The Scrolls

Posts Tagged ‘politics’

Passion

When asked what I was passionate about, I found it hard to answer and what I did come up with didn’t seem significant enough. The truth is, however, I am passionate about people and things that affect them: freedom and opportunity, tragedies–both natural and man-made, the every day things and the once in a lifetime chances. I think it would be appropriate to be compassionate and I could not tell you that I try because, the truth is, I try not to be sometimes. It’s all to easy for me to get swept up in despair because I cannot possibly help everyone or even know where to start.

To help alleviate this despair, I decided that I would stick to what I’m good at. Every day, I would make my loved ones smile and laugh and feel good about themselves and, in my head, these ripples of goodness slowly spread outward and perhaps, just maybe, touch every corner of the world. Nevermind that it’s a sphere.

And maybe along the way I will discover some way that I can contribute in more “significant” ways because I know that saying “I make people laugh” doesn’t exactly sound like ground breaking life’s worth. But don’t let me undercut what I do because I am damned good at it and if I died today, the people I loved would be sad because there life was better for having me in it, for having me to make them laugh.

And that is awesome.

Yet, sometimes, the reality for those who I can’t make laugh hits me like a ton of bricks. And I get angry. Or sad. Or a hysterical combination of both. Because I care. Because I am passionate about people in general, despite my sarcastic and biting sense of humor that may indicate otherwise. That is how I felt when I stumbled across the following:

There is a country where the leading cause of death of pregnant women is murder by a partner. In this same country, more than a million women were raped in 2008 and women are much more likely to live in poverty than men. Local laws don’t protect their right to bodily freedom and integrity; some rape laws even state that once a woman initially consents to sex, she doesn’t have the right to change her mind.

You may have caught on by now — yes, I’m talking about the United States.

- Jessica Valenti

average life span of a transgendered person is twenty-three years. The statistic is shocking, until it begins to make sense. Gender non-conformists face routine exclusion and violence. Transgendered people are disproportionately poor, homeless, and incarcerated. Many of the systems and facilities intended to help low-income people are sex-segregated and thereby alienate those who don’t comply with state-imposed categories. A trans woman may not be able to secure a bed in a homeless shelter, for example. Spade writes that just as the feminist movement tended to “focus on gender-universalized white women’s experience as ‘women’s experience,’” the lesbian- and gay-rights movement has focused primarily on a white, middle-class politic, centered on marriage and mainstream social mores.

— Meaghan Winter for Guernica

The good news is, there is good news.

Google has stepped up and created a Person Finder page for those who may be missing in Japan. I personally clicked over and stumbled across an entry for someone looking for information about someone in Misawa. I left a little blurb to inform the poster than Misawa AB has reported no deaths or serious injuries. It’s really hard for me to read about what is going on over there right now. It just hits.. a little too close to home but I hope that I have helped.

And despite the political turn that has occurred, people like you and me are stepping up to help others. Like this Tumblr user who want to give rides to women in Virginia who require an abortion but must now travel out of state for the service. Or this user who says (and I paraphrase) “You know what? Abortion isn’t for me but I respect the life of the living as well as the yet-to-live.”

Pro-choice is not pro-abortion. Pro-choice is often far more pro-life than “pro-life” is. I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone who thinks abortion is just fantastic or the new perfect birth control, that’s not how it goes. If you really want a lower abortion rate, put your time and effort into education and health care (you know, programs like Planned Parenthood). No one has any right to tell a woman what to do with her body or anything that’s growing inside of it. No one has any right to put women in danger for a group of cells, especially a group of cells they will later ignore and expect to fend for itself.

– SkyWritingg on Tumblr

Also, this guy is awesome:

What the..

I just read the repeal against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was blocked. I guess supporting our troops is just too much to ask, eh?

Wil Wheaton had it right when he posted this:

I’m going to be sad now.

Grand Ol’ Idiots

Normally, I might preface and entry such as this one with a disclaimer. I might say I do not wish to offend anyone but, the truth of the matter is, most of the people whom I wish to not offend will not be offended because they’re reasonable. And so, I begin.

Stop it! As you badmouth our new president, your new president, you are doing more than just a disservice to him. You are doing a disservice to your country and to yourself. So what if your candidate didn’t win? Welcome to the otherside. Half the country felt the same way in both 2004 and 2008: I sure as hell didn’t vote for Bush!

Obama became president elect more than 2 months ago and I can understand if you’re still sore. I know a few of us Democrats were bitching for a good while (of course, we had much a better reason) so I figure, another month or two and this childishness should be out of your system.

So what if the inauguration ceremony had a few glitches. It goes to show that even the most powerful people in the country are just that, people. Mistakes happen. And you think swearing in again without a bible equates him to the devil? Then don’t forget the same can be said about Theodoore Roosevelt (and can you fault anyone who inspired the teddy bear?!). It doesn’t make him any less our president so you better get to accepting it.

