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Election Notes
The [dep]r[ec]ession has left me with a high load of stress and anxiety, but so has the election. It's not just the politics involved; I think some of it is related to my personal issues that are now tied to presidential elections. It's a tapeworm on my mind; I need to know more, but the more I know the more ancious I get.
For a while, McCain was gaining traction by coopting Obama's framing of Change, but ever since the economy started tanking, he's been struggling to find a message that meant anything. It's strange that the message we've been hearing from McCain/Palin about "Real America" seems to admit that they're resigning themselves to diametrically opposing the hope of unity that shot Obama onto the national stage four years ago:
With the rampant racism that's been coming out in this election, it occurs to me that most defenses of racism or any sort of oppression boil down to the following rebuttal:
(A nod to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yeloson's "The Art of Defending Racism.")
On the Airtalk today, the discussion was on "Proposition 8: Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry." (A recording should be available for listening eventually.) The arguments for eliminating the right to marry were pretty hard to follow. The spokesperson, Richard Peterson of Pepperdine, was defending the most recent campaign ads aimed at eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry, ones that focus on how children at public schools may be taught that same-sex marriages exist. All of this stems from the recognition by the California Supreme Court that homosexuals are a protected class, something that he expressly admitted he was mostly opposed to. But despite efforts by the host to pin him down, he never addressed why removing a particular civil right from a protected class was going to do anything about the problem.
And what I personally found strangest was how he argued that same-sex couples were not a class of citizens who needed their civil rights protected while, at the same time, he was campaigning to strip them of their civil rights.
Also, speaking of "The Art of Defending Racism," I can recall tactics C.1 ("They are restricting my freedom of speech by calling me a bigot.") and B.9 ("I'm not a bigot, because I defended the civil rights of disabled children.") in the same tirade (parenthetical quotes are paraphrases). That's a nice combo attack right there, if he weren't on a radio show specifically focused on eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry, he probably could have chained B.3 and B.4 for MASSIVE DAMAGE.
For a while, McCain was gaining traction by coopting Obama's framing of Change, but ever since the economy started tanking, he's been struggling to find a message that meant anything. It's strange that the message we've been hearing from McCain/Palin about "Real America" seems to admit that they're resigning themselves to diametrically opposing the hope of unity that shot Obama onto the national stage four years ago:
Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America.What was the McCain campaign expecting? What sort of trap did they think they were laying when they decided, "I think the best way to win this election is to squarely align ourselves with the strawman villain drawn by our rhetorically gifted opponent?" What made them think that we weren't going to get the kind of speech Obama gave in Richmond yesterday:
There are no real or fake parts of this country. We are not separated by the pro-America and anti-America parts of this nation - we all love this country, no matter where we live or where we come from. There are patriots who supported this war in Iraq and patriots who opposed it; patriots who believe in Democratic policies and those who believe in Republican policies. The men and women from Virginia and all across America who serve on our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.When your opponent is winning on a message of uniting the United States, how do you run on a platform of "Screw unity, you guys really enjoying hating those other guys!"
With the rampant racism that's been coming out in this election, it occurs to me that most defenses of racism or any sort of oppression boil down to the following rebuttal:
- I can assure you that I am not an asshole.
- Therefore, you have no right to ask that I stop acting like an asshole.
(A nod to
yeloson's "The Art of Defending Racism.")On the Airtalk today, the discussion was on "Proposition 8: Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry." (A recording should be available for listening eventually.) The arguments for eliminating the right to marry were pretty hard to follow. The spokesperson, Richard Peterson of Pepperdine, was defending the most recent campaign ads aimed at eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry, ones that focus on how children at public schools may be taught that same-sex marriages exist. All of this stems from the recognition by the California Supreme Court that homosexuals are a protected class, something that he expressly admitted he was mostly opposed to. But despite efforts by the host to pin him down, he never addressed why removing a particular civil right from a protected class was going to do anything about the problem.
And what I personally found strangest was how he argued that same-sex couples were not a class of citizens who needed their civil rights protected while, at the same time, he was campaigning to strip them of their civil rights.
Also, speaking of "The Art of Defending Racism," I can recall tactics C.1 ("They are restricting my freedom of speech by calling me a bigot.") and B.9 ("I'm not a bigot, because I defended the civil rights of disabled children.") in the same tirade (parenthetical quotes are paraphrases). That's a nice combo attack right there, if he weren't on a radio show specifically focused on eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry, he probably could have chained B.3 and B.4 for MASSIVE DAMAGE.