Fighting the Urge to Channel Burton Cummings

[robotnik2004]

I'm sorry, Mike, but everybody gets at least one dejected post-election post.

I am not surprised by the outcome. This is pretty much exactly what I've been expecting since Howard Dean screamed in Iowa, if not before. Which is not to say "I told you so", because a) who needs that shit? and b) I tried to make a point of not telling anyone so. But no, I'm not surprised by the outcome.

I am surprised by how much it hurt. At some point in the last four years, without really realizing it, I must have started thinking of the United States as my country too. At some point, American politics became my own deal, and not just a zany Hollywood blockbuster action spectacle mounted for my wry amusement. "To the thinking man, life is a comedy; to the feeling man, life is a tragedy." I envy my fellow Canadians back home that cozy Hudson's Bay blanket of ironic detachment I misplaced somewhere along the way.

Yesterday was our weekly luncheon with various fellows of the Academy. Of course, we talked about the election. I note in retrospect that all the Academy postdocs (who are smart liberal 30-year-olds) were, at noon yesterday, pretty optimistic for a Kerry victory, thanks to exit polls and Zogby and "bryant promised!" But all the Academy fellows (who are smart liberal 80-year-olds) were decidedly not. There's something to be learned there.

Ah, well. We find solace where we can: The long view (a historian's best friend), silly role-playing games, and John Harvard's tonight at 6pm. Be there!

Edit: God bless Jim Carroll, who just made me feel a little better. And I changed the wording above because it sounded like I wasn't Canadian any more. I still am. More than ever.

Comments

The long view as I see it

[editswlonghair.livejournal.com]

Bush will be able to pick 1+ Supreme Court justices and lord knows how many other benches and thereby set the tenor of the judiciary for the next decade or more. They've won. The conservatives have won their stupid 'culture war.' They used homophobia, racism, xenophobia and paranoia and gotten what they want- a lock on all three branches of federal government. Sure thye don't have 60 in the senate, but if Dems block too much the erosion will continue as the Repubs scream 'abstructionist' and 'liberal.' The cons frame the debates and set the tone. they pick the langauge that is used to describe issues. They hold all the cards. But here's the silver lining hopefully: they won't be able to make any more execuses about 'liberal media' or 'gay agenda' or 'inherited' problems or anything. Everything that happens from here on out is theirs. All theirs. The good and the bad. We'll see what happens. Hopefully they've grabbed enough rope to hang themselves. How long will it take people to think with their wallets rather than their bibles? With their rational heads rather than their emotional hearts? I don't know if it will ever happen, but hope springs eternal.

Hey, I could be wrong. Maybe tax cuts and deep deficits are the path to fiscal health. I don't know.

And maybe being homosexual or deciding if and when to procreate are moral issues, but lying about the reasons for sending my buddies to fight in Iraq or giving my tax dollars to Halliburton or Enron are not. Who can say?

Oh, and I don't think I'll be able to make John Harvard's tonight- I do have to pick Michelle up in Salem.

Re: The long view as I see it

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

Ventura '08: God Does Not Exist and Will Not Cure Your Alzheimer's.

Re: The long view as I see it

[peaseblossom.livejournal.com]

I'm telling you, I'm voting for Randy "Macho Man" Savage, myself.