March 17th, 2006
Technorati has been acting a bit on the odds the last month or so and I’ve been getting really weird incoming links at random. Yesterday, I got this one, which I had to search the whole page to find the reference to my own website which was last Fall sometime.
Looking back at that, I vaguely recall the whole affair. There was a whole uproar in the blogsphere about “The A-List” which I didn’t get and I still don’t get. In fact, I still haven’t figured out what the “A-List” is and who’s on it. In fact, shortly after writing the post refered to in their post, I kind of forgot about “The A-List” because it was a bit too much like high school and cliquish to me. What I think I got out of it was that it isn’t who you know or who knows you but who links to you and who acknowledges to you and who refers to you.
The strange timing of this is that recently I’ve started trying to be more active out in the blogsphere. I’ve tried to start joining in on “conversations” on other blogs, but what I’ve started to notice is that you can’t just jump into a conversation even a virtual one on the web. Apparently, that’s just like real life.
It’s a little bit like high school too. I feel like I’ve just contributed to the conversation and rather than have anyone respond or agree or disagree, for the most part, I feel ignored or “unheard”, just another face in the crowd.
Maybe I’m just expecting too much or flashing back to high school insecurities.
Tags: blogs, anxiety, hopeless, paranoia
March 1st, 2006
I think I’ve reached a low point today. Reading the news.
More violence in the Middle East. People are dying. Who cares what color their skin is or their nationality or their god? People are dying and it’s just another bullet on the news. Just another day. How easy it is to be detached way over here on this continent in the safety of our living rooms.
More arguing between the Left and Right. Excuses from the Right. Fingerpointing from the Left. No one seems to be doing anything to stop the spiral of this country into a new dark ages.
More
Tags: depression, Middle East, Terrorists, George W. Bush, Democrats, hopeless
September 25th, 2005
Over at In Search of Utopia there’s a post, like many I’ve seen today (and many times in the last four or so years), about how the press is finally waking up to President Bush’s administrations failures, etc. I wrote the below in the comment section but decided that it was something I felt so passionate about, it needed to be here as well.
You know, every time something happens that I would think would “damn” Bush and his administration, I get all hopeful, but no one in power seems to be doing anything about it.
I mean, all of us “liberals” and “Democrats” all point together and yell, “Look there! Look there! See? That’s what we’re talking about!” Then we all high five each other for being right and predicting the end of the “evil administration,” but what does it matter? Who’s actually doing something about it? Where’s the independent council investigating this administration? Where’s the payback for wrong-doing, for cronyism, for poor planning for the war, for any of it?
This administration almost seems untouchable. Of course, they don’t care about the polls…they’re just numbers. Nothing’s going to happen. No one is going to actually do anything.
It’s just so frustrating.
Tags: George W. Bush, hopeless, Democrats, liberals
September 7th, 2005
I’ve been telling myself that one of the reasons I haven’t been writing about Hurricane Katrina is that I’ve been on vacation, but I did find time to post photos daily from my trip. I also haven’t kept up on my blog reads but I’ve seen the devestation of the Gulf Coast in color on television almost every waking moment I was in the hotel room or the airport. It all makes me sad and depressed. When I think of what has been lost, of what could have been prevented, of what a nightmarish mess this has all become, I feel brain dead. I keep waiting for someone to wake me up from all of this — if I feel this way, how must those who are knee and neck deep in it feeling?
And my feelings of dispair are all mixed in with my disappointment in the government in general. It just seems like we’re spiralling into some sort of dictatorship or similar. I feel like our two party system is failing us. I feel like there’s no real checks and balances. I feel like this administration is the very image of the worst kind of American government where lies and mistruths are the rule and people just follow blindly. I’m not saying that the Democrats are much better either.
Anyway, Richard Cranium at the All Spin Zone put how I’m feeling quite well.
I’ve been struggling for days with writing a comprehensive post on the Katrina debacle, and the failure of government at all levels to do its most basic function - protect its citizens - and particularly, those who are least able to fend for themselves. There are no excuses for the deaths and destruction in New Orleans. None. Federal, state, and local governments all have an equal share of the blame for this disaster of preventable proportions.
I wish I could bind my anger, but I can’t right now. I wish I could bind my despair right now, but I can’t. I wish, I just wish, that I could feel better about anything in this country, the country my kids are going to inherit.
…I want to write (and I’ve written and backspaced over it 5 times now) that there are better days ahead. Being in the frame of mind I’m in right now, I’m not so sure. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll see those days in my own lifetime.
…The war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina both drive home the point that the government which is chartered to protect us no longer does so. The three independent branches of our government (and the fourth estate) have become wholy owned subsidiaries of corporate America. A coup d’tat was held, and not a shot was fired.
