Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Political Interlude

Pretty Lady would just like to note that a permanent Surveillance State in this formerly free country has just been enacted by the U.S. Congress. She would further like to point out that every single Republican in the Senate voted in favor of this totalitarian legislation. She would further like to point out that Senator Obama voted against it, and that Senator Clinton abstained.




7 comments:

Desert Cat said...

Neither party is interested in liberty (and by extension privacy). That's become radically apparent in the last few years.

On that front, we're doomed.

k said...

NEITHER. PARTY.

k said...

A certain French king made the need for attention to fashion so overwhelming and time-consuming that there was little energy left, in those around him, to understand and combat his political schemes.

What really matters, politically speaking, has little to do with *parties* and *platforms* and *sides.*

And how perfectly the people play into their plans. We argue and fuss and fume and get extremely distracted, *debating* the merits of one party or side or platform over another. We spin our wheels and spend all our free time and mental energy on the things that don't matter at all.

We have even become divided from each other in the process. This, despite having heard since childhood that simple adage: Divide and conquer...

Some have a slightly uneasy feeling that there's something we may be missing, something overlooked. Yet it still doesn't even occur to the vast majority of people to step back and LOOK at it all with unveiled vision, not until it's far too late.

It was far too late a long time ago.

All those people who were so gung-ho for Bush, not but a few years back? Treating him like a rock star, screaming down anyone who gently said, --Wait a minute...

Does anyone remember how that would draw accusations of Lack of Patriotism!!!, as if questioning the perfection of a president meant we were spitting on the cross of America? And did anyone then remember that was exactly the same thing we heard if we questioned Nixon?

I'm encouraged that so many of the former Bush lovers do admit, now, that he's not this great wonderful smart honest perfect moral guy after all. That's something, at least.

But I haven't heard many of those people say, --Geez, was I dumb. I can't believe I got so badly fooled when I should have seen through him from the beginning.

Instead, there's a bucket full of excuses for their lack of discernment.

I'd be a lot more comfortable if I felt like they'd learned something, some lesson, that would help them not make the same mistake again.

Because, you see, there's two groups responsible for this shit. Them - and us. The politicians, with their endless greed for power; and the people, with their endless need to feel like they are Always In the Right, and the other voters All In the Wrong.

Fool me once? Shame on you. Fool me twice? Shame on me.

Chris Rywalt said...

The American Experiment: It was nice while it lasted.

Desert Cat said...

How audacious of us to hope.

You could be waiting a while, dear, because it is more complex than that.

Pretty Lady said...

Of course it is more complex than that, DC, but nobody ever got elected by expounding on the subtle complexities of sociopolitical theory in a stump speech. George W. got elected TWICE, and he has an adversarial relationship with elementary-school grammar, not to mention critical thought. 'Universal democracy,' the way it exists in the U.S. today, translates to 'pandering to the lowest common denominator,' at least rhetorically.

I have read 'The Audacity of Hope', and I am supporting Obama because I relate strongly to where he is coming from, in an interpersonal and spiritual sense. I think that if a person reasons completely from an ego-power perspective, they are incapable of imagining that there are people in the world who genuinely don't. Those of us who have started to make the attempt to transcend the ego, can sometimes recognize others who are doing the same. I think Obama is one of those people, and I think this is the 'change' that he is advocating.

I don't pretend that I'm sure I'm right, or that I agree with all of his platform. I just know that I prefer his perspective, by an order of magnitude, to the perspective of any other politician out there.

Desert Cat said...

I'm sure k has seen through him from the beginning however, and somewhere along the line we will be expected to admit how dumb we are.

I wish you and your candidate good fortune. Must be nice having a candidate you can believe in.

I have no horse in the race this time. I see all three of them as a disaster in the making, albeit each for different reasons.