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Oct. 29th, 2008 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerI have to admire some commentators' heroic efforts to maintain that the two sides in this election are indistinguishable. I didn't think there was anywhere to stand that far off. It's no wonder they can't hear that clearly what the rest of us are saying. I mean, the air must be pretty thin out there.
Let's say it again: Obama is not perfect. McCain is not the devil. Neither party is in possession of a monopoly of good or evil. Hardly anybody seriously thinks they are, or says they are. One will be better for America, and better for the world, than the other; that is abundantly, manifestly, and I would have thought unavoidably apparent to everyone. (Shows how much I know.) Trying to make them seem equivalent, trying to imply that seeing them as different is fanatical extremism, seems not entirely unakin to a desperate attempt to recapture some ground for the currently losing side, or at least to put a few people off voting at all.
Sigh. As I say, I have to admire them, but I still hope they don't succeed. At the moment, from where I stand (which is far enough away to get a perspective, but not far enough away to be safe if this all goes wrong), more of America than ever is aware of the issues that need to be faced, and seems to have decided who is best qualified to deal with them. I'd really hate to see that spoiled.
Let's say it again: Obama is not perfect. McCain is not the devil. Neither party is in possession of a monopoly of good or evil. Hardly anybody seriously thinks they are, or says they are. One will be better for America, and better for the world, than the other; that is abundantly, manifestly, and I would have thought unavoidably apparent to everyone. (Shows how much I know.) Trying to make them seem equivalent, trying to imply that seeing them as different is fanatical extremism, seems not entirely unakin to a desperate attempt to recapture some ground for the currently losing side, or at least to put a few people off voting at all.
Sigh. As I say, I have to admire them, but I still hope they don't succeed. At the moment, from where I stand (which is far enough away to get a perspective, but not far enough away to be safe if this all goes wrong), more of America than ever is aware of the issues that need to be faced, and seems to have decided who is best qualified to deal with them. I'd really hate to see that spoiled.
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Date: 2008-10-29 06:31 pm (UTC)I. Before I was old enough to vote, School teacher turned US Senator Lyndon Johnson ran against Air Force General turned US Senator Barry Goldwater. Johnson was the Peace candidate, Goldwater was the hawk. Johnson turned out to be the guy who go us mired in Vietnam and couldn't get us out.
II. I joined the US Peace Corps because Nixon was re-elected. I wanted to be out of the country. I voted for Jimmy Carter from the US Embassy in Bangkok, partly because his mother had been one of the first Peace Corps volunteers, and I expected Carter to expand the peace side of US foreign policy the way Kennedy would have done. Boy, was that a disaster.