Disillusionment
September 22, 2008 2:52 pm GeneralFor those of you wondering what the motivation behind that last post was (and for the benefit of one commenter, it’s not because I’m voting McCain – I’m an Irishman living in France), it’s because I’ve been growing increasingly disillusioned with the level of discourse in this election.
Most of the Americans I know (democrats) seem to be concentrating on the ultra-polarisation of the candidates their facing – there’s a consistent attempt to show how dumb McCain & Palin are (and similar attempts coming from the other side), how radical conservative ultra-Christian she is (“burning books! Dinosaurs in schools! Handing out automatic weapons to third graders!”) and so on.
On the other end, conservatives are trying to paint Obama as the no-experience, tax-and-spend (as opposed to reduce-tax-and-spend Bush) ultra-liberal Democrat, with Biden sticking his foot in his mouth every day.
The truth, and the election discourse, is not well served by this. We are discussing minutiae, not what’s most important.
I don’t care whether Gov. Palin knows what the Bush Doctrine is – I want to know if she agrees with it.
I don’t care if McCain knows what the name of the Spanish Prime Minister is (although I must admit, transcripts of that exchange are bewildering) – what I do want to know is how he will act when president, what his priorities are, the factors which will influence his decisions, whether he values human rights more than national security – in brief, his moral fibre.
For the record, it appears to me like the moral fibre is on the side of Barack Obama. The man is, aside from being charismatic and a great speaker, thoughtful in his reflections, and seems to me to have his heart in the right place when it comes not just to America, but to the world.
That’s what I want to find out. Where is your heart.
John McCain’s heart seems firmly set on the White House, his “put America first” mantra implying, of course, that Obama won’t. On that point, I think he’s right. I believe that if America’s interests are at odds with the interests of the world, Obama will do what’s right.
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:16 pm
The key message you should take away from the Zapatero incident is that McCain is so unwilling to admit error that his people chose to create an international incident rather than to admit that McCain was confused by the question.
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
“For the record, it appears to me like the moral fibre is on the side of Barack Obama.”
I am not entirely sure I agree with you. At the very least, I’d like to know more about this incident:
“The day after New Year’s 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city’s South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama’s four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.
Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.
But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.” — http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:eleBZtjF3CMJ:www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070403obama-ballot,0,1843097.story%3Fpage%3D1+barack+obama+illinois+senate+race+lawyers&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=firefox-a
(I’ve posted the cache link since the original isn’t working.)
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:47 pm
“The truth, and the election discourse, is not well served by this. We are discussing minutiae, not what’s most important.”
While I wholeheartedly agree that focusing on minutiae is annoying and counterproductive, I’m not sure I’m with you on disillusionment. I think the thing to keep in mind here is, well, the last two elections, which were… ugh.
There’s plenty to get annoyed with in 2008, but the quality of candidates this time is such a huge improvement that I can’t help but be positive. I’d like them both to run a better campaign, sure. And I’d like a popsicle, too. But I’ll settle for “no Bush this election” without much fuss.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I wanted to comment on a few things, but first, let’s keep in mind that there are more than two serious candidates in this year’s elections. I’m personally a big supporter of the Libertarian Party and their presidential candidate, Bob Barr (bobbarr2008.com); but there’s also Green Party candidate Cynthia McKenney and independent Ralph Nader. All three offer, IMO, a better plan than either John McCain or Barack Obama.
I whole-heartedly agree with your assessment that the real issues are being avoided as much as possible by the top two candidates and the media. Why? When you break them down, the main difference is in what school of thought they belong to, and how and who they’re going to tax people. It’s ridiculous. Want no unnecessary war? Of course, we all do. What will Obama and McCain do? Nothing. McCain wants to stay in Iraq, Obama wants to move troops to Afganistan and is flirting with the idea of bombing Iran.
I think all candidates’ hearts are in the right place. McCain wants to “keep America safe”, Obama wants to “protect the poor from the big mean companies”. The problem is how they go about it.
And finally, on what’s best for America vs. what’s best for the world. I believe, and to be fair, so does Bob Barr (presidential candidate I’m supporting), that the American president should do what’s best for America, just as the Canadian government will do what’s best for Canada, and the UK government will do what;s best for the UK, etc. The difference is what exactly is best for these countries. The bottom line is this: having a peaceful relationship of trade and commerce with all countries is the best way to ensure a sound economy for all. And a clean Earth, peace, etc. is best for America, Canada, the UK, and all countries. That’s what we need to be striving for, that’s what I was looking for in a Presidential candidate.
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
@Kevin: To address your final point: You seem like a libertarian, so I think perhaps you’re already familiar with “the Tragedy of the Commons”, an essay which exposes the dynamics which lead to individuals abusing a shared resource because it is the rational action for them short term, leading to the long term degradation of the resource.
