They tell me former President Jimmy Carter gave a pretty good speech the other night. I heard Bill Clinton similarly inspired the Democratic faithful in ways only Bill can. But I guess Illinois senatorial candidate Barack Obama really impressed everyone with his energy and spirit and youthful exuberance, so much so, hes being touted as the face of the partys future. Not bad for the son of a Kenyan father and a white Kansas mother.
Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards spoke last night while Presidential candidate John Kerry speaks tonight, the final night of the Democratic convention in Boston, with the expectation that everyone will leave there enthusiastic and revved up for the remaining months of the campaign.
But you know what? I didnt watch a single minute of it.
Maybe there are still folks out there who are undecided and need to watch the evening news and follow convention happenings to find that one last bit of information that will push them over to one side, but thats not me. I knew who I was voting for the minute I heard Bush had stolen the election in 2000.
It boggles my mind how some people can be undecided still. What planet do they live on? Even if you are of a mind that Bush should get re-electedalthough I then wonder what lies you have to tell yourself to be so convincedsurely you came to that decision some time ago. But to be undecided after four years of the most morally corrupt administration since Richard Nixon is to have your head up your rectum, clueless as to the ways of the world.
Lets completely ignore the totally unnecessary war in Iraq that has cost tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives, resulted in hundreds of American military and civilian deaths, destroyed US relations with our allies across the globe, cost billions of dollars in tax dollars while generating billions in no-bid contracts for defense contractors like Halliburton (Vice President Dick Cheneys former company, in which he still owns stock and thus personally profits off this war). They never found those WMD as the media so euphemistically likes to refer to them, and there was no connection to al-Qaeda, but we invaded anyway. It has been a disaster for us (or is that US) and a boon to Middle Eastern terrorist recruiters.
We could of course focus on the economy. During his first two and a half years in office, Bush decimated the $127 billion surplus left to him by Bill Clintonthat guy Republicans tried to impeach for screwing an internand launched the nation towards a projected deficit of $1.9 trillion by 2008. Estimates for 2004 place the budget deficit at $475 billiona sum which does not include the rapidly accumulating costs of the U.S. military presence in Iraq, which the Defense Department is currently estimating at $5 billion per month. White House budget director Joshua Bolton attributes 23% of the nation’s deficit to the three successive Bush tax cuts.
I could go on and on about how this misguided approach to leadership is bankrupting the country, diverting funds away from necessary domestic programs like education, health care, the arts, aid to seniors and youth, as well as intruding on our civil rights, but most of us who actually pay attention to the world around us already know this. I dont need to watch the convention coverage to pick up this information. Im not undecided.
And can we talk for a second about how the large corporate controlled media is giving those who do want to watch few options when it comes to convention coverage. The three major networks would rather program reruns of already lousy tv series than to show us something that might actually affect the course of the country. Is this capitalism at its most irresponsibly greediest, or what?
Like the folks in this satirical article from The Onion, Im all out of anger and rage. I have no more to give. Ive stopped watching the campaign coverage and cut back my news consumption considerably. Youll note I havent posted here very often lately either. I just cant get worked up any more.
In the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, Im sick and tired of being sick and tired. I want election day to come, so I can vote George Bush the fuck out of office.