Goebel is my name.Some say I'm interesting.
This is a Haiku.
Goebel Gone Global
Man, it sure looks like you guys would have been supporting Bush through most of his second term by the same reasoning:
Spammed with emails from the Obama campaign demanding that I donate so they can “close the gap” between the amount that each candidate currently has to spend. What they don’t tell you in the emails is that Obama has received more donations than Romney by a significant margin, has spent much more than him, and has effectively made it so that he has about 40 million less to spend during the last month than his opponent.
Obama has raised 835 million. Romney has raised 771 million. Obama currently has 157 million to spend while Romney has 200 million. Sorry, Obama, that’s on you.
Why are Republicans not jumping on this blatant irresponsibility? Come on, Republicans, get on that. This is right up your ally.
Republicans: PBS takes up such a small percentage of spending that turning it into an issue seems ridiculous. We’re spending too much and attacking such minuscule programs while maintaining that we cannot reduce spending to our bloated military budget is ridiculous.
Democrats: You’re over-reacting to the suggestion of cutting PBS. PBS may be a small amount of total spending, but it’s still spending that’s not particularly useful and thus should at least be considered as a target for spending cuts.
The main reason that following this pre-election nonsense is so frustrating is because both sides’ attacks are filled with so much plainly stupid ignorance that I end up wanting to defend both sides against the other’s bullshit.
“I used to be a liberal. I was brought up to believe that the people who voted Republican were all ignorant, racist, homophobic, Christian fundamentalists who were beyond redemption. The implication being that people who voted for Democrats
“Studying drug policy opened my eyes to other things too. Like that a whole lot of libertarians who voted Republican were actually paying attention to an issue that most liberals didn’t (and still don’t) seem to notice. Here liberals were pretending to care more about poor people and people of color, but (at best) ignoring one of the systems that targets them mercilessly. Suddenly, I had to reassess my view of who was the enemy and who I had common ground with. Suddenly, I found myself in conversations with libertarians and conservatives and people who defied our limited categories.
Losing my liberal baggage and walking away from electoral politics is not about hopelessness or nihilism or sanctimony. Walking away from electoral politics was what finally started to give me some hope. If I kept smashing my head against our electoral system, I would have permanent brain damage from all the political concussions. It isn’t “an excuse for not really doing much.” It was the opposite. It allowed me to see possibilities that politics keeps hidden. It allowed me to start building the unlikely relationships that the defenders of our hideous systems are rightly terrified of.”
