Why do the people on the left use humor so much more than the people on the other side? We have the Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Bill Mahr, and comic strips among other things. Maybe it’s because we have a sense of humor and if we didn’t laugh among all this insanity we would lose our minds. Maybe us laughing so much is the reason that we rarely assassinate anyone.
Something else I’ve been ruminating over is if it will ever be possible to truly support any kind of candidate (presidential, congressional, or even local) unless he is me, but then I’d probably be the only one voting for him (me). The reason for this is because no one will ever agree with me on 100 percent of the issues. Then the question becomes ‘which issues can I look past in order to have someone in power who agrees with most of my stances, and which issues are so important that no matter what his or her other beliefs are I cannot vote for this person?’ The reason I started thinking about this is because of Ron Paul; he would pull us out of Iraq and other foreign countries, he would not bomb Iran or anyone else who hasn’t bombed us first, he would spend a lot less money on the military and a lot more on things like education, and so on. However, he believes that each state should have the right to decide how they feel on abortion (while he is very anti-choice.) I picture him being president and I get happy when I see the United States as a Republic rather than an Empire, where there is less of a gap between rich and poor and everyone gets an equal education. Then I can’t help but wonder if we would truly be equal if women (more than half the population) didn’t even have the right to decide what goes on in their own body. Glenn Greenwald, as usual, writes about this topic much better than I do, so if you want to read more- check him out.
Yet another thing (no work or school for two weeks can do that to a person) that has been running through my mind like a property manager on crack is what to do about the president. Especially since I’ve been back east, everyone has been opening up conversations to me with “So, who are you going to vote for?” I honestly don’t know the answer. The frustrated part of me thinks that I should either not vote or vote for myself because – assuming my vote is even counted – it won’t matter anyway. All of the major candidates are the same, as I’ve said before. The way to change a system isn’t to just change the face, but to start a new one. However, lately I’ve been thinking that change has to start on smaller levels; we have to either elect third parties (or fourth or fifth parties) at local and then congressional levels first, or start ignoring the entire system and building one of our own. If this is the case, then – for now – we should just vote for one of the major candidates, someone that stands a chance. If I had to pick one of them, it would probably be Obama because he voted against the Iraq war and he seems to be the most honest. However, my rationale for not wanting him to be the nominee was because he’s black- not that I don’t want a black president, it’s just that I think a lot of people who normally vote Democrats (or even Republicans who were planning on voting Democrat this time) wouldn’t, simply because they are racist. The Anonymous Liberal points out that it may have a different effect; it may get a large amount of black and Latin voters off their asses and to the polls. It would also give the US a different face to the rest of the world, a brown face of someone whose parents aren’t from this country, showing that sometimes the US can actually be inclusive.
Just as I begin to think like the Anonymous Liberal, just as I start to think that maybe it will be OK to vote for a Democrat (for president only), they go and give Bush $70 billion more for his criminal war. This really makes me sick; each and every person who didn’t stand up and filibuster or try to place a hold on the bill has blood on his or her hands. The Republicans are pretty up front about the whole thing- they don’t care how many brown people (or US soldiers) die, they just want to make money, but the Democrats – the one’s who are supposed to care about everyone – are letting dozens of people die each day just so they will have an easier time getting the White House back in 11 months. I don’t know how I can bring myself to check the box next to the Democrat and not feel like I just butchered an Iraqi child (or raped someone in a storage container- remember that story, the one that got a half a day’s coverage?). Furthermore, does it even matter if we vote when there are Republicans like this running around?
It’s going to be hard for the Republicans to steal the election this time around because of the overwhelming outcry for change. I think it’s pretty safe to assume (as safe as it can be in such a corrupt culture) that the Democrats will take control of power. Maybe – after murdering a few hundred thousand more innocent people – they will find a way to end the war. Maybe they won’t bomb Iran or North Korea or Venezuela or… However, they will do nothing to stop the insane torture being inflicted on many, many innocent people in our names. They will do nothing to stop the building of the world’s largest base in Iraq. And even ending the war will do nothing to help the refugees; in fact, it may even make it worse. Despite all of this, I still think (today) that voting for a Democrat might be OK, as long as we’re working to change things on the local level with our eyes on changing the entire system.
