Thanks to "Seedy Pete" at Worldwide Hippies

I loved this response to a "Gawker" column at Worldwide Hippies: President Orders College Kids To Do Something. 

Here's the deal, Mr. President. 

I am going to vote Democrat in the midterms. Not because I believe you or your party will accomplish a single goddamned thing that I care about; they are clearly inept to the point of ridiculousness and your fetish for compromise would be laudable if the other party shared it but since they have openly stated they are unwilling to negotiate on anything it's an enormous handicap. But I will vote Democrat, because the alternative is actually horrifying. 

I am disappointed that the public option was dropped without a fight in favor of drug price fixing deals with Big Pharma and a mandate to purchase insurance from the same handful of companies whose monopoly on insurance is why we have a WHO score on par with a third world country in the first place. I am disappointed that your party has rolled over on fighting the crooked Bush tax cuts, or extending health benefits for 9/11 first responders, or repealing DADT. Want to know what those four things have in common? They were all overwhemingly popular with the public during a period when your party had a majority (briefly even a supermajority) and yet without exception the Democrats in Congress either traded away core parts of their party platform in exchange for absofuckinglutely nothing or just completely bobbled the ball and let the GOP control the debate. You people are sexually attracted to failure. 

Just a few years ago the GOP passed spectacularly unpopular legislation with considerably less votes in Congress...granted, unlike you they were able to count on the fact that the opposition party was so spineless they'd vote for things they claimed to oppose out of fear of being painted as unpatriotic. But the Democrats don't have the advantage of getting to fight against Democrats, so at some point you people are going to have to grow a goddamned backbone. 

So why vote Democrat at all, if your party is determined to fail at everything you try? Because at least you're trying, and the opposition party is a veritable death cult with no plan beyond getting back into power so that they can do the exact same things that ran the country off the rails in the first place. 

But don't expect me to get excited about it. Don't expect me to volunteer my time and money to help Democrats get elected the way I did in 2008. You squandered every opportunity we gave you, ignored your professed values, punted on the first down at every opportunity, and ignored your base in order to court the votes of people who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. Then election season rolls back around and suddenly you remember to pay lip service to our values? Piss off. You don't get another dime from me until I see you people care about progress sometime other than election season. And stop mistaking my disgust for apathy, or my expectation that Democrats in Congress do their goddamned jobsfor unrealistic magical thinking. No one expected a magic wand to be waved and the trainwreck the GOP spent 8 years created to be undone in 2, but what we did expect was that you would at least make an effort. Your party has failed to meet the already exceedingly low expectations I set for it. 

Stop mistaking my disgust for apathy … Do I have an AMEN?

Why I didn't go to the Obama rally …

President Obama spoke in my hometown yesterday, and I had a hard time mustering much enthusiasm for him. I made some comments on Facebook to that effect, and a friend of a friend commented that liberals shouldn't be blaming him for his failure to right the wrongs of the Bush administration's 8 years in just 20 months -- something which I have heard often. It led me to want to clarify why I am so disappointed in the Obama presidency, to find a way to put it into words so I don't just sound like a disenchanted liberal who feels that Obama has failed to deliver the goods fast enough.

The essence of it is this: Aside from the backpedaling on campaign promises (which I consider to be standard political fare,) I resent that the Obama White House treats people on the progressive left (like me) as part of the problem instead of part of the solution. Because the ideas that we champion -- ideas such as universal single payer health care, a WPA-style employment recovery plan, removing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan -- are common sense, good for the country, and tried and true. We are not obstructionists, nor are we naysayers. We are the yea-sayers, the ones who would happily pick up the mops and get to work, as Obama exhorted his critics to do last year.

We are the ones who got to work to elect this guy.

And they treat us as if we are, at best, inconsequential. Irrelevant. Then we are chastised for not wanting to come to the rallies to hear the pretty words. And it disturbs me greatly that so many who do the chastising are other progressives.

Obama is charasmatic. He is smart, and a good speaker. However I am wary of the cult of personality that continues to surround him. I want action in the right direction on his administration's part. I want acknowledgement and respect.

BTW, this doesn't mean that I am not voting in November. I am quite aware that people in other places die for the right to vote. But let me remind other liberals who might criticize my stance, questioning my government is also a right we hold dear -- or used to.

Oh Dear Blog, Do You Still Love Me?

Blogging hasn't been happening much lately. Blame it on grad school, blame it on Facebook, blame it on the Bossa Nova. But I can at least manage book reviews, can't I? Oh yeah, I've been reading. A little of this, a little of that. And always something by Terry Pratchett to break up the monotony. I spent this past week in self-imposed exile (a.k.a. vacation) on a nearly deserted island, which seemed like a good time to reread Pratchett's most recent children's book Nation. Nation is a departure from Pratchett's other books, maybe even something of a disappointment for die-hard Pratchett fans. It isn't set on Discworld; instead Pratchett plays fast and loose with some of the history and geography of Earth to create a parallel world. It was also the first book he wrote after the sad revelation that he has a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's disease. (His disease has most noticeably affected his motor abilities; he can no longer type and must dictate his stories to a typist.)

Nation opens in a time of upheaval in the mid-nineteenth century. There has been a flu epidemic in Britain which has claimed the King and a great number of his heirs, and a ship has been dispatched to one of the furthest outposts of the British empire to fetch the next living heir. Meanwhile in the great Pelagic Ocean there has been a massive tsunami that brought death and destruction to the many island nations there.

Mau is an inhabitant of one of the islands, his people known simply as "the Nation." No longer a boy and not yet a man, Mau was returning from his initiation into adulthood on a distant island when the wave struck. He returns to his home island to find that he is the only survivor.

Daphne is a well brought up British girl, who was sailing out to join her father in Port Mercia in the Pelagic Ocean. The Sweet Judy, the ship on which she travels, has already withstood an attempted mutiny when the tsunami hits. The captain and remaining crew are drowned in the wave and the ship is driven to Mau's island. Daphne and a foul-mouthed parrot have survived.

Inevitably Mau and Daphne meet. They form a bond based on mutual survival, that grows into a friendship over time. As time goes on, more survivors of the tsunami find their way to the Nation, and Mau -- lost in his grief, in limbo between childhood and manhood, and questioning the gods of his people who would take so many innocent lives -- must act as the chief of the Nation.

In some ways Nation is less satirical than Pratchett's other books, but many of the themes are familiar. As always he raises questions about government and organized religion, and also white supremacy, class, and empire. Because it was written for a younger audience, at times the narrative seems too simple, but ultimately Nation is a very wise and thought-provoking book. I recommend it, and if you can read it while marooned on an island, so much the better.