All true, and well-said...but what bothers me is, I don't know if any of this can help. Maybe it's just that I'm in a dark mood, but I keep wondering...will any amount of logic, emotion, or even truth change anybody's opinion any more, or are we just left with willful disregard for reality, impossible to break?
Are all these brilliant rants just preaching to the converted, while the unconverted refuse to listen?
...Excuse me, I'm going to go to sleep, so I can wake up in a more optimistic mood.
The problem is that in this case "those who refuse to acknowledge reality" are identified collectively as "Americans." It doesn't matter who we voted for. It's a democracy; we elect our leaders to represent us. Doesn't matter that, though I vote, there is not a single person holding any office who got there in part because I voted for them. Unfortunately, the share of the moral burden for the crimes of our leaders is on all of us.
We're also all on the same plane they are flying into the ground. Their reality-based doom is also our doom. It's our money they spent (unless you happen to be in that 1 percent bracket). It's our Way of Life they destroyed. They created tens of thousands of terrorists where there were hundreds, and those fuckers will not ask who you voted for before they blow your ass up. That's the true bitch of it.
Every now and then someone in The Other Camp (for any value of Other) will go "Hmmmmm....", though. People being converted these days tends to happen in fits and starts rather than a few million people saying "shit, he's right!" in an outraged tone. (Annoyingly, that seems to happen rather more often outside of the US or Canada. Bah!)
Remember, this president was more popular than oxygen for a while back in '01.
My mom finally set the Kool-Ade aside this year--after once dipping into it deep enough to suggest that my late grandfather, her dad, the card-carryin' Socialist whose heroes were FDR, Bobby Kennedy, Tom Harkin and Paul Wellstone, would probably have voted for The Idiot in '04.
I think her turning point had less to do with finally grokking the depth of Dumbass' lies and crimes and more to do with this simple comment I hit her with: "Ma, I just can't give the benefit of the doubt to a guy who wants to write discrimination against me into the Constitution."
Last I talked to her, she's considering voting for Hillary in '08. Her remark was, "Maybe it's time. Look how much trouble two hundred years of men have got us into." :D
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-28 04:33 am (UTC)Are all these brilliant rants just preaching to the converted, while the unconverted refuse to listen?
...Excuse me, I'm going to go to sleep, so I can wake up in a more optimistic mood.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-28 04:57 am (UTC)Though at times I feel the same...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-28 04:58 am (UTC)I hope.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-28 05:13 am (UTC)The problem is that in this case "those who refuse to acknowledge reality" are identified collectively as "Americans." It doesn't matter who we voted for. It's a democracy; we elect our leaders to represent us. Doesn't matter that, though I vote, there is not a single person holding any office who got there in part because I voted for them. Unfortunately, the share of the moral burden for the crimes of our leaders is on all of us.
We're also all on the same plane they are flying into the ground. Their reality-based doom is also our doom. It's our money they spent (unless you happen to be in that 1 percent bracket). It's our Way of Life they destroyed. They created tens of thousands of terrorists where there were hundreds, and those fuckers will not ask who you voted for before they blow your ass up. That's the true bitch of it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-28 11:34 am (UTC)I wish I could be sure that, if the first part had applied to us, we would have done any different, collectively, from you...but I doubt it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-28 05:39 am (UTC)Every now and then someone in The Other Camp (for any value of Other) will go "Hmmmmm....", though. People being converted these days tends to happen in fits and starts rather than a few million people saying "shit, he's right!" in an outraged tone. (Annoyingly, that seems to happen rather more often outside of the US or Canada. Bah!)
Remember, this president was more popular than oxygen for a while back in '01.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-28 05:17 am (UTC)My mom finally set the Kool-Ade aside this year--after once dipping into it deep enough to suggest that my late grandfather, her dad, the card-carryin' Socialist whose heroes were FDR, Bobby Kennedy, Tom Harkin and Paul Wellstone, would probably have voted for The Idiot in '04.
I think her turning point had less to do with finally grokking the depth of Dumbass' lies and crimes and more to do with this simple comment I hit her with: "Ma, I just can't give the benefit of the doubt to a guy who wants to write discrimination against me into the Constitution."
Last I talked to her, she's considering voting for Hillary in '08. Her remark was, "Maybe it's time. Look how much trouble two hundred years of men have got us into." :D