It is the reason why shared apartments are often untidy and have dirty dishes lying around. It is the reason why you get dumping grounds on the side of the road in beautiful countryside.
It also explains why, in general, we cannot trust that the short term interests of the nations of the world are aligned with the long term interests of the world. One can easily imagine situations where US interests do not align with the long-term interests of the world, be that in the environment, trade agreements designed to save US jobs, whatever.
In this situation, two solutions are proposed to the problem – independent regulation (punish people who abuse the resource) or private enterprise (chop up the resource and let people manage their own small parts).
In the case of the resource we call the earth, chopping things up has given us countries, but has not prevented abuse. Indeed, private enterprise has encouraged abuse, by spreading beying national boundaries and sucking resources with impunity.
Now we need to ensure that our natural resources are efficiently policed and protected on a worldwide basis, and we need leaders who have the strength of will and foresight to see beyond short-term benefit to the logical conclusion of current behaviour. Kyoto was the first attempt to do this, but was spurned by the USA and Australia, ignored by China, India and Brazil. The second chance may well be our last.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Kevin “Yeaux” Dupuy: “I wanted to comment on a few things, but first, let’s keep in mind that there are more than two serious candidates in this year’s elections”
If by “serious” you mean “has a shot in hell”, then no, there aren’t. There are two serious candidates in this Election. One of them will win. One of them will lose. If all of the others combined manage to even make a statistical blip in the election, it will be a historic event. They’re meaningless.
September 24th, 2008 at 3:05 am
One might wonder about the moral fibre of someone who agrees with the death penalty (as Obama does), particularly poignant tonight as the US is about to put Troy Davis to death despite that 7 of 9 witnesses have recanted and there is no physical evidence tying Davis to the crime. This should be a national scandal, a subject of much discussion and news coverage but the corporate news is too busy covering campaign speech/interview gaffes.
Both corporate candidates offer more war (again, as Dupuy pointed out): where do you want your kids to die? Iran, Afghanistan, or Iraq?
There are more than two candidates in that race. And if the mainstream TV “debates” allowed us to hear from Nader and Barr we’d be in a better position to judge the candidates who could actually become president for ourselves. Nader is on a majority of state ballots (45 at last count) and I think Barr has enough ballot presence where he could theoretically win enough electoral votes to become president. But instead of a fair debate where we get to hear from everyone who could theoretically win enough electoral votes to become US President, we must suffer through another term of people arguing against small-d democracy (such as any circular argument about who “has a shot in hell”). It should not be up to corporations to narrow the race for us. That should be our job as voters. So Obama and McCain it is. And neither has the moral fibre or dedication to democracy to object.
September 24th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
So, you know, how do you reconcile this:
“Nader is on a majority of state ballots (45 at last count) and I think Barr has enough ballot presence where he could theoretically win enough electoral votes to become president”
with this:
“So Obama and McCain it is.”
They DO have a chance, but they DON’T? Okay! Don’t try to have it both ways or anything.
By the way, you use the word “should” a lot. Did you notice I never used it? That’s the difference between us, I think. I say two candidates have a shot, and you say more SHOULD. Well, that ain’t much of an argument, friend. Whether more should or shouldn’t, none do.
Any debate that starts about Obama or McCain and ends in Nader or Bob Barr has gone off the rails.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
What they both are is utter shit.
McCain is a heavy duty nationalist. He isn’t conservative.. Conservative means you want to keep a balanced budget, you care about stopping illegal immigration (foreigners are welcome; legally), you want limited government, and you have certain social issues that you tend to care deeply about.
That’s ‘conservative’. McCain is NONE OF THOSE THINGS.
This is a man, who has descended from a long line of Admirals. His solution’s to life’s problem is to pass bills making problems illegal. He beleives very strongly in the might and the majesty of the U.S. Government and figures that government can solve most problems.
He is not that intelligent. has no moral code to speak of, he has no strong personal philosophy about life. The man has the depth of a kiddy-pool.
The _only_ reason he is in the election is that he is very capable at making sure that the media folks pay attention to him. He gets his big fat head in the papers and on the news so people recognize him. There is simply no other strong republican candidate that is as well known and people vote with what is familiar.
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Oboma is a non-entity. A shadow with a manufactured and carefully cultivated image.
The people controlling him have mastered the election-wining technique of ‘keep talking without saying anything and people will hear what they want to hear’.
The man has the has all the authenticity of a pre-teen oriented after-school Disney special with about the same level of sophistication.
The Democrat’s solutions to lifes problems center around two major solutions:
1. It’s the republican’s fault. Vote for us if you want Change because Change is good and we will want to have Change and that, for a Change, is a very good thing to have Change with. CHANGE!
