Depressing thougts on the elections
I feel this urge to make some predictions before the presidential race comes up. I make no claims to actually have studied politics in detail-these are all based on personal experiance and gut instinct. They are also rather depressing- don't read unless you want to be depressed. It's just babble anyhow
I think that another terrorist attack is inevitable. I think that the terrorists will have less support and probably thus a weaker attack if Kerry wins, because he doesn't stir up the type of mindless hatred that Bush's retoric does. (come on, I'm an American, I actually respect Bush even if I disagree with him on many things, and yet he's so bloody arrogant "I am the King of the world and America is the ultimate country" that he makes me see red sometimes, and I'm pretty slow to anger. I can only imagine how his speaches inflame foreigners) I'm definately in favor of an America that looks quiet and law abiding on the outside, but has a powerful military that goes into action WHEN we are attacked. You know, the noble scholar-warrior type of country. Not the scary enforcer of justice. You can only be terrifying for so long before people decide to feel opressed and rebel. Even more so when, let's be honest, pretty much no other country has power over the US but we have power over pretty much everyone. It's an easy situation to be abused. (Ok, yes, other countries could make our economy whimper more than a bit, or kill off a fairly large segment of our population if they were suicidal, but they can't impact our survival. Yet we have the power to impact their survival-to destroy them at a whim if we chose. That's scary.)
Anyhow, when we are attacked, if Bush is in charge everyone will believe he's doing everything possible to prevent it, and it won't impact him or his party significantly. Meanwhile we will have less freedom and big brother will be watching everything we do.
But if Kerry is in charge, it will destroy him and permenantly set back the democratic party for years because he will have restored some of the civil rights Bush locked away and been less agressive with the miliary, and that will be seen as inviting an attack. As a result, the Democrats WILL lose the next election, and a war-hawk who slices down even further into civil liberties will take power. Even though I think the terrorists will find themselves with less support and thus America will be safer if Kerry wins. (People who are on the fence about the US don't feel threatend by him being in power.)
Which would be better for the country? I want that stupid Patriot act revoked as soon as possible. No, it's not a matter of life or death, but our freedoms here have been the thing that made me beleive that we did deserve to be the most powerful country in the world. Without it, we have lands rich in natural resources that we stole from the native inhabitants or Mexico and the fact that we did not get involved in WWII until the other major world powers were exhausted and were thus the only true economic power in the world coming out of the war. Somehow, I'm a lot less proud of that. There are lots of countries that are democratic and the people have almost as many rights as we do. But I always felt that we reached a little farther towards that dream of a perfect world, that we hadn't been crushed down by the weight of history and all it's horrors, that we still had the courage to beleive that we didn't have to sacrifice our values to survive...I want to be that country. Maybe it's impossible. Maybe it's a dog-eat-dog world and only cannibals survive. If so, I'll still survive. I don't intend to roll over and die. But I won't be proud of it.
Anyhow, so, I guess it doesn't matter if Bush or Kerry wins. In fact, since everyone is expecting an attack, no one will be supprised if it comes when Bush is in control, and i have this vauge feeling that they will eventually realize that no matter how tall a building or how many people are in it (more than the population of my hometown, by the way, so the numbers have a very immediate feeling for me-everyone I know dead), the destruction of one structure can not damage the US as a whole. People will realize that they're not getting total safety, and the tiny bit more security isn't worth the price they're paying. Maybe public openion will turn againt the anti-civil liberties laws sooner if Bush wins, because there won't be any other "wrong" decisions to blame. BUT the next president gets to select some supreame cout people, and they will affect laws in this country for the next few dozen years, so public openion may not be enough. So maybe a win from Kerry, 4 reasonable but crazy years with accusations flying everywhere and then 8 or twelve of severe crack down will actually be the faster route to regaining the liberties we lost after 9/11. Who knows. I just know that it will take a long time.
9/11 didn't seriously damage our country. Fewer people died than died that year of heart attacks or car crashes. It hurt, it was tragic, but it didn't really hurt us as a nation, not in the sense that war or famine or a million other things could. But it damaged our soul, the soul of the nation. It made us scared. It took away our innocence. If we were a smooth-faced maiden who loved the beauty of humanity and nature before, now we are a hard-eyed lady who views everyone and everything with suspicion. Was it worth it? I think not. But, I'm not a political expert, and I sure as hell ain't a military expert. I trust the people in charge of this country, yes, including Bush, to be doing what they beleive is best. I disagree with how they go about it, but frankly...I don't know that my way would really be any better. Kerry wins, Bush wins...I'm not even sure which would be better in the long run. We're going to be in a hole for at least a decade, I think. Maybe forever. This could have destroyed what I used to think was the soul of America--the drive to create a perfect society that people obey because they want to. I can't think of any other nation that has that particular innocence I thought America had...like no matter how bad or cruel we were in the past, no matter how messed up and stupid our systems are today, tomorrow it would all work. There were just some glitches in the system. Tomorrow would be better. Tomorrow we'd figure a way to solve it all. Tomorrow we'd all be friends...Now we seem to think that innocence was just stupidity, but I see America today as having lost its hope.
This was all just poured out through my fingers and not edited or proofed, so please forgive any logic gaps where you can see what I meant but I forgot to put in the words. Also, I don't really want to argue with strangers about this-this is an openion, nothing more. Comments and thoughtful discussion is welcome, flames are not.
actually, back to the scholar warrior thing...actually, as a world power, I think there are two reactions we could get: fear and awe or casual dismissal as people think we're stupid and sinful with more power than we know what to do with. I personaly go for the second one; I think it's safer, and if people think we're stupid they aren't feeling threatened but they still acknowledge our power so aren't tempted to try to take advantage. The first one seems like waving a red flag before a bull. How would you react to someone trying to make you feel awed?
