At the risk of angering my entire friends list

[thiebes]

I got my ballot in the mail a couple days ago. If you hadn't heard, in Oregon we all get to vote by mail.

Basically the way I feel about Presidential elections is this: it's mind-control. Nothing more

Comments

[heron61]

us. McCain was never this crazy when he was making appearances on Jon Stewart during the 2004 election. He wasn't this crazy during the 2008 primary.

He sure seemed that crazy in the primaries to me, and he has since 2004. He didn't seem like that earlier, but my thought is very much that in 2000 he found out that you need to be batshit nuts to end up as a serious Republican presidential candidate - he spoke out against the fundys in 2000 and was immediately shut out. Since 2004, he's been voting with & for the crazy fundys (the change in his voting record since 2004 has been very extreme) in order to get the fundy cred needed to win the nomimation. He picked Palin for the same reason. The Republican party is utterly nuts and McCain knows that he has to at least play nice with all these nuts to have a chance.

Obama is a mealy-mouthed centrist, but the Democratic party isn't nuts at its base, and I'll take same and spineless over scarily nuts any day.

[thiebes]

OK, maybe I have my timeline wrong.

I'll take same and spineless over scarily nuts any day

Well, that is my point. So would anyone.

[heron61]

The thing is Gore & Kerry lost, and Shrub was just as obviously nuts. In a taped interview, before the 2000 election, Shrub joked and mocked the pleas of someone on death row in Texas whose appeal he denied (here's a link with Shrub's quote). He was totally fucking nuts - we elected a sociopath president (or at least the Supreme Court did), you don't get to be a federal level Republican these days w/o being nuts or at least being willing to go along with nutjobs and make them like you. This isn't anything special about McCain or Palin, it's all of them, and it's been all of them for well more than a decade. We have one major party in the US who has devoted itself to insanity. The fact that more people see this now than they did in 2000 or 2004 only has to do with the fact that the Republican propaganda machine isn't dealing well with the fact that the US is falling apart. Because the top people are all insane, they believed theor own nonsense, like how the Iraqi people would throw rose petals at the feet of US troops and how

[thiebes]

Assuming that this election is in any way scripted makes no sense at all.

I think that every election is scripted to the extent that anyone who gets far enough to be a contender must needs be in the pocket of the corporations. The corps won't stop at anything to ensure that.

Woody Guthrie

[gallows_brother]

Let's have Christ our President
Let us have him for our king
Cast your vote for the Carpenter
That they call the Nazarene

The only way
We could ever beat
These crooked politician men

Is to cast the moneychangers
Out of the temple
Put the Carpenter in

Oh it's Jesus Christ our President
God above our king
With a job and pension for young and old
We will make hallelujah ring

Every year we waste enough
To feed the ones who starve
We build our civilization up
And we shoot it down with wars

But with the Carpenter
On the seat
Way up in the capitol town

The USA
Be on the way
Prosperity bound

Re: Woody Guthrie

[thiebes]

Haha nice :) I hadn't heard that one, though I do love Woody.

[popjellyfish]

I was planning to try and throw a party on the 4th, celebrating the joy of nothing changing.

[thiebes]

The Lodge usually has class on Tuesdays, but for the last several elections attendees have chosen to watch the results come in on tv. Maybe we should open up the bar this year.

[maxomai]

I'm giving a class that day specifically on topics relevant to the election and Thelema. The outline is as follows:

1) Why Crowley's critique of democracy falls short.
2) Democracy as a demonic manifestation of the spiritual dark age.
3) Why we should use democracy anyway, and how.
4) The election results.

[thiebes]

Great! Post an announcement! Sounds like a blast. I wonder if we can hook a tv up to the projector or something?

[yezida]

Sorry. I think this is dumb. Really dumb.

Obama is not the savior. Nope. I get that. And whoever gets elected is inheriting a disgusting mess.

However. McCain and Palin winning will make things even worse. I am convinced of that. In 2000, I was sure that Bush vs Gore was just corporate power vs corporate power. In 2004, I couldn't stomach Kerry or Bush. But this time... at least Obama is smart and articulate and seems able to pick good people.

An Obama presidency *has* to be better than a McCain presidency at this point in time. Has to be. And voting for a third party only makes McCain's chances better.

McCain is nuts, and the one good thing I could ever say about him - that he was against torture - he has since caved on. Palin? Don't get me started.

I cannot support your choice. I choose to support the work of liberation (and Thelema, for all that) by practicing, teaching and making art, by spreading the word that waking up is possible... Not by writing in a dead man.

[thiebes]

I cannot support your choice.

I wasn't asking you to support my choice or agree with me.

[maxomai]

Um, yeah you were.

So if you find yourself in a similar place, not knowing how you can support either major party candidate-for whatever reason-do what I did. Vote Aleister Crowley! Remember, he only needs 1%!

Just sayin'.

[thiebes]

No, actually I don't think that applies to yezida. She clearly supports one of the major party candidates.

[maxomai]

You might not remember how McCain blew his election chances in 2000. I remember it distinctly. He got cranky with a talk radio host by the name of Michael Reagan (son of Ronald), and Reagan denounced him from there along with Rush Limbaugh.

This isn't just some crap that someone scripted out there. The media might be writing the narratives to sell cookies, but McCain isn't following some script. McCain is genuinely giving this his best shot, and he's genuinely blowing it, because he's genuinely ill-tempered.

The divine watchmaker is still a myth after all.

[thiebes]

Fair enough, but I stand by my candidate ;)