Because not enough people cared to be inconvenienced.
I’ve talked about this before, and I actually spent some time over this past weekend thinking about it. Given what’s happened on the Gulf Coast this past week, and the morbid turn in Iraq prior to that (hey, who doesn’t love a good U.S. government-sponsored Islamic theocracy after $300 billion and thousands of lives?), you would have thought there would be pitchforks and torches at the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. And you would be wrong. [“Makin’ the Nut” (All Spin Zone)]
Tags: Hurricane Katrina, politics, incompetence, hopeless, Iraq
July 31st, 2004
I really wanted to sit down and write out my feelings yesterday, because Thursday night I went to see Farenheit 9/11 and then came home and listened to John Kerry’s acceptance speech. I was impressed and touched by both in different ways. However, neither relieved that strange feeling of unease that I’d been feeling on Thursday during the day. If anything, that feeling was more intense as I lay in my bed that night thinking of everything from the Bin Laden’s doing business with the Bushes to the promise of a better tomorrow to the seemingly inevitable draft.
The truth is that there is so much I want to say about all of those things, but when I think of them, when I want to articulate my thoughts, my feelings are so passionate that I’m not certain how clear they would be hear and I’d rather be clear than end up hypocritically sounding as silly as those foolish people basing their all-important presidential vote on the candidate’s appearance, choice of spouse, or religious background. Ironically, the last has actually become an issue thanks to a president who cannot separate his religious beliefs from his state responsibilities.
The truth is that during Farenheit 9/11, I travelled the gambit of emotions from shock to amusement to dispair and sadness to anger to dismay. I left the theater feeling a bit depressed and without hope for a country that could foolishly re-elect a president who has done so many questionable things in and out of office, particularly in office.
I would like to state for the record that I did not agree with everything that Michael Moore dragged through the mud. For example, I wish everyone would stop whining about the 2000 election and the whole Florida issue. The fact is that it happened. Bush became president as a result. We can’t take back the last few years. I’m tired of the whining. I’m tired of everyone bringing it up, usually as a snide remark. I am not a republican but I do wish people would just let go. (That said, I do find all the little nitpicky things that Michael Moore pointed out about it — Bush’s cousin working for Fox, the first network to announce Bush the winner of Florida despite the other news media’s declarations that Gore won, and making that call for the anchor people, just sets my conspiracy-theorist senses all a-tingle.)
Also, I was offended for Bush at Michael Moore’s criticism of Bush’s intial reaction (the first 7-10 minutes) to the second plane crashing into the WTC. He even criticized Bush’s reaction to the first plane crash — but at the first plane crash no one knew what was going on; no one knew it was terrorists. For all he knew, it was an accident, not something a President need get involved in right away. The second plane crashed while he was in an elementary school class room being read to a story by little children when someone came and whispered in his ear. For the next 7-10 minutes, he sat and continued to listen to the children. However, even I could seen the stunned shock on his face as he obviously struggled to accept that this impossible event had occurred. I remember very vividly how I felt on 9/11. I remember how stunned and numb and disbelieving I was. I remember feeling shock and feeling sick to my stomach. I kept thinking that it was all impossible. While, yes, it would have been nice to know that our President had immediately jumped up and started giving orders, I at least accept and recognize that he maybe needed a few minutes to pull himself together as a human being. Imagine the pressure.
However, during the movie I think my sense of loyalty to President Bush and his administration was stretched even thinner than it has been over the last few years. It’s no secret that I don’t care for the way he’s been running this country. I felt he did a good job dealing with 9/11 but that after that we all went to hell in a handbasket. So much of the things he’s done has been an attempt to take away civil liberties that I as an American have a right to, that many people died in the past to give me.
I am deeply disturbed by the financial connections of the Saudis, particularly the Saudi Bin Ladens, and the Bush family. It bothers me that they were investors in all of President Bush Jr.’s businesses and that after his Presidency, Bush Sr. was on the board of their over-seas business. It disturbs me that the Patriot Act was passed without anyone in Congress reading the details. It disturbs me that when F-9/11 was made only one Congressman had a child serving in Iraq. It disturbs me that an ambassador of the Taliban was a vistor to D.C. and given a tour and met with US officials just months before the attacks. It disturbs me that rather than hold Bin Laden’s family that were in the states at the time of the attacks for questioning (which would be a normal mode of operandi in any investigation), the US flew around picking them up in various cities as well as important Saudi “visitors” and flew them home ourselves. I’m angry that from 9/11 Bush was telling his “intelligence” people to prove Iraq was involved. I am in awe that prior to 9/11, Bush spent 42% of his first 8 months in office on vacation. If I did that, I’d be fired. No wonder he didn’t have a clue that 9/11 was going to happen. I somehow doubt he read the reports with the warnings at all. There’s just so many little things…including statements early in his term by high level officials on his staff that Iraq did not have WMD and couldn’t possibly have them, only to turn around a year later and insist we go to war to stop Sadaam from using this massive supply of WMD — which we have never found.
