the world is full of good and bad
i woke up this morning to stuff on the radio about US elections and rumsfeld resigning. it took me a long time to realise i wasnt dreaming (really, not a metaphor).
then they were interviewing an ex-brigadier-general who got demoted because of abu ghraib. she was pissed, and has very little good to sy about any of them, esp rumsfeld. all i could think of was, well, clearly they werent going to demote the men in charge, so theyll demote a woman. im not saying thats the most important thing, thats just what went through my mind. and lets not kid ourselves and pretend that its not a factor in there somewhere.
the thing is, just because i dont have a lot of faith in thngs improving doesnt mean i dont want them to. i care about what happens to the US. i am all the more disturbed by most of what has happened since i was old enough to vote because i really do believe in most of the ideals that the constitution embodies, and i love many things about the country and the people in it. they are not all the negative stereotype that most of the rest of the world holds.
i used to get really annoyed when people would say things like: youre the least american american ive met. no, no im not. born and raised. thats my point. i am as american as the americans you hate. dont write off 300million people because of the poor decisions and screwy priorities of less than half of them, and the detournement (english word?) of their ideals by a few power-hungry rich people.
bryan said this morning, in reference to the pitiful excuse for a mayoral race in toronto, but i think it applies elsewhere: people know what they want. they dont like change. and they dont like the way things are. theyve made up their minds.
doesnt sound quite right in writing, maybe im misquoting. somehow it was funnier and more apt when he said it.
anyway, who knows, maybe this is proof that democracy can actually work. or maybe we'll just be disappointed when nothing changes substantively. i think that bloodless political change via democracy would be more convincing to un-democratic countries than a billion tanks. im not saying its the perfect system, but after a few thousand years, its still the best weve come up with.
then they were interviewing an ex-brigadier-general who got demoted because of abu ghraib. she was pissed, and has very little good to sy about any of them, esp rumsfeld. all i could think of was, well, clearly they werent going to demote the men in charge, so theyll demote a woman. im not saying thats the most important thing, thats just what went through my mind. and lets not kid ourselves and pretend that its not a factor in there somewhere.
the thing is, just because i dont have a lot of faith in thngs improving doesnt mean i dont want them to. i care about what happens to the US. i am all the more disturbed by most of what has happened since i was old enough to vote because i really do believe in most of the ideals that the constitution embodies, and i love many things about the country and the people in it. they are not all the negative stereotype that most of the rest of the world holds.
i used to get really annoyed when people would say things like: youre the least american american ive met. no, no im not. born and raised. thats my point. i am as american as the americans you hate. dont write off 300million people because of the poor decisions and screwy priorities of less than half of them, and the detournement (english word?) of their ideals by a few power-hungry rich people.
bryan said this morning, in reference to the pitiful excuse for a mayoral race in toronto, but i think it applies elsewhere: people know what they want. they dont like change. and they dont like the way things are. theyve made up their minds.
doesnt sound quite right in writing, maybe im misquoting. somehow it was funnier and more apt when he said it.
anyway, who knows, maybe this is proof that democracy can actually work. or maybe we'll just be disappointed when nothing changes substantively. i think that bloodless political change via democracy would be more convincing to un-democratic countries than a billion tanks. im not saying its the perfect system, but after a few thousand years, its still the best weve come up with.