recoveringmale

Well.......well.

For me to be adequately informed about politics and everything that was going on would take the reading and analyzing of several books, basic courses in government, and a careful and thorough studying of the news. I don't see much point in watching Fox News, but something more along the lines of NPR and Salon (and the Daily Show, of course). Not only do I need to keep up on all the daily reports, but I require a basic crash course in political history and thought and debate. Reading Noam Chomsky or Michael Moore is fine, but there's a distinction between reading things that you know will simply reinforce what you want to believe, and reading both sides of an argument and making up your own mind. And doing that takes time and effort. Only after all this would I feel truly qualified to engage in a serious political discussion. I knew enough to vote against Bush, against banning gay marriage and so on, but that's just common sense. I once envied Rain for her awareness and pointed interest in following the news, scanning the various political blogs and keeping up on current events. And yet today, I know that if I knew as much as she did as to the implications of what's happened, vast as they are, I would be far more depressed than I am. I am not made of terribly strong stuff, and I know that if I were confronted with the full truth of these matters it would likely flatten me, and I wouldn't want to get out of bed in the morning. I'm am quite nave, and I don't doubt that there were many dirty tricks at work in this election, just like the last one, all of which will eventually, uselssly, come to light (for all I know they were already in the light and I wasn't looking), but nonetheless, a good percentage of Americans voted for Bush and I'm just very, very sad about it. Disappointed. It's easy to become insulated in a place like Portland or Berkeley, where everyone around you has generally the same politics. But as we have seen, about half the country doesn't share the same version of reality as we do. We consider them uninformed, and they probably feel the same about us. I watched the news last night with a bunch of inebriated Reedies who yelled at the screen and screamed "FUCK BUSH!" and carried on in their way, and it seemed to be just as useless as any such behavior from the folks in the conservative camp. Anti-Bush sloganeering and mindless rhetoric seems to do as much harm as good. To attack people with different beliefs as you, telling them to fuck off, does this not work against your goal? But I didn't feel prepared to call anyone on the recklessness of their zeal, and try and persuade them to focus their energy on being more productive. This must change.
So. To combat my own ignorance, this is important. To try and bring it back from the abyss in some small way. It's hard not to despair. Because something seems so bad that it can never be redeemed, so broken and fucked that it is not worth your trouble anymore... I don't know. Perhaps it's my youthful optimism. Perhaps this system will crush me and spit me out like a bug. But I'm not ready to give up on this place yet. I can't. Maybe that will change the more I learn, but running to drown my sorrows in drink is not the way. Giving up is not the way. What was it Gandhi said?

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."