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Friday, January 04, 2008

In Which I Grump, Pout, and Whine Unattractively

I slept in this morning and am paying for it, feeling all muzzy and achy. Drinking my morning coffee, waiting for the caffeine to kick in.

Rain is pouring down, rattling the walls, pooling around the garbage cans at the end of the driveway. The cats are twitchy and globe-eyed.

I listened to clips of Obama's and Huckabee's acceptance speeches on Democracy Now! first thing. Not to be a brat, but there was scarcely a dime thin difference between them as far as I could hear. I can't understand why so many seem to be launching into transports over the Obama speech. Blah blah hope blah blah togetherness rah rah America.

Sure, Huckabee sounded a bit dumb and stumbly and Obama sounded smart and smooth, but isn't that exactly as one would expect given the role of brain damage in contemporary party affiliation?

But contrast their feel-good vacuities with the way Edwards talked about actual issues with passion in his speech, as always.

If the politics of hope just means another generation of pampered exceptionalist Americans demand to be fellated and cooed over while they eat the world, honestly, count me out (yes, yes, obviously I'll vote for Obama if/when it comes down to it, or Hillary, too).

The Heathers of the corporatist press are handwaving the Mummy McCain's fifth place showing as the big win of the night somehow, and Edwards's second place showing despite spending a fraction of the money everybody else did and pushing against a media blackout as the big loss of the night somehow.

The usual embarrassment of the Villagers and their stiff sordid minuet.

I'm guessing a whole lot of Anyone But Hillary money is going to pour into Obama's coffers to the cost of Edwards's chances and I can only hope Edwards stays in the race as long as possible even if he can't turn the tide (here's hoping he can still manage that job, but I'm not holding my breath) since the palpable power of Edward's anti-corporatist message keeps nudging the other candidates more reasonably and righteously leftward where the actual country is and where they should and need to be anyway.

Lot's of people are saying the big win is for the Dems in general, given turnout and energy and money and so on. Honestly, after all these years of Bush, Iraq, Katrina, dumbass authoritarians and theocrats on the teevee, healthcare catastrophe, does anybody honestly think anything short of guns in the streets would stop the utter Democratic blowout on its way? The point isn't that we're going to win, the point is what we'll do when we win, what we'll make of winning.

I, for one, need more than hope to hang my hopes on.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I listened to that same show this morning on KBOO here in Portland. I had to turn Obama off after he told a story about a woman going to school and working or something and said "truly a story of hope that could only happen in Amurka". Jebus, will anyone in this country ever grow the fuck up. I'm just glad it was a radio show and I couldn't see the "we're #1" giant foam fingers waggling. Yeah, only in Amurka. It reminded me immediately of that time when Bush was listening to that woman talk about working 3 jobs and he smirked out "isn't that just uniquely American". I just can't get too excited about our options here.