What We're Really Up Against

[Plaid Adder]

I mean apart from all this election interference the Republicans are organizing in the battleground states...

This morning my partner and I were having breakfast in the hotel lounge (she's off right now distributing voting rights information to people) I was listening to the group at the next table talking about the election, and it was stressing me out. Mainly what bothered me about it, as I thought about it, wasn't that they were virulently anti-Kerry, but that they were talking about stupid shit like Teresa Heinz Kerry's comment about Laura Bush and then complaining about how negative the campaign was and in general just not taking it all very seriously. Meanwhile Liza was trying to figure out how to encourage the people she's going to be meeting today to vote for Kerry.

Trying to boil it down for myself, I said, well, go back to the first rule of holes: when you're in a hole you stop digging. Bush got us into a war we didn't have to fight because he wanted to do it, and if we give him another four years there's no reason to believe he won't do it again. Similarly, he doesn't care how the economy is doing as long as his friends are getting rich. It would be an improvement to have someone in power who, even if he can't solve the Iraq war, isn't going to start gratuitous *new* wars, and who, even if he actually can't create the 2 million jobs or whatever it is he's promising, at least will think it's important to try.

And I was reminded of a book I wrote a long time ago called *Another Country.* Don't look for it on the shelves because it has never been published anywhere. It's part of the fantasy series I've been writing since 1996 (http://www.plaidder.com/wof/) and one of the things that happens is that the organization of good magic users that has always taken care of the country starts to get corrupted from the inside. When the head of the Order dies, they have to elect a new one, and of the two candidates, one is good and the other is evil. The good candidate talks to the protagonist before going into the big debate with her opponent and asks for advice. The protagonist ends up saying, well, look, the problem is that most of the Order doesn't know about the corruption and so they think this is just an ordinary election. They're going to look at both of you and think, well, either one can do the job, I'll vote for the one I like better, and your opponent gets along with people better than you do.

And I decided that that's the real problem, or at least the thing that frustrates me most about the way people talk about this election. They think this is just a normal election and that they have the luxury of voting for the guy they like better or for the guy who's better on their pet issue or based on stupid shit like whether they think his wife behaves according to established rules of gender decorum. They don't get it that this is about whether more people here and abroad are going to die for nothing, or whether this is the last chance we have to avoid permanent one-party rule.

I don't know how you wake people up to that at this late stage. But this is what's discouraging Liza and it's also what discourages me. We're used to the idea that there are people out there who are so rabid or insane or venal or bigoted that they will support Bush *because* of all the things we hate about him. But there is an even larger chunk of the population that just doesn't realize what's on the line here; and those people you just want to grab by the shirtfront and shake some sense into.

Ah well,

The Plaid Adder

[annerevere]

1. You are absolutely right

Most voters don't know enough to cast an informed vote. They don't read, they watch cable news, and some just aren't very smart.

It is discouraging. But shut out all these negative feelings, until after November 2. If Kerry wins, we'll all be hysterical. If he loses, there will be plenty of time and opportunity to commiserate.

We've got to fight, fight, fight. I've been making more political donations this week than I can really afford. For the first time in my life, I'm taking the day off on Election Day and driving people to the polls.

We must all fight and not think negative.

[BeFree]

2. Aristocracy

Is the mindset of the masses. Most are all too willing to live that way, and it may be because that's how humans lived before the advent of the American Constitution.

Most Americans feel they are aristocrats and shouldn't bother themselves with anything more than appearances, because they feel the monarchs in charge will protect them from whatever.

Ignorance is bliss, so they say, and ignorance shields people from having to make the hard decisions necessary by laying off all their problems on the higher ups, allowing them to spend their time on the things that make them feel more aristocratic.

BeFree of aristocracy by buying into democracy.