Saturday, November 20, 2004

Bla Bla Blah



I'm blogging politics on the American Street today, so all I have left for my own blog is either talking about the gender wage gap or just chatting. I know a lot about the wage gap, but I don't seem to be able to explain my knowledge very well. That's a common problem: it's a lot easier to sound wise about something one knows nothing about. I'm going to chat instead of enlightening anybody, though I'll do the gender wage gap on Monday or Tuesday. Just a warning so you can skip over it.

I'm still angry about the election, and I suspect that quite a few of you are, too. The reasons are pretty obvious: either the election contained major inaccuracies or the majority of Americans are quite happy with a president who starts elective wars against people who had nothing to do with attacking this country, a president who advocates these wars as a fly-paper strategy without thinking about the ethics of killing innocents elsewhere so that we can be safe, who is running down this country's safety nets and any fairness or justice it still may have contained and who is also doing all of this in a manner of a dictator who refuses to hear alternative points of view. When you consider the massive effort the Democrats made it is hard not to feel very grumpy, indeed. Will there even be a chance for another effort in 2008? Will it be a fair chance? Will all these disappointed Democrats fight again if they don't know the answers to these questions?

Of course it is also true that the grassroot efforts of Democrats have only just started and the battle is not over. Things are likely to get worse before they get better, though, so forgive me for my anger. I'm not a patient goddess. I will keep on fighting for what I believe is the fair society, but I'm not going to smile prettily while doing it; I'm going to bare my teeth instead.

In the meanwhile, the lint Democrats are talking about making advances at the fundamentalists. This would mean letting go of the reproductive choice as an important political plank in the Democratic platform. I say let them make all the advances they want. It will spell the death of the Democratic party, though. There are not enough fundamentalists for both Republicans and Democrats to share, and if the Democrats start fighting for the dregs after the Republicans have picked off the choicest wingnuts the total gains of the Democratic party will be small. At the same time, they are going to lose the votes of millions and millions of pro-choice voters in the whole country. I will be glad to do my little bit towards that end if this turns out to be the new 'message' of the lint Democrats.