Oh we'll probably get fooled again.
The song’s too long to post here, but has anyone noticed that The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is perfect for the current election? The lyrics include:
These ladies will be dropping all out of their vagina panties.
A letter to my momma for Obama
My mom doesn’t live in a swing state; my family has lived in Lima, New York for almost two decades. My father is likely already voting Democrat. But to see my mother vote for Obama would be, to me, a personal redemption. I love her and I have faith in her to make a good choice. She is an evangelical Christian with a brain and a heart. She is not the caricature of the Christian right. But I don’t know who will get her vote.
This isn’t a brilliant letter. It’s just the end of an e-mail where I talked about our families. But I felt so emotional by the end — and this was partly because of the talk about our families, and because it’s been a rough couple of weeks for me, and I’m getting tired of my life teetering between the brink of success and the brink of failure — that I thought I’d share my feelings with some other people. There’s probably not much new here for you. For background: My younger brother got a girl pregnant last year, and she kept the baby but kept smoking and drinking and stopped talking to him, so he only heard through friends that she miscarried. My mother’s brother is gay and lives with his partner.
I’ve watched all the debates, and you know I can get worked up about politics. I’ve been volunteering for the Obama campaign, calling swing state voters, urging Obama supporters to vote early where they can. I just feel so confident in this man’s ability to turn the country around, and so devastated by the prospect of another term with a dangerous man at the wheel.
I see in the Obama family a good upright family. These are people I would be proud to know. Obama reminds me of Pastor Dick Dreyer, in that I couldn’t imagine him ever being nasty to someone. On the other hand, I can hardly imagine John McCain not being nasty. And you know that personal character like that plays out in how someone runs any organization. You’ve seen it with every small-minded boss and chairman you’ve had to fight because you wanted to make good things, to do good work.
I know that you strongly disagree with Obama on some core moral issues. He wants to allow a woman to choose whether or not to have her child. And his vice president Joe Biden, who personally does not condone abortion, still does not believe it is the government’s role to decide this. But both of them have stressed that they want to prevent abortions. They want to teach teenagers to be responsible. You personally know that a good young man with two God-fearing parents can still make huge mistakes, and that it’s better for him to know his weakness and guard against it than to simply ignore all he knows in one passionate moment and thus end up in a terrible situation — sometimes with a mother who cares nothing for what might happen to her child if it’s born with fetal alcohol syndrome, nicotine addiction, and a disastrous home environment. Obama wants to help people climb out of this wallowing pit of despair. McCain, I believe, does not.
Obama also supports certain rights for gay couples. Again, you personally know that whatever your personal stand on couples like Timothy and Brandon, you love your brother and you extend that love to someone else important in his life. And if something were to happen to Brandon, you would want Timothy to have the right to visit him in the hospital. That’s what Obama is fighting for. McCain is not.
As a young struggling creative professional, I’m worried about paying my taxes and affording health care. Right now I don’t know how I’ll do the former, and I don’t have the latter. In one year, if anything should happen to me, Obama will be working on a plan that might let me get medical coverage without bankrupting myself. McCain will not.
I get worked up about this. Because this is more extreme than any previous election I’ve lived through. Yes, I wish Al Gore had beaten George Bush and kept us out of a war in Iraq that killed thousands of young men without making you or me any safer. Yes, I wish John Kerry had beaten George Bush and stopped that same war. But neither of these men gave me so much hope for what good *people* we could be, what kind of honest people could still take charge of the country. At Obama’s rallies, his supporters are chanting, “Yes we can.” At McCain and Palin’s, they shout “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” And the campaign has done nothing to stop them. The Secret Service told the press they had to beef up the Democratic candidate’s security in anticipation of threats to his life. This ugliness scares me. And I will not let it drag our country back into depression and needless wars and death.
Sorry. Like I said. I get worked up.
