Entry tags:
Election things...
I was asked for my opinion on the US election. I was also asked to shut up about it, so there you go. I'll still make a few points:
- Alternet has some comparison guides for the candidates on various issues, if you're still one of them undecideds. Here, for example, is Alternet's guide to the candidates' stances on gay marriage and adoption, sex education and LGBT rights. Go read. (Why am I linking to the sex ed one? Frankly, and I don't like being mean about America, because I love the place, America's stance on sex education is backward to the point of medieval, it's misguided and wrong and oppressive and downright dangerous. Get over yourselves when it comes to sex, srsly. Won't SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!? And yes, I know that's a generalisation, but like I've said before, I can only be so nuanced when talking about an entire country. Sure, you guys on my flist are progressive, right minded people and so are a vast lot of Americans. But still.)
- Colin Powell? Yah, never liked the man, but he said some wise things there and the fact that he's endorsing Obama is a majorly good thing. Quotage: "... the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift. I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration. I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America." Right on there, dude. Respect. Transcript of his Meet the Press is here.
- I think one of the problems we have looking at this election from a European perspective, is that in Europe most countries still work on far more of a party political level. We don't quite understand the personality politics that Americans engage in. In our eyes, therefore, a vote for McCain is far more of a vote for Bush than perhaps it is in the average American's eyes. We don't really vote for people in Europe, we vote for parties. That's not a dissmissal of the American system, it's just an observation, we have trouble seeing a vote for McCain as anything other than an endorsement of the Bush administration and a desire from said voter for more of the same, please.
- ETA: Another one of those things we have difficulty getting our heads around is this whole Is Obama a Christian? thing. I don't know how that plays out outside of Holland, but we certainly prefer our politicians, unless they are standing for a specifically religious party, to shut the hell up about their religious beliefs as they are irrelevant and not something we would like to see influencing their political decisions in any way. The fact that religion is SO NOT IRRELEVANT in American politics is something we have difficulty understanding. Over here if a politician mentions God or Jesus in a speech, our WHOA!!NUTBAR radar kind of starts pinging, Hard.
- My main opinion, having watched some of the debates and all the shizzle and rallies that are happening at the moment, and it's probably a slightly controversial one, is that McCain is not 100% mentally healthy. Nor is he, obviously, 100% physically healthy, but that's another issue. I really think, watching him closely, that he's not quite right in the head. He scares me. There is just a touch of the crazy, stubborn old man on a streetcorner about him and I dread to think of him in the White House. The way it's looking at the moment, though, I'm very relieved that it would appear that I have little to worry about on that front. Thank fuck for that.
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2) As an atheist I most definitely wish that religion were a lot less relevant in American politics, too. Obama being religious doesn't really bug me because, well, to be honest he doesn't seem that religious truly-- more as an act he kind of puts on-- and whatever religion he has definitely doesn't affect his policies. McCain and Palin, however, are obviously very driven by their religion and that's pretty ew to me. If any presidential candidate were to admit to being non-religious all of America would basically shit their pants halfway to Wednesday. To quote Arrested Development: "Take me to your secular world!"
3) I don't know about McCain being certifiably crazy but he is definitely at least far too temperamental and a bit unstable. Especially in the last debate, he actually started off frighteningly strong and then just lost it about halfway through, becoming completely petulant, disdainful, and sarcastic. I was kind of embarrassed for him, honestly.
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Harsh words indeed, coming from a former coworker.
And the mess about abstinence-only sex ed isn't restrained to teenagers. In Texas, abstinence-only is the law, and so when you have grown adults going before the judge in child protection cases, the adults in question will get anger management classes, financial counseling, therapy, home dynamics and social work, drug/alcohol treatment, everything BUT contraception and family planning. You know. Abstinence only. It's ludicrous, it's hurtful, and it's absurd, and it's pushed in the name of "children, children, children" without a single thought as to what happens when the children grow up.