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And so it begins...
Nov. 2nd, 2004 02:18 pmSeeing as I cast my ballot a week ago, this whole day feels like some exquisite torture, but I have to believe that it'll turn out for the best.
At the end of the day, we could really have done a lot worse than Bush-- Robert Mugabe, anyone?-- but based on all available evidence, the man is the worst president in U.S. history. I voted for Kerry not out of any deep personal conviction that he's the man for the job, but I think he has a real chance to win this thing, and while I doubt he'll be able to accomplish much with the cosmic clusterfuck he'll inherit, he's far and away better than the alternative. Bush's positions on the environment and gay rights (the two issues always closest to my heart) are indefensible and reprehensible, and even if I didn't think that he's a mass murderer who should be tried for war crimes along with every member of his senior staff, I'd want to give him the boot for just those reasons.
Do I care about Iraq? Only in the vaguest technical sense. Of course it's wrong that over 100,000 Iraqis were murdered to satisfy Bush's ideological vanity and that of his cohorts. I personally never supported the idea of attacking Iraq, I never fired a shot, I didn't kill anyone, so the guilt doesn't fall on my shoulders. If I didn't think that it would breed even more resentment among the failing civilizational quagmire that is the Mideast, I'd say we should pull all troops out of the region tomorrow... but of course, it's far too late for that. It was a mistake we'll probably be paying for long after the men who made it are dead and gone, but other than that? Fuck it. As far as I'm concerned, Bush has no sense of his own failure in this matter, and that is the most dangerous part, as well as the only way I feel it bears on this election.
I wish I lived in a world where I could vote based upon my principles, on a true inner feeling that I had a candidate whose views I believed in. Sadly, I don't live in that world, nor am I likely to unless I leave this country for good. Once again, I am forced to choose the lesser of two evils, and vote on expediency, not policy, in hopes that somehow we'll manage to keep the wolves from our door for that much longer.
I'd very much like to not lose what little faith I have left in this country, please.
At the end of the day, we could really have done a lot worse than Bush-- Robert Mugabe, anyone?-- but based on all available evidence, the man is the worst president in U.S. history. I voted for Kerry not out of any deep personal conviction that he's the man for the job, but I think he has a real chance to win this thing, and while I doubt he'll be able to accomplish much with the cosmic clusterfuck he'll inherit, he's far and away better than the alternative. Bush's positions on the environment and gay rights (the two issues always closest to my heart) are indefensible and reprehensible, and even if I didn't think that he's a mass murderer who should be tried for war crimes along with every member of his senior staff, I'd want to give him the boot for just those reasons.
Do I care about Iraq? Only in the vaguest technical sense. Of course it's wrong that over 100,000 Iraqis were murdered to satisfy Bush's ideological vanity and that of his cohorts. I personally never supported the idea of attacking Iraq, I never fired a shot, I didn't kill anyone, so the guilt doesn't fall on my shoulders. If I didn't think that it would breed even more resentment among the failing civilizational quagmire that is the Mideast, I'd say we should pull all troops out of the region tomorrow... but of course, it's far too late for that. It was a mistake we'll probably be paying for long after the men who made it are dead and gone, but other than that? Fuck it. As far as I'm concerned, Bush has no sense of his own failure in this matter, and that is the most dangerous part, as well as the only way I feel it bears on this election.
I wish I lived in a world where I could vote based upon my principles, on a true inner feeling that I had a candidate whose views I believed in. Sadly, I don't live in that world, nor am I likely to unless I leave this country for good. Once again, I am forced to choose the lesser of two evils, and vote on expediency, not policy, in hopes that somehow we'll manage to keep the wolves from our door for that much longer.
I'd very much like to not lose what little faith I have left in this country, please.
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