In the recent days I have found this article by Jay Jaffe of Futility Infielder. Jay Jaffe is a Yankee fan who also writes for Baseball prospectus and is quite the raconteur on the Net. Normally I wouldn't really cite another blog for an article, but I thought this might shed some light on how people are feeling out there in the USA, just so that we can know they're not all crazy for Dubya.
I try very hard to steer clear of any head-on political content in this blog. An astute reader could certainly cobble together a good idea of where I stand based on the views I've aired regarding, say, stadium finance, gays in baseball, and the politicization of the Hall of Fame. But I started writing about baseball in order to get away from writing about politics and the culture wars, desiring to find a common bond among people who might otherwise disagree and seeing a need to shed the stridency which ran rampant through much of my writing and drained the joy I took from the endeavor. That desire has served me well for the past three and a half years, allowing me to build up a nice little audience and make a fulfilling sidelight out of this site. Despite my better impulses, I cannot let Tuesday's results pass without comment, if only because I know that I won't be able to write about the relatively trivial matters of baseball which capture my fancy until I vent my spleen. Feel free to disregard this post, or to vote with your feet either before or after I've aired my views, but don't expect a knock-down, drag-out exchange in the comments thread. Debating politics via this blog is a far more futile endeavor than the major league career of Enrique Wilson, and I've no intention of wasting further energy once I fire off this volley. Sad to say, it's just as unlikely you'll change my mind at this juncture as that I'll change yours.I'm absolutely devastated, disgusted, and revulsed not only by the thought of four more years under George W. Bush but also by the incredible polarization of this country. While I certainly believe that reasonable minds can disagree on a wide range of policy issues, I simply don't understand how anybody could look at the facts and think that we are safer today after four years under Bush, when 9/11 and the Iraqi debacle are direct results of the man's brazen ignorance and incompetence, and the U.S. is viewed with contempt by the enlightened democratic countries that should be our allies.I used to joke that I lived in New York City to get away from the crazy fundamentalists populating the rest of the country.
Now, it's no laughing matter. I feel far more endangered by what those zealots can produce via electoral politics -- especially with regards to this band of certified thugs who have just "won" and will do ever more to put Americans in harm's way -- than anything I might face on the darkest, most dangerous streets of New York City. Right now, writing about the first flicker of the hot stove flame feels like a hapless attempt at a coping strategy. As I've said before under similarly bleak circumstances, I would give anything to be yawning through a pitching change right now. I would watch a Red Sox victory parade and like it, paint my face and wear Jheri Curl while eating a vat of Boston Baked Beans, if it guaranteed a different electoral result. On that note, as the possibility of a Kerry presidency had dawned, I had imagined scribbling a short post about how such a victory was better -- exponentially better -- than winning four straight World Series. Now, staring at this most bitter and brutal defeat, I feel as though my team has lost, its stadium has been razed, and its players have been fed to the lions in front of a hostile Coliseum crowd. We do live in two different Americas, and I'm less optimistic with each passing day that the gap will ever be bridged.
After that, he goes back to writing about baseball, and it's all good. I have had other e-mails forwarded to me about the tremendous sense of disbelief and forboding that the recent election results have wrought in America. I won't post them because they are not public documents to be released in such a forum like this, but suffice to say, the tone is very similar. The outpouring is so much more amazing than when the Bush family seemingly stole the election in 2000.
At the best of times most of politics is smoke. it's the entertainment branch of the Military Industrial Complex in America, andin Australia it's the debating team competition in the school of Insiders. The only probelm is that it affects us so much on a daily level. John Howard's lurch (nay, charge) to the right has brought out all sorts of racists from the woodwork, allowing them a kind of social legitimacy. To think that we were once headed for a future society where tolerance was the cornerstone now seems remote and we are worse for it.
By the way, there are those who argue that there ought to be tolerance too for the intolerant, but really this is a sordid piece of sophistry.
The upshot of it is this: We live in interesting times. If we don't like what we see, then it is up to us to try and change them. The Sleeper must Awaken. Let the Power Fall. Don't get discouraged by the inert masses, the vicious demagogues, the strident critics, the lousy slogans; do your thing, keep talking, keep reasoning, keep persuading that there is a better way than simply 'more of the same and protect my hip pocket.' We'll be fighitng in the streets with our children at our feet and the 'morals' that they worship will be gone.
IOW, Rock on and stick it to the man.
- Art Neuro
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