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rmOkay, I'm actually not going to make a list of all the voting fraud links, because the stories seem to be breaking and people seem to know what is going on. As was said in comments to the previous post -- the issue isn't so much whether Kerry really won (he probably didn't), but that this problems undermine our system, regardless of whether they are the result of fraud, negligence or just plain stupidity.
Instead, I want to talk about America, the Insecure. Originally, this was going to be one of those things addressed to you red state people, but this issue I think runs broader and deeper and is endangering our society well outside of the realm of politics.
I think the number one thing nearly everyone in this country probably needs to do right now is ask themselves what they're afraid of, and then ask themselves what they should really be afraid of instead. And I wish a whole hell of a lot more people had engaged in this particular manner of introspection before the election.
To begin with, I want to rant about "security moms" the phenomena I tried to ignore during the election because it was too ridiculous, too offensive and too media manufactured for me to address with any sort of calm. Well, the more I talk to people, the more I absorb media, the more the security mom cannot be avoided.
Security moms make me angry. I think they are selfish and ignorant. As the media presents them to me (and I've seen several so-called "typical" ones interviewed on the news), these women live in a constant paranoid ecstasy of making plans and backup plans to make sure their children are safe from terrorists on the way to and from school. They cancel family vacations so that they never need take a plane, and have backpacks of emergency rations in their houses. They vote for Bush, and they live nowhere near anything that any rational person could consider a likely terrorist target. Now granted, you can argue that terrorism isn't rational, and therefor we should all be paranoid and vigilant -- certainly I'm not saying people shouldn't keep their eyes open and take reasonable precautions. But if I can get through a day without living in fear, and if I can vote without choosing in fear, so can you. All I can say is security moms seem to be doing nothing more than using terrorism as an excuse to salve their insecurities about their ability to parent and control their kids claim dubious personal power through being ignorant control freaks.
Okay, the next national insecurity I want to address is on the subject of gay marriage. If your moral beliefs mean you need to vote for a candidate that wants to legislate this issue in a theoretically secular society, I don't agree with you, but I also don't feel like debating with you right now. However, if your reason (or one of your reasons) for opposing gay marriage is that it will harm the dignity (or some other ineffable quality) of traditionally heterosexual marriage, I want to know, what are you afraid of? Why is your marriage weak and vulnerable to this threat? Do you really base the personal value you place in your marriage on the actions of others? You need better self-esteem or a marriage counsellor, maybe both.
And finally, finances. If I code one more article about people taking out home equity loans because they don't understand the difference between "need" and "want", because they feel a need to keep up with neightbors when it comes to "lifestyle" instead of cutting back even in non-dramatic ways (you don't need to match their SUV), I am going to scream. I understand the impulse to say "this bad spell will be brief, let's just ride it out without hardship", but should our current economic problems as a nation be long term, if the price of oil isn't a blip that's going to correct in January (and it's not, btw), not only are you putting your long term quality of life at risk for "lifestyle" issues, but you're also contributing to long-term serious macroeconomic problems, that are looming over a few different horizons, and are going to be horrendous when the housing bubble bursts.
More self-restraint, less fear makes us all safer and more honest.
Instead, I want to talk about America, the Insecure. Originally, this was going to be one of those things addressed to you red state people, but this issue I think runs broader and deeper and is endangering our society well outside of the realm of politics.
I think the number one thing nearly everyone in this country probably needs to do right now is ask themselves what they're afraid of, and then ask themselves what they should really be afraid of instead. And I wish a whole hell of a lot more people had engaged in this particular manner of introspection before the election.
To begin with, I want to rant about "security moms" the phenomena I tried to ignore during the election because it was too ridiculous, too offensive and too media manufactured for me to address with any sort of calm. Well, the more I talk to people, the more I absorb media, the more the security mom cannot be avoided.
Security moms make me angry. I think they are selfish and ignorant. As the media presents them to me (and I've seen several so-called "typical" ones interviewed on the news), these women live in a constant paranoid ecstasy of making plans and backup plans to make sure their children are safe from terrorists on the way to and from school. They cancel family vacations so that they never need take a plane, and have backpacks of emergency rations in their houses. They vote for Bush, and they live nowhere near anything that any rational person could consider a likely terrorist target. Now granted, you can argue that terrorism isn't rational, and therefor we should all be paranoid and vigilant -- certainly I'm not saying people shouldn't keep their eyes open and take reasonable precautions. But if I can get through a day without living in fear, and if I can vote without choosing in fear, so can you. All I can say is security moms seem to be doing nothing more than using terrorism as an excuse to salve their insecurities about their ability to parent and control their kids claim dubious personal power through being ignorant control freaks.
Okay, the next national insecurity I want to address is on the subject of gay marriage. If your moral beliefs mean you need to vote for a candidate that wants to legislate this issue in a theoretically secular society, I don't agree with you, but I also don't feel like debating with you right now. However, if your reason (or one of your reasons) for opposing gay marriage is that it will harm the dignity (or some other ineffable quality) of traditionally heterosexual marriage, I want to know, what are you afraid of? Why is your marriage weak and vulnerable to this threat? Do you really base the personal value you place in your marriage on the actions of others? You need better self-esteem or a marriage counsellor, maybe both.
