Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
When working in a medium sized office setting, you tend to share links with your co-workers, and then forget to show your other friends. This is a demonstration of what a recent study claims we spend 25% of our office time doing (while maintaining or even increasing productivity). Our managers, on the other hand, would call them "distractions".
9 comments:
Understanding its limitations, what would you like to see from US politics? Seriously.
I can't answer this question.
Not today.
I understand. Prop 8 was a bit of a blow to my faith in U.S. democracy as well.
Prop 8 wasn't a blow to my faith in democracy. It was one of the most clearly written, unambiguous, measures on the ballot. No no, Prop 8 was a blow to my faith in humanity.
I'm more with Elex on the Prop 8 thing. It wasn't Democracy's fault that people are afraid of couples that can't reproduce together, but need some kind of outside help to do it. 5,387,939 people decided to give into a fear that I just can't understand and that knocks out a portion of my already low opinion of humanity. Democracy just did it's job and let that 52.5% of the voters set a nasty tone.
I still can't answer your question, even though I've given thought.
See, unlike so many other Obama supporters, I didn't get it. I never experienced that elation or sense of hope other felt. I looked at him and tried to figure out who the hell he was and it bothered me that so many looked at him and only saw him as the new protector of Democracy. I saw him and, while I hoped he'd beat McCain, figured that he'd just be another president, like Clinton was, or Carter. And I fully expect him to just be a president. When he won on Tuesday night many saw it as a vote from the people for hope. I only saw it as a vote against what was the current status quo.
Is change coming? I don't know, but did change really come when Clinton was elected? Or Carter? Or Johnson? Or Kennedy?
Sadly well-behaved democracies are predicated upon an informed and humane electorate. Further, the structure of our democracy in California allows a small majority to make a potentially huge change in law, surpassing even our elected representatives ability to make changes. People are the problem in any government, but in this case, the people are allowed to make a amendment to our state constitution taking away rights without a 2/3 majority. It is a winner takes all system, and that is problematic.
The president is just one person, albeit with more power than most-- they can only be the loci of some change, and political systems will always be imperfect. However, better guarded civil liberties, a more liberal supreme court, support for social programs and non-unilateral foreign policy count as change to me. I'm not sure what you would count as genuine change.
I'd be quite delighted if he were just another good, not great president.
"Change" for most BO supporters represents the change that the country has already been through so that is even possible for him to be president, and a simple break from Bush administration policies.
We were not promised, nor will we get, a radical who spends all his time completely overhauling American politics.
Oh, and yes, there is definitely a subset of the democratic party that have invested way to much in the idea that Obama changes everything, IMHO. There is always a group ready to drink the cool-aid.
Post a Comment