Doug/Owen -
This one fits my personal experience "pattern" of "Shocked but not
Surprised".
In 00, I was not shocked or surprised that the pendulum swung back from
the liberals to the conservatives. It was time, or near time.
Perhaps if Bill had managed to keep his pecadillios more well-hidden,
or if his detractors were not so vicious about them, or if Al had not
claimed to invent the Internet, or if Ralph had graciously pulled out
of the race after proving that a significant number of voters want some
other choice than red or blue, we could have had another 4-8 years of a
liberal administration. I won't even begin to speculate about whether
there would have been a (successful) attack on 9/11 or whether such
would have lead to war, etc... I'll save that for the
alternate-history novel I'm (not) writing.
The bottom line is that it wasn't that much of a shock or surprise that
the self-rightous right could stir up enough self-rightousness in the
moral majority to get to the voting booths and vote in their favorite
son. I knew he was the village idiot when he first started running
but I thought he would be a lot more harmless than he turned out to
be. I thought (to extend the parabolic reference) that as a village,
we could raise that idiot. What I failed to appreciate (my bad, in
spades) was the depth of (e)vileness in his handlers, in the
puppet-masters.
04 *DID* shock (but not so much surprise) me. I thought that at least
10% of the Right would at least stay home from the polls in shame and
at least 2% of the Left who failed to vote in 00 would wake up and
smell the urine and vote and the 10% "third party types" would put
aside some of their ideals long enough to dump the village idiot out of
his cart. And while I do believe there was some voting misconduct
that might have swayed 00 and 04 enough to make the difference, it
doesn't (as Owen notes) account for the difference between the vote and
my impression of the likely vote.
I grew up among rednecks and in many was still am one myself, so I do
have sympathy with many of the points of view that the Red States (the
rural western ones anyway) hold. I feel I have outgrown/transcended a
lot of them, but still appreciate how people working with their hands,
close to the land (now known as the "extractive industries") could
resent the people sitting in a big city at Starbucks sipping
triple-mocha, caramel latte's with an umbrella on top their blind
comfort and relative wealth.
It took me most of the 80's and 90's to come to appreciate how
*extractive* and *exploitative* virtually all natural resource
extraction (mining, lumber, energy, fishing, even agriculture) and
packaging (factories) and delivery (commercial transportation, service
industries) has been. Most folks living/working by those industries
still can't see it, and the rest of us (knowledge workers, etc.) rarely
acknowledge that we *want* someone to bring us all our goodies and we
are happy to turn a blind eye to how all that was done, and then smugly
resent those who did the work (from latin-american immigrants to the US
working poor) to grow the food, mine the ore, cut the trees and those
who processed it into what we see
(factory/smelter/sawmill/food-processing) workers and those who bring
it to us (truckers, etc.) and those who sell/serve it to us (minimum
wage slaves with limited education/opportunities).
So it doesn't surprise me that there are a *lot* of under-educated
people with a limited view of their own plight who could be snookered
by one faction of the elite into believing their best interests were
served by keeping *that* faction of the elite in power. I've seen
another faction of the elite hoodwink approximately the same people
with promises of elevation and get elected on that themselves.
I happen to have a lot more sympathies (today) with the
kinder-gentler/more-progressive approach of the Left than with the
Right (they have been such dismal losers this past 8 years, amazing
anyone can stick with them at all) but I don't think the "battle" is a
simple one.
I for one, look forward to the impending "changing of the guard" and
even (especially) want to see the incumbent party spanked silly in the
election, but as soon as that is over, I look forward to an equally
strong grass-roots movement to hold the incoming party (in the
executive) to a truly rightous and progressive set of actions and
policies. I know it is human nature to "take advantage" and that
"power corrupts" so I am looking for populist/grassroots checks and
balances to the power of our political and financial and corporate
behemoths, not depending on them to keep eachother in check.
I'll be watching TV (or at least Jon Stewart on the Internet) on
Tuesday, with breath all abated, hoping for a good spanking for the
Republicans. If it comes out as strong as I hope, I'll drink a little
Champagne and start lobbying everyone I know to put down the Champagne
and pick up their tools and get to work. We've got a big hole to dig
out of... several really. I hope we don't expect our new president to
magically lift us up out of it without some hard work and maybe more
than a little personal sacrifice.
my $.02 (.00001/per word?)
- Steve
Owen,
Why in the world does this surprise you? I would like to suggest that
the more intelligent of you on this list (we all know who we think we
are) consider the concept of "average intelligence". Cogitate on the
following:
- The average IQ in the US is around 90.
- The distribution has medium fat tails.
- Bush was elected into office twice.
--Doug
-
Doug Roberts, RTI International
[hidden email]
[hidden email]
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 10:53 AM, Owen
Densmore
<[hidden email]>
wrote:
Just
as in the earlier elections with George Bush, I'm astonished at how
close the race is, not just who is winning.
When Bush won, it was really hard to believe: he's clearly incapable.
The Dems on the other hand, chose a poor candidate in the 04 race, so
that could be part of it. And he did steal the race, but he could only
do so because the separation was so small.
But given the obvious failure of the Bush administration, why in hell
is this race so close? Obama will likely win, but I simply cannot
understand why 45% or so really think McCain is better!
Its easy to shrug, and say most people are idiots. Maybe. But up
close and personal, you find this isn't true. So what is the "ghost in
the works"?
-- Owen