The last midterm elections were profoundly different for me than the one that happened this week. First: I was back in a lovely city with no oxygen (Quito, something like 9k feet in altitude) having just wrapped up the event that lives on as "my vacation story trumps your vacation story." I spent some probably irrelevent time explaining to citizens of the empire what was meant by 'midterm elections' and obsessing from afar about how things might turn out. Election night found me in my oxygen-free hotel room, glued to CNN and leaking tears of delight at the idea that perhaps my home turf was not as full of violent sociopaths as I had assumed.
This midterm series finds me in my cozy home, playing a lot of Fable 3, working a lot (with pleasing results), mucking about in the kitchen and garden, and drinking hot buttered rum. Except I'm back to feeling like my turf is just as violent and sociopathic as previous years.
Now, I am not a fan of the two-party system. On those online tests that tell you how you feel about the world, even Ghandi was more of a warmongering tyrant in his political beliefs than I am (this is a paraphrase of whatever test it was, but Ghandi was the guy I was to the left of in the little grid). In 2004, tests suggesting ways of finding out who I agreed with most for a potential president, I was closest to Mike Gravel who is a total crackpot. Kucinich wasn't progressive enough for me.
I expect that most policies I support (legal, regulated and taxed drugs of all kinds, strict limitations on corporate citizenship, capital punishment for large-scale environmental and worker safety crimes, total reform of all policy related to natural resources, equal pay for equal work, full citizenship rights for all citizens and full amnesty for all illegal residents, abolition of NAFTA, immediate energy policy reform, new programs to restore felon rights, unfettered legal access to abortion...and let's make unicorns the national symbol, while I'm at it...) won't be approved by voters, but seriously: what sort of crazy upsidedown world do we live in when 'tax the rich to fund kids' education' gets rejected?
There aren't enough people in this state who make more than 200k in a year to have voted it down by their selfish selves. So, there are many folks with more typical middle class incomes who are
A) idiots
B) sociopaths
C) completely convinced that if their boss has to pay a fairer share of her income in tax she will firm the voter, thus meaning that the voter's kids will be homeless while having a slightly less-crappy education.
D) all of the above
There's also the one about taxing soda and candy. Went down in flames. It was also for education. I was promoting it at work, with the idea of "let my Take 5 habit support your kid's education." In this case, people were claiming it was punitive on the poor. My point is that it was punitive for people who buy candy and soda. Which are luxury items. We tax the hell out of booze and cigarettes (and I wish we would with weed): but somehow candy counts as food.
Is this how baseball fans felt with the mess of steroid scandals? I love the sport that is politics, but I feel nothing but loathing for 65% of participants.
might i suggest a unicorn impaling a bear. in the "good way." and maybe we start with, say, the state bird (no one fucks with the eagles*).
* glenn frey as the state bird?
Posted by: dale hotep | 2010.11.04 at 11:11 PM