More Politics blah blah blah
Continuing to read reaction and commentary to Barack Obama's speech (find it on Youtube if you haven't seen it yet - over a million people have!)
Still disgusted.
I know I should keep in mind the old (not really old but meh) adage that the loudest, most insistent opinions posted on the internet are usually representative not of the majority but rather of the insane minority. Scour through wikipedia and note how much longer and more in depth the articles on, say, Star Wars are than on, say, international politics. That does not mean Star Wars is more important than international politics. It just means that some people who like Star Wars happen to like writing about Star Wars on the internet ALOT. And the same can be said for those who believe that Barack HUSSEIN Obama is an anti-patriotic Muslim whose sole purpose in pursuing the presidency is to instigate HELTER SKELTER, the ultimate race war predicted by Charles Manson (and the Beatles apparently) in which the wicked white majority are finally destroyed by visible minorities.
But still. Disgusted.
It's not the comments by the insane few that bother me so much (although they bother me a lot), as the simple fact that one of the candidate's race is such a BIG FUCKING DEAL. I just can't muster up much hope for a country in which the mainstream media focuses on some video clips of a pastor taken out of context, as opposed to, I don't know, THE LOOMING RECESSION YOUR CURRENT PRESIDENT HAS DRAGGED YOU INTO. I don't know, it seems to me that kind of story would be more pertinent in the steps leading up to a presidential. But what the hell do I know.
I mean, seriously. What the fuck? Don't give me nonsense that no country would vote a member of the visible minority in as leader. Argentina had a president of Japanese descent, for fuck's sakes. ARGENTINA.
And while Canada has never had a Prime Minister of ethnicity or an elected female Prime Minister (Kim Campbell assumed leadership after Brian Mulroney resigned/retired), I can state with some conviction that neither race or gender would have as much significance in a Canadian election as in, say, an American one.
I'm not going off on another CANADA RULEZ AMERICA LOLOZ!!!!111 tangent. I weary of such rants, and will often point out my own country's failings with glee just for the sake of fairness and argument. What I'm trying to do is point out a fundamental difference between our nations that exists, for whatever reason. I'm not trying to figure out why. I have neither the background, the knowledge, or the time. I'm just making an observation.
The reason I say most Canadian voters or even the Canadian media wouldn't make a big issue out of gender or race (aside from the historic implications) is because we've already proven we're willing to ignore our candidates' language and culture. And up here, language and culture are a BIG FUCKING DEAL.
I've read from a few social commentators that, regardless of what many (including Senator Obama himself) will attest, there are in fact two Americas, divided by race. I can't comment on the accuracy of those statements, having never lived down south, but let's for the sake of argument say that they're at least partly true.
Believe it or not, a similar situation existed (and may or may not continue to exist, depending on moods) up here in Canada. There's an English Canada and a French Canada. There's been historical conflicts between both groups, proven instances of oppresion and atrocity, and animosity and bigotry that simmers on both sides to this very day.
Ugh. I could've - should've - included First Nations peoples in this discussion. But that's a whole other conversation that deserves its own space.
Anyways, back to the Two Canadas and the Two Americas. The fundamental difference between the Two Canadas and the Two Americas (besides being split along language and culture as opposed to skin colour) is that the Two Canadas are legally divided and geographically demarcated. Quebec is a province populated by a francophone majority and administrated under francophone policies. There are language laws in Quebec which many have interpreted as discriminatory towards anglophones, immigrants, and aboriginals. So defined are the seperations (and tensions) that some Quebecers once formed a bona-fide terrorist organization (the FLQ) and many Quebecers have pushed for sovereignty, if not outright independence.
We're not talking about a few crazy Republic of Texan-ers here. We're talking about multiple referendums involving the entire provincial population (the second largest population in Canada), the most recent of which took place in 1995, where a motion for Quebec to officially secede from Canada was defeated by the bare minimum of votes: 50.58%. Our country came *that* close to being torn apart on the basis of language and culture.
So, as mentioned before, if anything should affect our national elections as much as race appears to affect the American nominations, it would be the combination of language and culture. But for some reason, it never is. The media doesn't make much of a deal of it. Francophone nominees from Quebec don't have to deal with questions of culture or patriotism, this despite the existence of parties like the Bloc Quebecois, which participated in national elections with the intention of electing a Prime Minister who would immediately make Quebec independent. Despite these issues, we've still elected Prime Ministers from Quebec: fairly tepid Jean Chretien, noted douchebag Brian Mulroney, and controversial national icon Pierre Trudeau.
Only a bigot or an imbicile would deny that Senator Obama is facing racial and cultural bias in his campaign efforts. That he actually has a chance at winning seems to surprise most, disappoint many, and infuriate some.
I find this fact remarkable. Can you imagine how much of a longshot he would be if what has happened between the Two Canadas had happened between the Two Americas?
Picture this: Some time within the past twenty years a Black Panther somehow got elected governor in, say, Alabama. S/he passed a series of laws which could be construed by the white population as discriminatory, and then managed to convince 49.42% of Alabama's population to secede from the Union?.
I don't know about you but I can imagine the backlash against the African American population, let alone an African American who subsequently dares to run for the highest office.
My hypothetical never happened, and yet Senator Obama still has to put up with grief of the most putrid kind. People implying he's a secret Muslim because of his middle name and ancestry, a secret anti-American because of his pastor and his church and his community ... AND THESE INANITIES THREATEN TO DESTROY HIS CAMPAIGN.
Seriously. What the fuck.
A journalist up here recently wrote 'Where is our Obama?', pointing out that we haven't had a leader as engaging and dynamic as Obama since Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Notice that nothing is mentioned of race.
/rant