melannen | (no subject)

1. Just to prove that the power of ignorance, corruption, and deliberately deceptive campaigning is still active, slots passed in Maryland. Screw you, too, Maryland, except luckily you've done it to yourself.

2. The House race in Maryland's District One looks like it's still too close to call and may end up in recount. This is the race where an outside wingnut group funded the Republican incumbent's ultraconservative opponent to a win in the primary, which resulted in the much-published quote from the incumbent "Let's see, the Republican Party, or my eternal soul?" and his endorsement of the Democrat.

...most of the Democrats I know in District One are New Deal Demcrats. I.E. they haven't voted for a Republican in sixty years and aren't going to start now. But there was just *something* about that Barack kid they felt like they couldn't trust, so many of them just didn't go vote.

If Kratovil lost, that's why.

3. Early voting also seems to have passed Maryland. I didn't feel strongly about this one, but ended up voting against it because of the creeping feeling that before very long, something was going to go badly wrong with early voting somewhere. ...it appears Georgia is in the process of proving me right.

4. Minnesota: ...Michele Bachmann got re-elected. Pretty handily, in fact.

The Senate race is still too close to call, and probably going to take a recount. But the mere idea of people saying "Senator Al Franken" with a straight face is making me all tingly. Not sure what *kind* of tingles, but definitely tingly.

(...there's still a fair chance at Stevens, Merkley, and Chambliss, too, which means 59 liberals + Lieberman in the senate. On the downside, it would mean Lieberman is still relevant.)

5. All the homophobic crap on ballot initiatives: goddammit. On the other hand, people are no longer letting it determine their upballot votes? I'm actually not too angry about the Arkansas adoption vote - at least it's not discriminatory, and I have a feeling it'll screw up the child protection system enough that people might actually start to think. If people keep taking rights away from unmarried straights, it might actually cause the total rethinking of marriage that this country needs.

AZ prop 102, Florida 2 and California 8, especially 8, though: suck.

All the other major culture war issues came out ahead or tied though: assisted suicide, abortion, even legalizing marijuana won more than they lost. In the year a black man won the presidency, the major ballot measures that lost were pro-discrimination. What's that about?

I was with some Democratic canvassers yesterday and brought up prop 8 and they said things like "I just wish they wouldn't try to call it marriage!" I have Thoughts on this kind of thing, but they would be way too involved for this post.

6. Looking Ahead: Barack Obama's record, experience, and positions are *way* better than any president-elect we've had since, like, Carter, but they're far from perfect, and he really does have an Augean stables to clean out.

On the other hand, he's already diverted one river. He only has do to it again. (And again. And again.)

The thing that people who are worried about what he'll do in office need to remember is: he ran on populism, grass-roots activism, hope, delegation, independence, and hard work. The problem with running a campaign like that is that you are teaching the people how to *hold you accountable*.

I think the reason that my favorite bit of the speech last night was the puppy is that it shows that he means it about being honest and being accountable. Sure, politicians break campaign promises all the time, but it takes *real* evil to lie to your daughters about adopting them a puppy. Accountability.

And the benefit of running a campaign like that is that you are teaching people how to back you up.

...so yeah. He's really damn skilled at what he does, he knows how to get (millions of) people to stand up and help him to it, and his character and thought and ideals are strong and honorable and good. I think, yes, he can. And I think we can, too.

As long as he doesn't get shot. (...even if he gets shot, to be brutally honest.)

7. I felt terribly sad for McCain at his concession last night; he'd cast everything on one last throw and lost, and the crowd reactions still weren't helping. On the other hand, I can't help feeling very relieved for him. As a lot of people said, the man who conceded the election is the man we all wish had run in it. That man is still a sexist, arrogant, privileged douchebag, but he's a sexist douchebag with principles and respect. I think McCain was glad to have him back, too.

And the Republican Party is pretty undeniably, inescapably, nonfunctionally broken. So maybe we can finally either fix it or get a new one. That would be *amazing*.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In the year a black man won the presidency, the major ballot measures that lost were pro-discrimination. What's that about?

If I hear one more person tell me "Well, see, a black man is president (elect) now, so obviously there is no racism! Take that, black people in my life!" I will scream.

But that may be part of it. I don't know.

It's part of the human psyche, the need to know that everyone else isn't getting all the goodies in life.

The people who oppose gay marriage need a reason -- any reason -- to look down on someone else.

Did you see the commentor on Shakes yesterday saying "I don't see why you'd be mad at me for opposing gay marriage - it's just a difference of opinion! I don't hate gays, I just think they can't be married!"

I think CE ate him.

Liss banned him. And then she banned the other one who showed up afterward.

Good for her.

Now if Pandagon would just ban PiaToR...

He's not banned at Shakesville, either, though Liss regularly calls him an asshole.

I really think there are three reasons people oppose gay marriage:

1. They traded their souls in order to stay closeted, and if gays gain equal rights, that means they traded their souls for *nothing*, and they can't face that.

2. They need somebody to look down on so that they can be up high.

3. They have never really given any thought to how marriage actually works in the present, or how non-heteronormative people really live and love, and are operating from a non-reality-based understanding of the issue (and the institutions), such that they truly don't see it as an issue of discrimination at all.

The people in category 1) are deeply sad and to be pitied, and when we fight for gay rights, we fight to reclaim their souls, too.

The people in category 2) are hopeless, often in both ways of reading that, and the best we can do is try to keep them from spreading their poison to others (and to work to make their lives better so they have something to live on other than hate.)

I don't know what the proportions of 1 to 2 are in the anti-gay movement (although I bet 1 are disproportionately represented in the leadership), but together they aren't enough to get these things passed, especially in states like California.

It's the people in 3) who are capable of changing their minds, and I think they're slowly, but inexorably, doing that. The problem is getting the them and the pro-gay people to really see each other, and we're starting from such fundamentally different places that it's sometimes impossibly hard to do that (from both sides.)

The other interesting thing about the ballot measures yesterday is that there were two states trying to end affirmative action.

The state that went to Obama kept it. The state that went to McCain ended it.

...yes, _clearly_, racism must be over! White people everywhere know it!

...*sigh*

Michigan voted in 2006 to end affirmative action, and we're not even a particularly red state...

-Aaron

(I got bored yesterday and scanned the rest of TJ while studying. I'm dumping them in your directory so it all stays together.)

(I re-dl'ed your calm-down mix and it seems to be working at least in iTunes. Have not synced w/iPod yet but hopefully it will work there too. Arg.)