While we’re on the topic, cut it the fuck out with this Muslim/terrorist spiel. Enough already. We know his middle name. We know why it’s his middle name. If you want to head in that direction, I’m sure there’s more than a handful of persons of German descent who share the same name as Adolf Hitler but that doesn’t make them Nazis, does it?

Of course, I have to save the best for last. On some news show last night, I heard someone say he hopes Obama fails. Excuse me? How ridiculous can you be? You do realize that wishing failure upon our president will only mean failure of our United States of America, of which you are apart. Right? People might want to think about their words because they’re sound absolutely insane.

The fact that people continue to attack the person rather than the policy shows how immature these grudges are and how weak the arguments have always been. President Obama campaigned long and hard so that he could be where he is today. Maybe when you’ve done the same, I’ll want to listen to your bullshit but until then, please, just shut up.

Do Not Vote… NOT

I really despite Borat, except in this video.

Show me the Money!

Money is today’s topic and we’re not talking about personal finances really. I was just considering the millions of dollars which go into presidential campaigns. According to Open Secrets, Obama has raised just shy of $400 million dollars during his campaign with $66 million of that amount being raised in August alone. According to that same source, this is most than twice the amount which Senator Mccain has raised and what makes this most impressive is that Obama’s campaign raised much of that money through donation by Every Day and Average Joes just like you and me.

Impressiveness aside, I just cannot help but wonder: What the hell costs so much?!?

Now, I know what I do not know and that is how a campaign is run. But I also know that the most prominent results of these campaigns cannot possibility cost near the millions that each candidate has spent. It seems implausible that the cost to film and air ads, produce merchandise or even salaries.

A little research shows that 75% “of a campaign’s outlays will ultimately go to paid communication: direct mail, radio, television and Internet ads.” But although Craig Smith might have been Lieberman’s campaign manager 4 years ago, I cannot help but wonder if he’s ever actually had to budget.

And this is pretty apparent when Hilary Clinton admits that much of the money goes to FedEx shipments. Seriously? Shipments? To me, this seems like something that a normal person would try to cut down on and while I can guarantee presidential candidates have more of a need for shipments than I do, it seems like they just think “I have millions of dollars to my name, I can afford to send this and this and this and…” I bet if you took at all those little, unnecessary expenses and tried to weed them out or consolidate as much as possible, a presidential candidate wouldn’t need hundreds of millions of dollars.

Of course, it’s not just presidential campaigns that get me. I wonder the same thing when the president asks for millions more to go toward the war effort. It seems like the obvious things that need to be paid for – salaries, weapons, food, contractors – can’t really add up to the insane numbers that are requested for the effort. Granted, I can at least see a need for money in this field whereas I can’t see a whole lot of need for money at all when it comes to campaigning.

I believe that in both of these examples, the person doing the spending and the person issuing the money are far apart. Estimates and requests are made, money is handed out and, again, because people feel they have a never ending source of income, they don’t budget properly. Sacrifices have to be made and it’s often in the wrong place. Cutting funds when it comes to armor and weapons is not going to protect our troops out there.

However, where the money is going is not the only qualm I have. Where the hell is it coming from? Because our nation is in debt and it’s such a debt (over $9 trillion!) that we wouldn’t even be putting as much as a dent in it if we applied all the money from presidential and war campaigns to it!

It seems to me that a debt like that is essentially indicative of the fact that we, the United States of America, do not have any money and, if that is indeed the case, where the hell are we getting money to put into anything least of all to throw at the war?

Whenever my mind tries to compute large sums of money in the millions, billions or trillions it just fries. I simply cannot imagine that many $1 bills (or even $100 bills for that matter). It’s become increasingly obvious that the people who are involved with that money cannot either; they are only involved at a level where they pick a nice number, track on some zeros and call it good. Because the money is never actually seen and only exists (or does not exist) somewhere in some bank’s computer, we become out of touch.

What does this mean at the end of the day? We continued to spend, the debt continues to climb, the value of the dollar continues to fall and the economy continues to drop making it hard for the average Joes like you and mean to exist while other parties, purposely or not, continue to squander away our money without thinking twice.

Judging a Book by its Cover

I know this is a little irrelevant now as we’re assuming Obama is our democratic candidate which, if true, is awesome for him but I’d noticed something of interest. I was perusing the political macros site, PunditKitchen, not too long ago and, of course, many of the macros focused on our presidential candidates: McCain who looks older than Grandpa Simpson, Clinton who has a vagina and Obama who is chocolate coloured.

Not surprisingly, Clinton and Obama were the most popular subjects as their now-defunct rivalry raged on. I noticed certain trends among these humourous images, trends that were slightly less subtle than Hillary’s breasts of Obama’s skin but interesting trends nonetheless.

Both candidates have a particular look in these macros and one could easily say that opponents would pick specific types of images to fuel their argument but I believe that there are simply an abundance of photos which show Obama and Clinton in stereotypical roles.

