Argh! TO HELL WITH JOHN MCCAIN!

The BBQ Pit
41

But this won’t happen. Ever. Just like the conservative fantasies about a “permanent conservative majority” so popular a few years ago went nowhere.

The social and philosophical divide between the two poles is too great to entirely bridge or overcome, such that one completely marginalizes the other for long. Not in a country as diverse as ours and also as physically large as ours. If Obama wins it might herald a period of liberal dominance for a couple of years to a decade or so. But inevitably it will swing at least partly back.

You’ll still be bitching about conservatives when you’re on your deathbed. I guarantee it.

42

Of course not.
But it’d be great to actually force them to rebuild the movement along somewhat less nutty lines. That can happen if they’re hit hard enough.

43

Not if they all move to Australia.

44

I don’t doubt it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that “conservatives” will mean the same then that it does now.

We are becoming more liberal as a culture. I don’t see that stopping any time soon. What I’m bitching about as “conservatism” on my deathbed could be something way to the left of what I am now.

45

I do feel a little sad when I think of John McCain, because I used to admire and respect him. Watching a good man lose his soul is not a happy exercise, and watching him THROW AWAY his soul for nothing is worse.

46

I felt sorry for him like I feel sorry for tragic characters in literature when they have that moment of realization that they have brought about their own downfall. That doesn’t mean I want Macbeth to go on being king of Scotland. But that last statement from him just struck me as so cynical and hypocritical, it’s getting harder to feel any sympathy at all.

Oh, yeah, what’s up with all the Colin Powell love? I never did understand that one.

Good idea. I’ll join you. Well, not literally, but I’ll watch a movie too.

47

But for me, half of the time I feel sad because he lost his way and the other half of the time I feel sad because I was a sucker to fall for it the first time.

I don’t know if I’d be happier thinking that he was always a jerk or thinking that this political season just got the better of him.

48

I don’t think it was just this political season. I think his corruption has been building since about 2000. Not to get all Spenser-with-an-S-like the poet, but

[QUOTE=Friedrich Nietzsche]

“Those who fight monsters should take care that they never become one. For when you stand and look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
[/QUOTE]

Interestingly, when I looked up that quote, the first result I got was from the title of the novel I’m avoiding working on. You think the muse is hinting something?

49

Am I the only one here who is freaking out that Rachm Qoch, the acknowledged master of the Celebrity Death Pool, a game of predictions, thinks that McCain could win?

[sub]At least he didn’t predict that Obama’s campaign is dead.[/sub]

50

John McCain is the kind of guy who thought it would be funny to make fun of a teenage Chelsea Clinton’s looks. That’s the moment I lost any shred of respect I had for him.

51

Oh ugh-having been a thirteen year old girl-I can just imagine what she was going through right then and every time I think about that, I see red. (And was that before or after Rush showed a picture of her after saying, “Oh hey, here’s the Clinton family dog?”)

Of course, who has the last laugh-look at Chelsea now! She’s not what you’d call a classical beauty, but she’s pretty damned attractive.

My only wish is that Clinton had followed the example of Harry Truman.

52

John McCain is an honorless piece of shit. He is trying to have it both ways and that is what he always does: honorable except when he isn’t, like with his wives and his campaigns.

53

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
But for me, half of the time I feel sad because he lost his way and the other half of the time I feel sad because I was a sucker to fall for it the first time.

I don’t know if I’d be happier thinking that he was always a jerk or thinking that this political season just got the better of him.
[/QUOTE]

I think the real tragedy–that extends far beyond McCain–is that perhaps “the way” has possibly eroded into a swamp. There’s no new greed or wickedness under the sun, I think. People–a few weird, flukishly good, the vast majority pf sincere, muddled herds persuadable either way, and a few flat-out cheerfully evil–have always muddled along in a messy pile. Even clinging to truisms doesn’t help much.

I think vanishingly few humans really see “the way”, any way, through the distortions and deliberate lies du jour. Sorting through endless tangled layers of opportunistic bullshit surely exacts an enormous toll in time, not to mention belief. John McCain, reluctant son of admirals, was born into the game but that’s a far cry from being the mind and will moving pieces vs. one being played. If he’s a victim, he’s a willing one.