2. Socialize everything. If you have medical bills we will do our best to put the same group of people in charge of your health that are responsible for the perfect oversight of our country’s financial institutions, have a strong track record of very responsible no-waste spending habits and are responsible for the rousing and increadably non-mismanaged war effort in Iraq.
Because god knows that the government is the very model of efficiency and common sense. It’s just a fabulous idea to put the same sort of faceless jerks that are responsible for managing your local DMV office and your taxes in charge of deciding weather or not your grandma gets cancer treatment or whether or not you deserve to have a MRI after a automobile accident. Government bureaucrats are famous for their laid-back attitudes, flexibility, and willingness to bend the rules for unusual and exceptional circumstances.
Oh. And don’t forget Beliefs that we can believe in.
http://punditkitchen.com/?s=change
The whole election is a fucking joke.
Democrates vs Republicans?
It’s a lie. A side show. Two different faces of the same political machine. They both work together to make sure that one or the other remains in power and a Republican will more then happily switch sides and be a Democrat (and visa versa) if he thinks it will help them win a election. there is no moral code, no philosophy. It’s all about retaining power, getting payoffs, and getting a cushy consulting jobs after they get tired of ruining the country
Does anybody think that if Obama was elected we would pull out of Iraq? Fuck no. Not in a hundred years. Not any more Bill Clinton pulled us out of Korea, Japan, Germany, Bosnia, or any other country we had the misfortune of bombing the shit out of for one thing or another in the past 75 years.
THOSE sentiments, usually to a lesser degree, is what the majority of Americans really feel about the election.
They just don’t go around talking about it on blogs because it’s totally fucking pointless. Only true believers (and most of them relatively wealthy AND young, btw. So what you find on the internet is not close to representational) go and start political ‘right wing’ or ‘left wing’ blogs and interrupt forums or complain on IRCs and to spout off nonsense about global warming, invading illegals, or abortion or whatever political obsession they’ve chosen to use as a replacement for personality and independent thought.
September 26th, 2008 at 3:32 am
Ian: Whether or not anyone (including you) believe that Nader or Barr “have a chance” is irrelevant. It should not be up to you to decide whom I get to vote for.
So long as a candidate can win the presidency by being on enough ballots in enough states to get a majority of electoral votes, that candidate should be allowed to debate in these widely-viewed televised debates.
As to the rest of your post, I’ll try to make it more plain for you: I’m referring to whom the CPD allows in their debates: Obama and McCain, not a complete list of whom I want to see.
The CPD “debates” are set up this way on purpose. Who is allowed in is no accident. The CPD was formed to take control away from the League of Women Voters which would have allowed third-party and independent competition to debate with far better quality debates. The official-sounding “Commision on Public Debates” (CPD) is actually a private corporation controlled by the former heads of the two major corporate parties. The rules for admittance to their debates are structured to allow for their corporate cronies to narrow the allowable range of debate to serve their interests (the 15-percent cut point is, as others have pointed out, absurdly high).
OpenDebates.org covers this quite well. More people than ever before are interested in real debates and, not surprisingly, more people see what a sham these CPD so-called debates are.
Of course, when Democrats need someone to blame for their candidates’ latest loss, suddenly Nader goes from being not a factor (to attempt to justify exclusion from the CPD debates) to being a factor (never mind millions of registered Floridian Democrats voting for Bush, Gore not winning his home state, Kerry supporting a pro-war agenda against a wildly unpopular occupation, or the principle of every candidate earning their votes). If you’d like to know the real scoop on that hypocrisy, I suggest watching “An Unreasonable Man“.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Nate Says: “What they both are is utter shit.”
Fine. And one of two “utter shits” will win the election. All the others, no matter how good or bad, will not win the election. If they even make a dent in the other candidates, it will be a historic event. This is a two man race, whether you like it or not. Once you admit this you will become capable of having constructive conversations.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
J.B. Nicholson-Owens: “So long as a candidate can win the presidency by being on enough ballots in enough states to get a majority of electoral votes, that candidate should be allowed to debate in these widely-viewed televised debates.”
There is that “should” word again!
Of course, you are absolutely right, they SHOULD be automatically entered in every debate. But they aren’t. And so, once again, this is a two man race. The other guys don’t have a chance.
Your ability to vote for somebody does not make him a serious contender. What makes them a serious contender is their likelihood of making an impact on the election. These guys aren’t going to.
Trying to veer a discussion about serious candidates toward candidates who not only will never win but have astronomically small chances of even impacting the election is not productive. It’s a red herring at best.
McCain or Obama will win. Talk about their relative merits and you may get something done.