So what roles do I speak of?

In Clinton’s case, she often looks angry or irate, desperate, snobby and indignant. Obviously, much of this was due to her downhill battle, a battle she never expected to have to fight in the first place. Regardless of the reasons, it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. It also doesn’t help that she is and looks older than Obama. I cannot blame her age, with it comes (hopefully) experience, wisdom and many good years. I applaud her for not being botoxed to hell (although I suspect there is some work done) and she generally keeps herself neat but there is no hiding the fact that she is no longer a young woman and, on top of these qualities she is broadcasting, this makes a very unflattering portrait, one which makes me dubious of Clinton as a person.

On the other hand, Obama rarely looks these things. If anything, Obama frequently looks happy and sometimes, yes, even silly. The latter is what I think some of those opposed to Obama would see the latter as a weakness to be exploited, but I disagree. To me, it’s comforting to see someone who spends time with his family and doesn’t act as though he’s above everyone else. If Obama sometimes falters, so what? We all do. This simply makes it easier to relate to him as a human, a man like everyone else. I continually have the feeling that Obama could be my neighbour, just another person I could rely on in a time of need, someone to be respected.

Now, one could argue that perhaps Obama is really a good liar, an actor that is worth million in Hollywood. I cannot, without any doubts, argue this. I don’t know. However, I suspect this isn’t the case and that is simply because of the frequency that he is smiling in photos. This man seems genuinely happy with himself and his position in life. Of course, it probably helps that he was winning and felt confident in his campaign, I cannot belittle that, but it seems like that it far from the only factor. Obama gave the impression that he would remain happy whether or not he claimed the candidacy.

I just can’t see someone who appears so content as a liar. Neither could I see someone so indignant as the president. However, as a team, they would be a powerhouse. Still, we’ll have to wait and see on that one.

The Thin Red Line

Recently, I was reading Joana’s thoughts about how we, as a country, need to stop ignoring our own internal problems while we throw resources at others’ problems around the globe. I felt conflicted emotions about this issue. On the one hand, I believe there should be a way to be a good neighbour and help others in their times of need but, on the other hand, I do not think that out own unfortunate populations should be forsaken to do do. The comment I left reflected this, I hope.

Well, I can’t say abandoning the world is going to help but you know, maybe international relations can be on a hold a while when we figure out our own shit. I’m sure there’s some sort of a balance to working at home and helping out the neighbours and even those across the globe. But it’s probably a pretty difficult balance.

Afterall, being friendly isn’t a bad thing and we can’t exactly wait until all our problems are solved as anything with people will always have problems.

Still, completely ignoring the homefront just to impress president or PM of country X is pretty lame. I think it does have a lot do with the fact that much of the national issues are “supposed” to be taken care of at the state level (or are pushed down to that level so the federal government doesn’t have to do anything, maybe?) whereas international efforts are federal.

I thought it would be left at that but, as luck would have it, my aunt forwarded me a link to JK Rowling’s Harvard Commencement speech and I also took the time to read the speeches of other prominent figures, such as Bill Gates and President Bill Clinton (during last year’s commencement).

Many of these speeches focused on the fact that Harvard graduates have a unique opportunity given them by their education, that perhaps they will be more qualified to solved the ills of the world. Many of these speeches focused on the problems abroad that we, as a modern nation, are more equipped to deal with than those experiencing such pains. This was a strong theme when Bill Clinton discussed his work with AIDS, especially in Africa.

I find this work to be admirable and selfless. I know that millions of people will see another day or another 20 years because of it, sometimes because of simple medicines that Americans and others in modern countries take for granted. I absolutely think someone has to do it and why not you or me?

But where do you draw the line when it comes to giving a helping hand at home or extending that hand outside your domestic boundaries? How do you even begin to go about deciding where to draw the line when it’s so easy to slip to either side; focus too much on home and you’re selfish to the point of self-detriment, focus too much on the outside and you’re selfless to the point of self-detriment.

I absolutely believe that if you have the power, the resources and the technology to help, you should help. We should help. In Africa, in China, in India. I also believe these efforts go a long way toward global relations and respect and, of course, peace.

But why does international effort seem so much more heroic, more noble? Indeed, there are issues on the home front that need our attention: obesity, education. government spending/funding, education, homelessness, unemployment, the economy in general. Is it perhaps that even an American most afflicted by these controversial issues is still so much better off than someone in a third world country with AIDs? That, perhaps, the most unfortunate American is still better off than the most pampered non-American?

Or perhaps selflessness is simply expected of America because she is the world’s last standing super power regardless of the nobility of the acts themselves. And why not lead the way for others to follow, to be inspired by our selfless acts? Surely by doing and teaching this, we are only helping our own citizens.

The balance is a delicate one and while there are decisions made by my government with which I do not agree, I cannot condemn the efforts because of solely those arguments. Society is, afterall, an evolving process.