Spiritual Gangster 
If pro-life/pro-choice were not such an emotionally volcanic issue and liberals were able to be just a little objective, Ron Pauls beliefs would be a non-issue. If I were a woman (and even as a man) I could never imagine how I could ever be driven to abort my own child for the emotional disparity would be to great. However, as a liberal I could never imagine not having the freedom to do what with my body however I choose. All of Ron’s stances seem to have a rational perspective focusing on personal accountability aura about them and it would be hard to imagine him running wild with his own personal pro-life agenda since he really hasn’t yet..and since he’s running on the GOP ticket you’d think he’d jump on the opportunity to gather the fundamentalist vote. Another point is one that I hear Hannity make all the time when defending Guilianni’s pro-choice stance is that the only real influence the president has over changing the law is which judge he/she gets confirmed to the supreme court. I don’t imagine that Ron would put another ginsberg in place but that would also mean that he wouldn’t put another scalia either, which is good for us because the pro-choice wins time and time again when the perspectives remain rational…I hope.
Ha. I’m gonna write another one here only because I thought I read your “liberals are comedians” thing in another blog. I had this thought recently..What if John Stewart or Bill Mahr had a real news show all to himself where they controlled their own agenda? What we, liberals, lack are those who are willing to go on the attack with out trying to balance it with humor for fear of coming across as much of an asshole as they are. Hannity, O’rielly and Rush are wildly popular not just because they play to their base with unabashed charismatic finesse but also because they are unapologetic about their disdain for the left. Who do we have that pulls that off without sounding like a whining shrew? Mahr comes the closest but he’s a comedian who you are instinctively allowed to disregard because, well…he’s a fucking comedian. What if he put the shtick down and went with a decidedly more serious program…that was NOT on HBO? Dennis Miller made the switch from comedy to punditry but he also backed the other team to get there. We are liberal because we are open minded, which means we are rational, which means we try to be fair, which means we can be such pussies because we feel we can only defend our beliefs instead of going on the attack with them.
I think Ron Paul doesn’t harp on his anti-abortion stand because he wouldn’t try to change the law himself. He believes that the federal government should have nothing to do with it- it should be a state by state decision.
As for your idea about a Stewart or Mahr ‘real news’ show- I agree 100%. Even if they mixed a little bit of humor in with a lot of real news, I think it would be a great thing.
I think that Barack Hussein Obama will get people to vote who has not prior to this. It will be a percent of African Americans who have never voted before and vote only because he is black and Oprah loves him. Not on his policies or experience or what he says he wants to do for this county, by the way a county his wife was only proud of after he started to run for president. It also bothers me that according to the president’s own campaign spokesperson says that Barack Hussein Obama is friendly with an infamous terrorist Bill Ayers, a former me member of the violent,anti American group the Weatherman, who boasts of his role in bombing the Capital in 71 and the Pentagon in 72 and his wife Bernardine Dohrn. Although the charges were dismissed, in his book he says that he would not dismiss the idea of using bombs against US in the future. Robert Maley,Barack Hussein Obama`s policy advisor blames Israel for everything bad and suggests doing business with Hamas the radical Palestinian militants dedicated to Israel’s destruction. Barack Hussein Obama`s, Rev. seen in tapes of his sermons since Sept 11 has preached that US is the one who are the terrorists and after sept 11 the that US shouldn’t be upset that we were getting back what we did to other counties. What about his relationship to Tony Rezko who is facing federal charges of extortion, money laundering and fraud;? Rezko has raised money for Barack Hussein Obama and on the same day bought adjoining homes in 2005, although the Obama team has said that the money he received from Rezko was given to charity why was he raising money for Barack Hussein Obama in the first place. Hillary Clinton and her scandals aren’t much better but I think between the two the lesser of two evils.