Slow Trickle of Truth

After the debacle involving the exit polls, one wonders whether there is any point in putting stock in what the pundits say about anything. Then again, why put stock in anything that anyone says, really? It's a matter of weighing the truths present in every argument and trying to figure out which one has more relevance and density (to keep the metaphors consistent). In the past few days I have been thinking about the whole idea that an outpouring of Christian support was the only reason Bush won. It didn't work. I haven't been too convinced that the dry rot in the floor of the American democracy was there alone. Christians did come out in larger numbers than 2000. Now that their low self-esteem has been lavished with attention they feel the Christian thing to do would be to return the favor: why turn the cheek when you can open your wallet or sell your soul. Obviously, probity is not a concept common to the Christians of middle-America who don't see faulty intelligence as a euphemism for a lie. But I digress. The notion that gay marriage and stem cell research, along with abortion, were the sole reasons Bush and Co. made it back isn't entirely accurate, I'm finding. Some people are just still so sh**-scared that the Bogeyman (e.g. bin Laden) will come out and bite them in the ass, they're happy hanging out with their alcoholic step-father (Bush) and taking his lies and probing fingers in the dark corners of the conscience, rather than getting out of the house and learning how to stand up for themselves. This article from slate deals with why the idea of gay marriage as a motivator for Christian voters isn't all that comprehensive.

I do think that this article glosses over a few pertinent facts, like the fact that Christians in middle-America have been ignored, and have ignored the world, for so long that they have nothing but hatred for their condescending coastal cousins, with their abstract academics and their smelly global perspectives. "America fur die Amerikaners, auslander, geraus."

I forget where I read it but, there was a decent article on how the middle of America, being landlocked, had less to do with the world, while the coasts, East and West, naturally situated on shores where the world comes and goes, had to look outwards. Interesting idea.

Here's another great piece in Slate dealing with how the left lost the country.

Not to be a spoil-sport, but the left has lost the globe!! And I'm not sure we ever had it. From America to Zimbabwe, fundamentalist (and anyone who doesn't think Bush is a fundamentalist as defined is a twit) right wing, hard-line governments are in power. Luckily, us Indians kicked out a whole bunch of morons who thought using religion to incite hatred was a great way to stay in power.

My next campaign: trying to get Americans to outsource their elections to India. We'll vote the guys who don't do sh** for the common man, out, and replace them. We may be illiterate and poor, but hell, we have better electronic voting systems and apparently a more accurate understanding of right and wrong.

I'll sign off here; much more to learn about the blogging process and so many links to cull from cyber space. Vive la resistance?