Catching Up

I am between apartments at the moment, though next week I'll be moving to St. Helens, OR, to a little bungalow near the Columbia River about 30 miles north of Portland.

So I've had access to a television in the last few days, and have been watching the Republican Convention. I don’t know -- I am so cynical anymore that I have a hard time taking the party Conventions seriously. I have a difficult time taking any politics seriously, and I honestly don’t understand why the Internet and the networks and the country as a whole are so taken with it. They’re just getting fooled again.

What really changes? Very. very little is going to change. Corporations will still be controlling our government after McCain’s administration, or Obama’s. The rich will get richer. We will still spend an utterly obscene amount of money on the military in the guise of defense, but, of course, it’s all about securing oil and its profits and large contracts for defense companies who have no morals except obtaining the height of their bottom line.

John McCain paints himself as a “maverick,” and he’s voted with Bush 91% of the time. And the press dutifully reports this as his reputation.

If Gore had won the presidency in ’00, would much be different? There’d be more emphasis on climate change, but I honestly doubt much there would be different. The Senate voted 97-0 against Kyoto in 1997, and that’s not reversible in a few years. The Republicans now only want to drill, drill, drill, and have not the slightest regard for greenhouse gas emissions. Future historians are going to look upon this time with astonishment.

We wouldn’t be at war in Iraq -- probably. I’m not really sure. Gore would certainly have been susceptible to the special interests that demanded this war. He would still be president of a country in a world running out of oil, with 300 million people demanding they be able to fill their gas tanks, even at $4-6/gal. In this day and age, when Exxon-Mobil comes knocking on the door, one of the most powerful corporations in the world -- if not THE most powerful corporation in the world -- it is not clear to me that you can say no, despite your campaign rhetoric.

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And it’s all now so personality-driven. And the networks fall right into this line. That is -- literally -- all Sarah Palin talked about Wednesday night. It’s abundantly clear that she has no vision -- none whatsoever, as if they’re counting on her being a GILF is now sufficient for executive office. Keeping her secluded from the press for two weeks is the utmost of cynacism. The Republicans are all about drill, drill, drill, and there isn’t one word -- not one -- about the GHGs being added to our atmosphere. It’s like they’re trying to ignore the basic laws of gravity. And where is the discussion about health care, health insurance, the Iraq War, global warming, the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, our deficient infrastructure, our energy crisis, the corporate control of America, our national decline?

She says she will be an advocate for families with “special” children. What does that mean? Will they have taxpayer-paid health insurance? All the therapy they need? Or is this just lip service?

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The media -- the damn media -- is so completely useless and vapid and stupid and utterly inconsequential that the McCain camp considers a few direct questions about Sarah Palin’s decision-making as commander of the Alaska National as “over the line.” On Thursday night Charles Gibson from ABC news spent ten times more effort worrying about whether all the balloons would fall onto the convention floor than anything of substance that anyone had to say.

Is the media this bad because their audience demands it, or is the audience so numbed because the media has no clue?

I especially like when they go to the network correspondents out in the state delegations, Jeff Greenfeld or someone, standing alongside the Michigan or Nevada delegation or somewhere, as if these delegates have something important to say, like this is Dan Rather in rabbit ears in 1968 or 1972, getting punched as the operatives work feverishly to convince four delegates from to work their way. The fact is these delegates do not matter in the least, and they are there just to party for five days straight -- not bad work if you can get it. Let’s stop pretending that great decisions are upon them,

Sarah Palin seems like every pretty, vapid girl you hated in high school because they knew they were prettier than everyone else, and (and this was the problem) acted like it. It was how they were elected 8th grade president. (Yes, I’m talking about you, Deborah F.)

And isn’t it interesting how Sarah Palin’s sexual life is “private” when Republicans like nothing more than to pry into the sexual lives of gays, pregnant women, and the unmarried singles. All of THOSE are discussable -- but the actual pregnancy of an unmarried high school student isn’t.

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Just some thoughts. Looking forward to getting back to work.