And finally, finances. If I code one more article about people taking out home equity loans because they don't understand the difference between "need" and "want", because they feel a need to keep up with neightbors when it comes to "lifestyle" instead of cutting back even in non-dramatic ways (you don't need to match their SUV), I am going to scream. I understand the impulse to say "this bad spell will be brief, let's just ride it out without hardship", but should our current economic problems as a nation be long term, if the price of oil isn't a blip that's going to correct in January (and it's not, btw), not only are you putting your long term quality of life at risk for "lifestyle" issues, but you're also contributing to long-term serious macroeconomic problems, that are looming over a few different horizons, and are going to be horrendous when the housing bubble bursts.
More self-restraint, less fear makes us all safer and more honest.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 03:47 pm (UTC)That's 5 times the number of deaths in the 9/11 attacks and US soldiers in Iraq combined. And where is the anger? Where is the pre-emptive strike? Who's beating the war drum?
But the 9/11 attacks were poetic, metaphysical events, and are lodged into the national psyche. In a way Bush is right -- the reality-based people have it wrong. It's not about reality, it's about perception and mass consciousness. Terrorism is far less of a danger than commuting on the highways to work, but it will never be perceived that way.
I don't really know if I have a point, necessarily. Other than that a mass illogicism isn't all that surprising.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 03:51 pm (UTC)What's additionally amazing is that Vioxx is not any more efficacious than aspirin, it just doesn't aggravate people's stomachs.
This drug never deserved to be a blockbuster, never deserved to make the money it did, and now has harmed a ton of people, and it looks like the FDA's willful negligence is as stunningly abhorant as Merck's dishonesty about the whole thing.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 03:56 pm (UTC)I don't trust the FDA for anything. Whether it's this or the flu vaccine or mad cow disease. Big business effects every aspect of our political system, and drug manufacturers are one of the biggest. ...or are they THE biggest? I forget.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 04:04 pm (UTC)Part of treating arthritis is inflamation reduction which acetamophn doesn't do, leaving us with ibuprofin and asprin. About 5% of the population doesn't have the receptors for ibuprofin to work at all (I'm one of the lucy winners as is my mother), leaving asprin. Asprin use in the quantities necessary to treat chronic arthritis pain is at best hard on the stomach and at worst downright dangerous. Combine with this with the fact that arthritis sufferers are mostly older and more sensitive to the irritating effects of asprin (even coated asprin) and you get Vioxx, which when it comes to dealing with pain is in fact no more significant in its abilities than asprin.
There's a reason several companies with OTC ibuprofin products are now running ads marketing them as an alternative to Vioxx. Because they always were for nearly everyone taking the drug.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 05:04 pm (UTC)Fascinating, that explains why ibuprofen doesn't work on Becca at all. It works as poorly as every other pain reliever does on me (ie I must double the normal dose to make it work for me).
Wrt the whole Merck mess and danger in general, I was darkly amused to read that more people in the US die every year from work-related accidents than died in the 9/11 attacks, and of course, far more die every year in auto accidents. Our perceptions of danger are vastly skewed. I also have nothing but contempt for people who regard terrorism as something they need to fear and actively guard against.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 05:36 pm (UTC)We haven't heard any stories of people losing their houses to this, but as you have said if whatever economic bubble we're living under bursts, there's going to be a lot of people in a lot of trouble.
I'll grouse and complain about my debt level at times, but then I'll hear about people who are farther in debt than I make in a year (or more) and I simply can't fathom how that happens. I mean short of a medical crisis.
Can't say as I disagree with your other points either...
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 06:32 pm (UTC)I didn't do a home loan to match the neighbors. I did it to fix a house that needing massive fixing for 16 years and it was time. Then was conned by a con artist who took $190,000 from me and ran off. Now I have to take a loan against my own savings (all of it, entirely) to fix the messed-up house that was messed up to start with and is now worse.
I'm sorry, but not all home equity loans are done to keep up with the Joneses. Some are done to fix aging homes. At 200+, this house needed a lot. Now I have no roof and there are 50 mph winds tonight. Shall we talk about the cost of heating, too? ;)
(Oh, and my lower-middle-income taxes went up 17% this year due to the "tax cuts." Wanna hit on that? Another tax cut and I'm literally on the sidewalk. Wait, we don't have sidewalks around here -- wow, I'm really screwed.)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 06:57 pm (UTC)I have been reading specific articles, about specific people taking out home equity loans specifically for bigger TVs and new cars lately, and that offends and worries me.
People doing what they need to do to survive -- well the only thing that offends me there is that we've got a world that allows things to come to this.
Anyway, absolutely on your side, and I'm sorry if I added to the stress for even a heartbeat.