As my husband
animadversio no doubt made clear in his rant this afternoon, our Obama yard sign was vandalized in pointed fashion sometime during the night. I came out this morning to find it punctured and torn, the frame bent, and the whole mess of it lying in the street in front of our house. I picked it up and re-installed it as best I could before I left today, but of course it is quite a bit the worse for wear.It's only a sign, perhaps; but to say that this makes me feel sad, violated, and angry is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. This event is so illustrative of my fears for this election that I don't know where to go from here. What's next? My home? My kids? What, because you're so determined to get what you want that if we believe differently from you, we must be destroyed like the sign?
I know that I have friends who feel strongly that the conservative ticket is the only choice for them. Although I love them no less for their views, I am bewildered by their thinking and uncertain how to handle that. I don't believe that everyone who believes McCain is the best candidate would go around pulling up vinyl yard signs of the opposing ticket and mashing them into the asphalt in -- what? Some sort of bizzaro ritual superiority dance? -- but the fact that someone DID do that only strengthens my feelings of separation and misunderstanding from those who believe so differently from me as to qualify as polar opposite, positive/negative, us/them -- and I think the numbers of those willing to do anything to supress opposing views is growing by frightening leaps and bounds.
I don't LIKE this thinking. I would be so much happier to move the country AWAY from it, and yet I can't see a path that would allow what we all have to say to be said in a way that avoids attack and negativity in favor of logic and facts -- not when Obama's attempts to campaign in that fashion were met with derision, cries of falsity and accusations of a superiority complex, and not when the McCain campaign continues to spout outright, proven LIES without conscience or remorse, knowing that there are enough out there who will hear and believe them without fact-checking, that the accuracy of their words (or rather, lack thereof) won't matter.
The trouble is, to me, it IS a superior method to follow, to discuss the issues that concern the entire country, not just the uber-rich subsets and conservative, exclusionary ideas of what "family values" may or may not be. The perfect campaign to me would have each candidate prohibited from mentioning their opposition in ANY way, allowed only to discuss what THEY will or will not do, what *their* plans are. One that requires
sfw_dc for the reminder!) separate televised Q&A sessions over the year before the election, one in each state and the District of Columbia, where candidates are required to answer questions from the citizens of each state DIRECTLY, and without demur or a press secretary's bug in the ear to add spin. Elite? No. Superior? Yes, I believe so -- and I see nothing wrong with that kind of superiority. The absolute GLEE with which the Republican convention met the constant litany of anti-Obama sentiment staggers and horrifies me. Now, I'm not claiming that the Democratic party is a passel of tree-hugging hippie people-lovers with nary a negative word to say, but I definitely feel that the enmity coming from the McCain/Palin camp towards Obama and his supporters smacks of danger to me -- it's the same sort of enforced-belief doctrine that puts me off organized religion. "YOU! You're gonna say this, do this, and THINK this, and if you don't, it won't go well for you!"
Something mean, maybe even vicious went through somebody's mind when they took our wee yard sign and didn't just take it down, but *destroyed* it. And whether it was directed at US as Obama supporters, or whether it was directed at Obama himself -- that's scary. Someone in my neighborhood decided that it was perfectly okay for them to be cruel, because what they believe is somehow more important and better than what WE believe.
This is why our sign -- battered, pierced, torn, and limp -- is back up outside our home. This is why I will vote for Obama in November and will do everything I am able to do in a positive way to try and convince others to do the same. The kind of person who believes that oppression, violent action, and insistence on doctrine without regard for fact is the way my country should be governed is not the kind of person I am willing to be governed by. I will do all I can in a positive way to prevent it from happening, and I will not be silenced.
Tags: political animals
Tell me how you really feel:: 
determined
cheerful