I think that another terrorist attack is inevitable. I think that the terrorists will have less support and probably thus a weaker attack if Kerry wins, because he doesn't stir up the type of mindless hatred that Bush's retoric does. (come on, I'm an American, I actually respect Bush even if I disagree with him on many things, and yet he's so bloody arrogant "I am the King of the world and America is the ultimate country" that he makes me see red sometimes, and I'm pretty slow to anger. I can only imagine how his speaches inflame foreigners) I'm definately in favor of an America that looks quiet and law abiding on the outside, but has a powerful military that goes into action WHEN we are attacked. You know, the noble scholar-warrior type of country. Not the scary enforcer of justice. You can only be terrifying for so long before people decide to feel opressed and rebel. Even more so when, let's be honest, pretty much no other country has power over the US but we have power over pretty much everyone. It's an easy situation to be abused. (Ok, yes, other countries could make our economy whimper more than a bit, or kill off a fairly large segment of our population if they were suicidal, but they can't impact our survival. Yet we have the power to impact their survival-to destroy them at a whim if we chose. That's scary.)
Anyhow, when we are attacked, if Bush is in charge everyone will believe he's doing everything possible to prevent it, and it won't impact him or his party significantly. Meanwhile we will have less freedom and big brother will be watching everything we do.
But if Kerry is in charge, it will destroy him and permenantly set back the democratic party for years because he will have restored some of the civil rights Bush locked away and been less agressive with the miliary, and that will be seen as inviting an attack. As a result, the Democrats WILL lose the next election, and a war-hawk who slices down even further into civil liberties will take power. Even though I think the terrorists will find themselves with less support and thus America will be safer if Kerry wins. (People who are on the fence about the US don't feel threatend by him being in power.)
Which would be better for the country? I want that stupid Patriot act revoked as soon as possible. No, it's not a matter of life or death, but our freedoms here have been the thing that made me beleive that we did deserve to be the most powerful country in the world. Without it, we have lands rich in natural resources that we stole from the native inhabitants or Mexico and the fact that we did not get involved in WWII until the other major world powers were exhausted and were thus the only true economic power in the world coming out of the war. Somehow, I'm a lot less proud of that. There are lots of countries that are democratic and the people have almost as many rights as we do. But I always felt that we reached a little farther towards that dream of a perfect world, that we hadn't been crushed down by the weight of history and all it's horrors, that we still had the courage to beleive that we didn't have to sacrifice our values to survive...I want to be that country. Maybe it's impossible. Maybe it's a dog-eat-dog world and only cannibals survive. If so, I'll still survive. I don't intend to roll over and die. But I won't be proud of it.
Anyhow, so, I guess it doesn't matter if Bush or Kerry wins. In fact, since everyone is expecting an attack, no one will be supprised if it comes when Bush is in control, and i have this vauge feeling that they will eventually realize that no matter how tall a building or how many people are in it (more than the population of my hometown, by the way, so the numbers have a very immediate feeling for me-everyone I know dead), the destruction of one structure can not damage the US as a whole. People will realize that they're not getting total safety, and the tiny bit more security isn't worth the price they're paying. Maybe public openion will turn againt the anti-civil liberties laws sooner if Bush wins, because there won't be any other "wrong" decisions to blame. BUT the next president gets to select some supreame cout people, and they will affect laws in this country for the next few dozen years, so public openion may not be enough. So maybe a win from Kerry, 4 reasonable but crazy years with accusations flying everywhere and then 8 or twelve of severe crack down will actually be the faster route to regaining the liberties we lost after 9/11. Who knows. I just know that it will take a long time.
9/11 didn't seriously damage our country. Fewer people died than died that year of heart attacks or car crashes. It hurt, it was tragic, but it didn't really hurt us as a nation, not in the sense that war or famine or a million other things could. But it damaged our soul, the soul of the nation. It made us scared. It took away our innocence. If we were a smooth-faced maiden who loved the beauty of humanity and nature before, now we are a hard-eyed lady who views everyone and everything with suspicion. Was it worth it? I think not. But, I'm not a political expert, and I sure as hell ain't a military expert. I trust the people in charge of this country, yes, including Bush, to be doing what they beleive is best. I disagree with how they go about it, but frankly...I don't know that my way would really be any better. Kerry wins, Bush wins...I'm not even sure which would be better in the long run. We're going to be in a hole for at least a decade, I think. Maybe forever. This could have destroyed what I used to think was the soul of America--the drive to create a perfect society that people obey because they want to. I can't think of any other nation that has that particular innocence I thought America had...like no matter how bad or cruel we were in the past, no matter how messed up and stupid our systems are today, tomorrow it would all work. There were just some glitches in the system. Tomorrow would be better. Tomorrow we'd figure a way to solve it all. Tomorrow we'd all be friends...Now we seem to think that innocence was just stupidity, but I see America today as having lost its hope.
This was all just poured out through my fingers and not edited or proofed, so please forgive any logic gaps where you can see what I meant but I forgot to put in the words. Also, I don't really want to argue with strangers about this-this is an openion, nothing more. Comments and thoughtful discussion is welcome, flames are not.
actually, back to the scholar warrior thing...actually, as a world power, I think there are two reactions we could get: fear and awe or casual dismissal as people think we're stupid and sinful with more power than we know what to do with. I personaly go for the second one; I think it's safer, and if people think we're stupid they aren't feeling threatened but they still acknowledge our power so aren't tempted to try to take advantage. The first one seems like waving a red flag before a bull. How would you react to someone trying to make you feel awed?