Oh beautiful for spacious skies etc.

I'm afraid of a lot of things, but I'm more afraid of McCain winning that anything else in the world right now.

Because if he wins, nothing will be done about our real problems. We won't stop the hemorrhage of money to the war in Iraq, won't restore economic stability and prospects for the future to the middle class, won't turn back the clock on environmental damage, and won't make any strides towards restoring America's strength on the world stage.

We won't get out schools out of the pits they're in compared to other educational systems in the developed world, won't undo the damage done to our civil liberties by the crazy Cheney years, won't protect the civil liberties and freedoms of the most vulnerable among us, and won't fix the infrastructure of the nation that's been starved by years of "little government" for the people, "big government" for the corporations.

We won't get election reform, won't get reduced taxes to the middle class (but if you're in the wealthiest 1 percent of the nation, it's hallelujah time!), won't get new technologies that will eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, and we won't get affordable, accessible health care.

It's true that if Barack Obama wins, he will not personally come to my house and change the batteries in my smoke detector, and try as I might, I don't think he's going to come and fix my chipped toenail polish, either.

And he has no magic wand to fix every single one of those very real problems.

But he'll have the will, my darlings. And McCain actively believes fixing those things is wrong, not his job, not government's job. Government's job, he believes, is to continue to pursue some of those policies, like the war in Iraq and strengthening of the government challenge to constraints on its power, and actively oppose others as "nanny stating" and enabling people to become weak and dependent by using our tax dollars to create an infrastructure that guarantees we'll be the best-educated, healthiest, best-nourished nation on earth because, you know, that would suck for some reason they can't explain but whatever.

The fact that this choice doesn't seen clear to some people, such as those who believe a select number of them will be raptured up to heaven (and may I say, the sooner you go the happier I will be?) and that Barack Obama will personally force all Republican women to abort their pregnancies and be responsible for 40  million abortions in the first month of his presidency is due entirely to the fact that those people are morons. They will never vote on the basis of reason or logic and there is no logic or set of facts that will change what they do because it is, by definition, irrational.

Ranting aside, a friend of mine who is an attorney in a swing state does some work for a landlord, and sometimes she has to file eviction papers against someone. She told me today that she's been telling everyone she evicts, "If Barack were president, this wouldn't be happening to you." And she asks if they're registered to vote.

Sing it, sister.

Comments

[Amber Waves]

Wow, your friend sounds awesome.

As for everything else. It's true, we can't argue with the Jesus!lovers but we can (and will) work to find those people who CAN be convinced. They're out there, we just have to go looking.

[Carol]

If McCain gets in, I'm going to run out of bedrooms for all my American friends who are threatening to head north.

If McCain gets in, I'm building myself a bunker, because frankly? A lot of Republicans scare the beejeezus out of me. I just don't know how to deal with that particular brand of fervor/craziness/religiosity.