Entries in Life

I've never been in the military, but this quote sums up my feelings several conversations I have going on.

"We won the war, therefore we must have deserved to win."

My crucial memory, and the memory that really starts all of my other memories about the war is waking up in this pine forest my first morning in the war.  It was still dark, but just barely getting light and as it got light, I was astonished to see within 3 or 4 feet of me, several bodies, dead bodies, of German boys who had been killed, I think, the day before by the unit we were relieving.

These boys were just exactly like me. And they were killed, their eyes were open, and their faces were as white as marble, greenish-white.

And at that moment, when I saw what I was involved in, actually, for the first time -- my training had never told me this -- many of my adolescent illusions about reason, the governance of the world by reason, and common sense, and the idea of progress fell away all at once.

And I realized, in that one moment, that I would never be again in that world of childhood innocence, where the world is run by reason and events contain a certain amount of justice.  I knew now that I was enmeshed in a world of injustice and unreason.  That I would have to learn how to survive in that world, or how to make sense of it, later on.

Paul Fussell
Infantryman in US Army
1944-1945

I just got back from a 30 mile ride -- which makes 110 miles so far for my first (hopefully) 200+ mile week.  As you can imagine, spending time alone on the bike gives me quite a bit of time to think.  I use the time to pray, plan my day or just think.  This past week, politics have been on my mind quite a bit.

It all started at my grandfather's funeral.  His death was not unexpected.  He had suffered a stroke the weekend before and died peacefully in his sleep during the week.  Still, as an impromptu reunion of my (fairly conservative) extended family during the final days leading up to a presidential election, we had some interesting conversations.

Since they all know I worked on a campaign for a Democratic nominee for president when Bush was up for re-election, one of the first questions I'm asked is: "Who are you voting for?"  I've stepped out of the Protestant, Republican straight jacket, so I'm not quite as predictable politically.  (I get the feeling that I experienced a smidgen of what William F. Buckley's son went through.)

Just to be clear: back in 2000, I was rooting for McCain.  He was (is?) a man who stood up for what he believed in.  I was no fan of Gore and thought McCain was the best of the Republican lot.  But no matter.  That was during my "I don't vote" phase.

However, in the past eight years, I got to know McCain better.  And it seemed like McCain changed.  A former victim of torture, he went soft on torture.  In the debates, he specifically listed veteran's benefits and war spending as one of the programs exempt from his idiotic "spending freeze".  If we're going to freeze spending, why exempt those?  It seems like blatant pandering to vets.  His ambition to be president is consuming him.

And, in the past couple of weeks, it looked like his campaign ran away from him.  When he had previously said he would run a clean campaign, his running mate started accusing Obama of "pallin' around with terrorists".  And that's another thing: while I think Palin was a smart choice to shore up the "base" of voters and make McCain 50 times more appealing to Evangelicals (my bother admitted McCain didn't interest him until Palin was selected because she seems to be a devout member of the Assemblies of God church), I don't think she is qualified.  She does look, as one person reported, "shockingly amateurish".

So those are reasons to vote against McCain.  I'm sure that if I wanted to (because, to be frank, I knew I was going to vote for Obama before many of these reasons came out) I could find just as many damning statements to make against Obama.  But that is part of what I don't like about the campaign against Obama.  Much of it ("Nobama", "Barack Hussain Obama") seems childish and stupid.  Sure, that sort of stuff works for some people. But it isn't attractive to me.  And just to be clear, if I was going to let someone's associates scare me away (Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, ACORN), I wouldn't have anyone to vote for (Keating Five, ACORN, William Timmons).

What about the issues?  There was one consistent reason my family gave for voting against Obama: Abortion.  Make no mistake: I do not like Obama's position.  But, suppose I thought I had to vote my concience on this issue alone.  Suppose I thought that I must vote for a pro-life candidate.

Neither party, the Republicans nor the Democrats, has given me that choice.  McCain is not pro-life. But he'll appoint conservative judges!  Doubtful.  McCain isn't that conservative.  And trying to get a clearly pro-life judge through a Democratically controlled senate just isn't going to happen, even if that was what McCain wanted to do.

From my point of view, there isn't much else to consider.  The economy? McCain is flailing around on the economy and doesn't seem to have any ideas.  He admitted long ago that he doesn't know anything about the economy.  Not that Obama is much better here.  Since the economy tanked under the Republicans, the Democratic nominee gets all the political benefit without any work.

In the end, it does come down to personality.  Obama has more control over his temper.  He can inspire people.  He can think big while still being aware of budgetary constraints.  I doubt he'll be able to cut taxes as much as he says on those making less than $250,000, but at least he is honest about saying that we do have to pay for programs by raising money somewhere.

Other people can push their candidate better than I can.  I'm not looking for a savior in the political arena.  I'm not even looking for the person who best represents what I believe.  I'm not keeping track of promises, since, from a politician who has to push most of his ideas through two houses of congress, they're meaningless.

I'm looking for someone who can lead.  Someone who can inspire people.  Someone who can deal with people respectfully.  Someone with an actual chance of being elected.

For now, that person appears to be Obama.

I was listening to the Indian Electronica podcast from a few months ago.  It was all very political, but one clip was from Arundhati Roy and was is spot on.  Commenting on the "anti-american" epithet that is thrown at anyone who disagrees with our government's failed mission in Afghanistan (which still seems very widely supported) she says we are now told that we should support it to free Afghani women from their burqas.:

But what does the term “anti-American” mean? Does it mean you are anti-jazz? Or that you’re opposed to freedom of speech? That you don’t delight in Toni Morrison or John Updike? That you have a quarrel with giant sequoias? Does it mean that you don’t admire the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who marched against nuclear weapons? Does it mean that you hate all Americans?

This sly conflation of America’s culture, music, literature, the breathtaking physical beauty of the land, the ordinary pleasures of ordinary people with criticism of the U.S. government’s foreign policy is an effective strategy. To be “anti-American” (or for that matter, anti-Indian or anti-Timbuktuan) is not just racist, it’s a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those the establishment has set out for you. If you’re not a Bushie, you’re a Taliban. If you’re not Good, you’re Evil. If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.

Now that the initial aim of the war in Afghanistan - capturing Osama bin Laden (dead or alive) - seems to have run into bad weather, the goalposts have been moved. It’s being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas, that the U.S. Marines are actually on a feminist mission.

Think of it this way: In India there are some pretty reprehensible social practices against “untouchables,” against Christians and Muslims, against women. Pakistan and Bangladesh have even worse ways of dealing with minority communities and women. Should Delhi, Islamabad and Dhaka be destroyed? Is it possible to bomb bigotry out of India? Can we bomb our way to a feminist paradise?

(Googled up this Ms. Magazine article from the quote I remembered.  The article is slightly different from the quote I heard, but close enough.)

In my mind, this same sort of thing is closely related to why Immigration has become an "issue" during this political season.  I'm really not sure what big threat immigrants pose to us, illegal or otherwise.  They're here, as long as they don't cause trouble and contribute to society, why are we worried?  All the arguments sound like a thin cover for Xenophobia to me.  Are we really worried about the amount of money we're spending on illegals?  We could give each illegal immigrant a pony and we would spend less than we have spent killing Iraqis and deposing Saddam.