By now I’m not sure John McCain–or his followers–deserve either sympathy or respect for the simple reason they’ve shown none. This isn’t about Democrats or Greens or Libertarians. Every “ism” will descend into genuinely nasty, hypocritical behavior, given half a chance and enough convenient opportunism. What Rove, Bush, Cheney, et. al. have done to the world and American politics in the past decade hasn’t been slightly-evolving-tactics-as-usual. It’s been wrong, fundamentally rotten at the core.

But I also think individuals have the power to change worlds. I think John McCain’s opportunities and temptations were cast large from the start, not by his wish, but hey–who gets to choose, right? Big opportunities don’t automatically grant strength commensurate with responsibility because who doesn’t need the grace to fuck up sometimes like people will, fortunate or otherwise? Anybody human has fracture lines.

John McCain didn’t have to be perfect. Public confession wasn’t required, much less desired. (As someone who knows entirely too much about politicians’ and media personalities’ private lives, I can only say, with great sincerity–ick.) Only naifs and victims of internet scams expected him to be a real maverick, though given Rove/Shrub’s historic disapproval ratings, he might have pulled it off. Nobody with two connecting brain cells really believed McCain would actually do anything remotely startling, least of all the machine political bosses, zombie loyalists and inevitable groupie sociopaths.

Which means he still had a chance. Especially given the economic implosion, what a glorious, bittersweet, unique plant-yer-feet-look-the-other-guy-in-the-eye-and-tell-the-truth opportunity.
Bitter, given his slandered chance in 2004, but what an invitation for a maverick/idealist to make good on the lies. He’s 72, survived torture as a POW, had 4 cancer surgeries, married a +$100/million wife–what the fuck is he afraid of? What does he think the GOP bully boys can do to him now? He’s already survived the worst they could dish out; certainly he can’t believe they actually write history.

Maybe it’s just dreary habit of thought. Or entrenched…something.

54

It’s happened in other countries (hi Britain, where conservatives like universal health care and the green movement!), where what Americans consider conservative is a fringe, mostly racist party. Granted it would take a very long time, but it is possible.

55

Even then it can rise up from the ashes years later, look at austria.

56

[QUOTE=Tamerlane]

The social and philosophical divide between the two poles is too great to entirely bridge or overcome, such that one completely marginalizes the other for long.
[/QUOTE]

I’m far from convinced a real divide exists, much less one that’s firmly anchored by political entities. Oh, I think there are deep chasms but they’re ones of convenient, shifting political definitions. Especially in a country that’s as large and diverse as ours.

I think it’s less a matter of yeasty demographics settling into the two major political parties than it is increasingly clumsy attempts by party pols trying to adapt their respective brands juuusst enough to grab available voters without actually going to the risk and hassle of retooling the corporation.

Black fundamentalists. Liberal Catholic Latinos. What to do, what to do…

57

We are becoming more socially liberal as a culture, at least in some respects ( decline of overt racism, sexism, anti-gay sentiment ). On that I agree and I do think that is a trend that will continue, albeit probably in a halting a “two step forwards, one step back” fashion.

I expect movement in other areas of social disagreement like the divide over abortion will be even slower, at least in my lifetime.

On the other hand fiscal conservatism and with it the debates over wage laws, government programs and priorities, taxation policies, etc., isn’t going away anywhere that I can see. If anything it might be getting stronger ( not saying that is necessarily a bad or good thing - just what I observe ).

Hmmm…I’m pretty sceptical. But I guess it depends how far left you are now ;). I’m pretty sure it won’t be to the left of me :p.

American culture with both its unusually high degree of religiosity compared to the rest of the Western world and its lauding of rugged individualism, is a rather different kettle of fish compared to much of Europe. I won’t say it won’t happen at all. But it won’t happen in my lifetime - that I’d be willing to bet on.

I agree, mostly. But however they shift I’m of the opinion that the chasms themselves will usually remain, even as they move position :).

I just don’t see a largely homogenous American polity ever emerging - I doubt most people outside of the true zealots do, really, at least if they stop and think about it. There will always be shifting poles, however amorphous. That they are cast as binary and fuzzy is pretty much down to the mechanics of our political system. In a parliamentary system they’d be just as ephemeral, but much more sharply defined and rather more numerous.

58

A socially liberal, but truly fiscally conservative party could garner a lot of influence.

59

I don’t disagree at all, but at this point I don’t know what “truly fiscally conservative” even means.

60

Someone who strongly resists using the national debt to pay for new programs?