)And I have to say, as I told
I will post on it.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 08:40 pm (UTC)I'm so nervous today. I hope to GOD Kerry wins.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 08:00 pm (UTC)TK