Monday, October 27, 2008

Life Changes

So, here's a quick update since I will probably be very quiet over the next couple of weeks, continuing the trend started earlier this month... The boy and I bought a house!  In DC!! In LeDroit Park!!!  We are wicked excited, nervous, scared, elated, anxious, exhausted, and a myriad of other emotions all happening at the same time, on any given day.  The house is a foreclosure and the owners took all of the fixtures, appliances, and environmental systems, so we have been filling our time at Home Depot and will soon be spending all of our time putting in toilets.  We will be out of our current apartment in Columbia Heights before Thanksgiving and then are making the trek back from family visits in Arkansas with a UHAUL of crap my parents have been dying for me to take since I moved out in '99. 

So, yay!  Pictures and the like once we get unpacked...

Oh yeah, and don't forget to vote! 

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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

I'm starting to crush on Campbell Brown

For a long time, she was just one of those many brunette newscasters on CNN.  But lately, she's been doing opinion pieces that I rally like... that are really asking good questions of us and the CNN-reading public.  First, there was the call to "Free Palin," calling out the McCain camp for its own sexism and kidglove handling of Palin.   Today, Brown has a great piece about something that has been bothering me the entire election--why it even matters if Obama is a Muslim (which he's not, not that it should matter), as apparently "Arab" and "Muslim" are bad words that mean terrorist and radical:

Woman at rally: I don't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's an Arab.

Sen. John McCain: No ma'am, no ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. That's what this campaign is all about. He's not, thank you.


Now, I commend Sen. McCain for correcting that woman, for setting the record straight. But I do have one question -- so what if he was?

So what if Obama was Arab or Muslim? So what if John McCain was Arab or Muslim? Would it matter?

When did that become a disqualifier for higher office in our country? When did Arab and Muslim become dirty words? The equivalent of dishonorable or radical?

Whenever this gets raised, the implication is that there is something wrong with being an Arab-American or a Muslim. And the media is complicit here, too.



It's the same logic behind calling someone a "socialist" or a "communist" in order to incite McCarthyist fear.  The only difference is, unlike someone who is Arab or Muslim (or similar in "color" to or wearing traditional garb reminiscent of--sorry Sikhs!!), you can't assume someone is a communist or a socialist just by looking at them.  So, you can't act on your ignorant racism and prejudice towards your friendly neighborhood commie quite so easily as your fellow Arab-Americans or Arab immigrants or Muslim neighbors...  Bleck.


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Sunday, October 12, 2008

Quantum Leap for President

So, the other night, I had this bizarre dream that the boy and I were in Quantum Leap (that beloved-laws of time travel ignoring-magic love and kittens show from the 80s) and that Sam kept leaping into Barack Obama and trying to undue things that future John McCain would use against him when running for President.  And, like the evil leaper from the last season of the show, McCain kept leaping into the same time period and trying to thwart Sam's and our attempts to make Obama an unbeatable candidate who would forever change the future of America for the better--to once make right what once went wrong...   Oh, you know you loved the show! Admit it!

Not to play psychologist or anything, but I think this means one of two things:

Either, I've been watching too much Quantum Leap on the computer before bed and have been finally had my fill of this Presidential season or I think Obama has the potential to be an amazing leader but is being thwarted by the lowball and unfair tactics of the GOP and the emotions of scared Americans.

Craaaaazzyyy....

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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Could Republicans Please...

...open a dictionary or take a history lesson?  McCain's brother (and, ipso facto, the McCain campaign) has been calling Arlington (where I lived for 2 years) and Alexandria Counties in NoVa "communist counties."  Which is funny because a lot of people in DC think that those counties are where all the Young Republicans live... but that's another story for another time.   I also recently saw someone ask on a CNN comment log what "socialist" countries have ever been successful and claiming that Obama was a socialist and going to ruin us...

This has gotten me thinking about erroneous understandings (or, in the case of McCain, blatant use of erroneous understandings to strike fear and hatred in the hearts of those who, apparently, just don't know better), so I think it's time for a little educational time*:

1st:  Being a liberal Democrat is NOT the same as being a Communist.  Most liberal Democrats fully embrace capitalism and a (mostly) free market, but do think that certain social and civil rights should be protected and enforced by the government when bigots out there refuse to get with the times.  Also, at most, people who vote Democrat and are really, really far to the left are Democrat Socialists... which brings me to my second point

2nd:  Socialism is NOT necessarily the same thing as Communism.  In fact, there are several thriving and successful democratic-socialist countries, including Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, England, France, Germany, ANYBODY WHOSE DOLLAR IS WORTH MORE THAN OURS AND HAS HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION FOR EVERYONE!!!!  Socialism doesn't always mean a loss of personal freedoms or individual voice... and it also doesn't mean that there aren't stores with pretty things for us to go chose to buy.  It just means that workers are protected, certain rights are protected, and the market is regulated.  Now, there are varying degrees of this and some examples of socialist governments that abuse their people, but in practice, socialism hasn't equaled communism and might have a lot to offer the world as an economic system... which leads me to my final point.

3rd:  Blaming Socialism for the actions of Communist countries does no justice to socialism as an economic system.  In fact, most communist countries have failed, by and large, because they weren't, in fact, communist.  They were totalitarian regimes built on horrible human rights injustices.  Furthermore, they were often countries that never even had a proletariat/working class, but instead were, and are, peasant countries!  Personally, I don't think that there has ever really been a true socialist/communist country as Marx laid out for these very reasons...plus the fact that there have been several countries where communism was chosen by the people and might have worked, but we (the US) have gone in and nipped that in the bud. 'Cause Democracy really only means pro-US, right?  Sure, there was probably a good chance that the leaders were all Stalins in happy commune clothing, but we'll never (let anyone) know, will we?

So, basically, all I'm saying is that this rhetoric is McCarthyism all over again and just like then, not based in any understanding of the concepts or how they've been manipulated or misused... or, please for the sake of all that is good in this world and will keep us from blowing each other up, successfully adapted and mixed with capitalism.

Amen.


*Please note, that I realized that I am glossing over a lot of economic nuances here... but I felt the need to break this down hard and fast, without going back and rereading Marx again.

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It's true...

White Guilt does decide everything in my life!  Who I vote for, where I live (Ward 1 REPRESENT!), what I choose to cry myself to sleep about at night...

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