So, I left the theater depressed. As scenes from Iraq had appeared on the giant screen, I was horrified, being the pacifist that I am. I also came to a sudden realization. A co-worker had mentioned that he had read that Bush’s administration were planning on pushing through the “bill” for a new draft the day after “he’s re-elected”. This new draft will include men and women aged 18-34. As I watched the bloody, gory war scenes, I realized that I fit into that category. While I know in my heart of hearts that medically I would never pass any physical and probably wouldn’t ever be forced to go, I was suddenly aware of a renewed respect for those people who can go to war and come home not completely destroyed inside. I have tremendous respect for those people who serve in the military and remain human. I know if it were me, I would completely be destroyed…and somewhere in the back of my head, I understood my late cousin a little more, perhaps a better understanding of why he killed himself after Desert Storm. But the thought that I could be drafted, that my friends could be drafted, just eats at me. It’s bad enough that D has told me that he’s being sent to Iraq in September. My mom thinks he’s just going in a JAG capacity, but I have a suspicion that the military is spread so thin, that he’s going in a different capacity.
And, while I felt very good about the promises John Kerry made in his acceptance speech, he mentioned increasing the numbers in the military so that we could close the backdoor draft of National Guard and retired/reservists. I can’t see the recruitment numbers being that high now in a time when you are guaranteed to go to war and possibly die — not when the local news is always talking about this or that young man who would have graduated this past May who was killed, leaving wife and kids and girlfriends and all manner of a promising life. The only thing I can think is that a draft is the only way and it scares me. I hope I’m wrong.
I thought that John Kerry’s speech was good. I thought it was inspiring and I thought it was definitely aimed at the undecided and the unhappy Republicans just as much as it was an explanation to the dedicated Democrats and the Independents determined to avoid another four years of Bush’s bullshit and warmongering and destruction of civil liberties and freedoms. If he can accomplish half of the things he wants to do, I’d call his presidency a success.
What amazes me are the Republicans criticizing him the next day who didn’t bother to listen to or read the speech. They were just repeating rhetoric and mis-information perpetuated by angry right-wing media reporters and talk show hosts. The one that gets me is their claim that he will raise taxes and how they don’t want their taxes raised. I’m am just dying to know how many of them are making more than $200K a year since those are the only people who are getting their tax break rolled back.
It also killed me that President Bush didn’t bother to hear or read John Kerry’s speech either and admitted it to the press. He then proceeded to make a snide remark “attacking” John Kerry’s wife, implying that Laura Bush is a better First Lady and that’s what you get when you vote for him. I’ve been curious how long it was going to take people to start attacking Teressa Heinz Kerry because she wasn’t born an American and while not “black,” is technically an African-American. I think that Teressa is a strong, intelligent woman who is a contributer to social and community services. I know that Laura Bush is involved in the education cause (which is interesting since Bush refused to fund the “No Child Left Behind” Act after pushing it through) but you rarely hear anything about her and what she’s doing. I think we need a strong first lady like Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, or Hilary Clinton in the White House. I think it’s great that Teressa comes with John, but really who should be making their decision on who to vote for based on their wife?
I have to thank President Bush though. For 29 years, I had barely a passing interest in politics but thanks to him, his administration, his policies, and his mixing his religious convictions with my civil liberties, I have taken quite the interest in politics and the world in general. After Kerry’s speech, I ordered a book to help me become more informed on the government and politics. I plan to start really working on becoming even more informed. I never want to be caught off-guard on any of this. I want to be sure of my convictions because I understand it all, not because I’ve been told to by my parents, the media, or friends. I don’t want to ever be surprised again that something like the Patriot Act has passed and been signed and because I was uniformed, I couldn’t have done everything in my power to protest it and it’s abuse of power and lack of respect for my freedoms as a loyal American citizen.
I’m not sure how clear all of that was. I feel better now that I’ve let it out. I still feel uneasy and I don’t know exactly why. Maybe I’ll feel better on November 3rd…then again, maybe I’ll feel hopeless. Right now, I feel like Kerry and Edwards are speaking to me when they say “Hope is on the way!”
Tags: politics, Farenheit 9/11, John Kerry, Democrats, George W. Bush, Conspiracy Theories, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, hopeless, DNC, Osama bin Laden
