after election day
Nov. 3rd, 2004 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ayashiI wrote this between Violence in American Culture and 3D modeling, but livejournal was being slow and wouldn't let me post it.
As a disclaimer, none of my "you"s are pointed at anyone I know here on livejournal, because overwhelmingly you are not the people I am talking about. This includes those who voted for Bush or Kerry, since that is not my main issue here...
Had an interesting and depressing talk today in Violence in American Culture. Perez Ventura is a very intelligent man. We talked for almost an hour about the election, the votes, and the issues surrounding the election. Why we are worried for the next four years (republicans dominating everything, supreme court going to lose some more liberal judges which will be replaced). I am, I think, the most upset that the main issue when people were polled that they thought of for the elections was morals. Morals above jobs, above the war, above education.
How is it more important to you that a woman not be allowed to choose to have her child or not, than the fact that if you lose the job you're holding you probably won't be able to find another one? The lack of jobs has affected my family very strongly, which is one reason why I feel so strongly about it. My dad lost his job at Crane and Co. a few months before September 11th. After September 11th he had NO hope of finding another one, especially considering he is over 50 and no one wants to hire a guy his age no matter how much experience he has. But the lack of jobs was one of the worst things to affect him, which is why he didn't even start getting PAID until recently.
We talked a lot about religion. In my dean's book class earlier in the morning, Dan said his mentor here at UMass has a friend in Ohio, who had gone to church. The priest told them, "If you do not vote for Bush, you will go to Hell. Your children will go to Hell." A country where religion has such a strong hold on the decisions of the people, because they want this religion forced upon others, is sick. Deanna in Violence mentioned a friend of hers is majoring in Forestry with a concentration in Conservation. She voted for Bush because of the issue of abortion. How is the matter of CHOICE of having an abortion more important than her future after college of finding and maintaining that job?
More than Bush winning, I can't believe what America thinks are important issues. Abortion? Gay marriage? These things have NOTHING to do with the average person. If you don't like abortion, don't have one. Two men or two women getting married to each other is also none of your business! People are so concerned about limiting each other rather than making the world better for everyone. One person campaigning for Kerry was calling houses, and one old lady said that she wasn't going to vote for a man that was going to make everyone have abortions. No one is MAKING it happen. The issue is not that you have to do it or have to not do it, the issue is whether you should have a choice. Then people thinking (as another classmate mentioned) that Kerry was going to instantly pull troops out of Iraq? That's simply not possible! To do that would be a horrible mistake in a million and one ways. (He also NEVER said he would do that...) Just because maybe that war would not be taking place if not for Bush, that doesn't mean the troops would be pulled out. They can't now, it's gone too far. It would be finished up.
This is all besides the fact that a war on terror can never be won. The war on terror is like the war on drugs - completely futile. You cannot defeat something like terror or drugs. It springs up everywhere and anywhere. Especially terrorism? To fully destory terrorism or thoughts of it, everyone would have to think the same about everything. There is always one person who is someday going to go so far as to attack. The "terrorists" are one group now and have been given a face, but even if they were all wiped out, the war would not be won. A terrorist is not any one person or any group of people, it isn't something that ends when those people die. A war on something like terror, when "over", will only be looked upon as failure. If not one group, it'll be another group commiting acts of terror next. Maybe not in America, but somewhere else.
Seeing the two lonely strips of blue on opposite ends of the country was very discouraging for me. Not only the president, but so many other things, like what a large republican majority means, and in the supreme court. this may not affect everyone's lives that is upset about this election right now. maybe none of us will feel any repercussions of this election for the next four years, but i feel like more people are angry about this president than others that i may be able to remember. another topic brought up in Violence was, how can they even THINK about impeaching Clinton who lied about his love life, when there is our president now who got us into a war (over oil), claiming that mysterious weapons of mass destruction existed which there were no proof of?
I'm just pretty pissed off over much of American citizens really messed up priorities. It is sick that enough people voted to outlaw gay marriage in 11 states. Why do they CARE? why should anyone care? gay men and women deserve those rights, as human beings, the same as everyone else. everyone knows there is not a true separation of church and state, but it still makes me furious that there blatantly is a huge connection rather than a separation.
in any case, does anyone know what was voted for the two questions on the ballots? (the first being that the patroit act is not okay, the second being that if both parents are able that they should be able to both see a child after separation)
As a disclaimer, none of my "you"s are pointed at anyone I know here on livejournal, because overwhelmingly you are not the people I am talking about. This includes those who voted for Bush or Kerry, since that is not my main issue here...
Had an interesting and depressing talk today in Violence in American Culture. Perez Ventura is a very intelligent man. We talked for almost an hour about the election, the votes, and the issues surrounding the election. Why we are worried for the next four years (republicans dominating everything, supreme court going to lose some more liberal judges which will be replaced). I am, I think, the most upset that the main issue when people were polled that they thought of for the elections was morals. Morals above jobs, above the war, above education.
How is it more important to you that a woman not be allowed to choose to have her child or not, than the fact that if you lose the job you're holding you probably won't be able to find another one? The lack of jobs has affected my family very strongly, which is one reason why I feel so strongly about it. My dad lost his job at Crane and Co. a few months before September 11th. After September 11th he had NO hope of finding another one, especially considering he is over 50 and no one wants to hire a guy his age no matter how much experience he has. But the lack of jobs was one of the worst things to affect him, which is why he didn't even start getting PAID until recently.
We talked a lot about religion. In my dean's book class earlier in the morning, Dan said his mentor here at UMass has a friend in Ohio, who had gone to church. The priest told them, "If you do not vote for Bush, you will go to Hell. Your children will go to Hell." A country where religion has such a strong hold on the decisions of the people, because they want this religion forced upon others, is sick. Deanna in Violence mentioned a friend of hers is majoring in Forestry with a concentration in Conservation. She voted for Bush because of the issue of abortion. How is the matter of CHOICE of having an abortion more important than her future after college of finding and maintaining that job?
More than Bush winning, I can't believe what America thinks are important issues. Abortion? Gay marriage? These things have NOTHING to do with the average person. If you don't like abortion, don't have one. Two men or two women getting married to each other is also none of your business! People are so concerned about limiting each other rather than making the world better for everyone. One person campaigning for Kerry was calling houses, and one old lady said that she wasn't going to vote for a man that was going to make everyone have abortions. No one is MAKING it happen. The issue is not that you have to do it or have to not do it, the issue is whether you should have a choice. Then people thinking (as another classmate mentioned) that Kerry was going to instantly pull troops out of Iraq? That's simply not possible! To do that would be a horrible mistake in a million and one ways. (He also NEVER said he would do that...) Just because maybe that war would not be taking place if not for Bush, that doesn't mean the troops would be pulled out. They can't now, it's gone too far. It would be finished up.
This is all besides the fact that a war on terror can never be won. The war on terror is like the war on drugs - completely futile. You cannot defeat something like terror or drugs. It springs up everywhere and anywhere. Especially terrorism? To fully destory terrorism or thoughts of it, everyone would have to think the same about everything. There is always one person who is someday going to go so far as to attack. The "terrorists" are one group now and have been given a face, but even if they were all wiped out, the war would not be won. A terrorist is not any one person or any group of people, it isn't something that ends when those people die. A war on something like terror, when "over", will only be looked upon as failure. If not one group, it'll be another group commiting acts of terror next. Maybe not in America, but somewhere else.
Seeing the two lonely strips of blue on opposite ends of the country was very discouraging for me. Not only the president, but so many other things, like what a large republican majority means, and in the supreme court. this may not affect everyone's lives that is upset about this election right now. maybe none of us will feel any repercussions of this election for the next four years, but i feel like more people are angry about this president than others that i may be able to remember. another topic brought up in Violence was, how can they even THINK about impeaching Clinton who lied about his love life, when there is our president now who got us into a war (over oil), claiming that mysterious weapons of mass destruction existed which there were no proof of?
I'm just pretty pissed off over much of American citizens really messed up priorities. It is sick that enough people voted to outlaw gay marriage in 11 states. Why do they CARE? why should anyone care? gay men and women deserve those rights, as human beings, the same as everyone else. everyone knows there is not a true separation of church and state, but it still makes me furious that there blatantly is a huge connection rather than a separation.
in any case, does anyone know what was voted for the two questions on the ballots? (the first being that the patroit act is not okay, the second being that if both parents are able that they should be able to both see a child after separation)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-04 03:18 pm (UTC)thomas giroir