The continued reference to Mary Cheney by the Dems

This also from MSNBC:

uh huh huh... dookie said "spin". uh huh huh huh...

sorry...

That's a good explanation Nimh... and I think it is a culture thing. Growing up in small town Wisconsin, homophobia is something you overcome. Homosexuality is still frowned on more than the prejudice of it, in much of this country. Sad, but true. I've known lots of otherwise decent folks that are very prejudice... they just don't seem to know any better, presumably because they were never taught any better. So maybe it's easier for me to identify with type of ignorance because it is apparently more prevalent where I come from... and I gather it just seems absurd to you. I think I'd like to visit your country.

Btw, how damning was that definition, eh?
Especially this part of the definition...
:razz:

You'd think Kerry revealed that Mary uses ten inch dildos.

On the other hand, I gotta agree with this bit from that article as well.


Cheney's sudden idignation now is, I'm sure, at least 75% opportunistic politicking. If it weren't, you would have heard him say something as well when his own fellow Republican Alan Keyes called Mary a "selfish hedonist", which is a nuclear bomb compared to what Kerry said.

But I gotta say also that it struck me, if you put the transcripts side by side, how much more subtly (respectfully or skillfully, depending on your take on the guy) Edwards spoke about it than Kerry. (I mean, apart from the fact that Edwards merely replied to a question about Cheney's family). Edwards talked warmly (or smoothly, depending), while Kerry seemed to kind of just pull it out from nowhere to make a political point. A valid point, but it was a purely intellectual one, whereas with Edwards it was really a personal note.




Finally, on the maddening question why American viewers and voters let themselves get all riled up and absorbed by any trivial sideshow, even after three debates just outlined any number of fundamental, far-reaching stakes in this race in the starkest terms.

The American elections are perhaps the only in the world about which it can deservedly be said that "the fate of the world is in the balance" - and even on the doemstic front you're talking ideological contrasts involving trillions, not millions of dollars and fundamental change in millions of lives.

Yet poll respondents make snap decisions on the basis of whether one guy, that one day out in Vietnam thirty years ago, happened to rescue a man's live more or less by happenstance or through an act of heroism. Why?


When feeling intimidated and overwhelmed by too big, too serious a set of choices, the first thing people naturally lose is their ability to prioritise, to distinguish the main things from the lesser things. Works that way for me, anyway. You get a sense of escapism, a desire to flee into dealing with something overseeable, something that's not larger than life - something petty, even.

Hell of a post Nimh. All I can say is we're as spoiled as we are arrogant. And with the money our corrupt 2 party system spends to stay in power, most of us feel it is beyond our power to really be heard (Don't know where Sozobe gets her optimistic stamina). Sure, we go through the motions but at the end of the day we're choosing between 2 posers that will pretty much say whatever we want to hear, regardless of how ridiculous it is. I've heard it described as Bush Vs Bush Light. Let's face it; neither of these imbeciles would stand a snowballs chance in hell against a guy like Tony Blair. People laugh at Arnold Schwarzenegger? Why? He could win this election if he was allowed to run. Yikes, now my cynicism coming out again.

Suffice to say; Guilty as Charged. We're pathetic.

I was about to agree with you, then I thought the better of it as it could be considered an insult.

It is all too easy for analysts and pontificators of every stripe to decry the voting public's taste for triviality, inappropriate details, and vapid generalities during elections. The usually unstated presumption of such commentators is that the lumpenproletariat cannot possibly understand the inner meanings and subtleties that the analyst's mind so keenly grasps. This is a lot of crap. People do understand. They do interpret what is behind the various words and gestures of the candidates who parade before them. The process is generally long and sufficiently multifaceted so that the series of imperfect impressions and insights does indeed lead to real understanding. It is certainly far from perfect, as is every element of democratic government, but it does filter out much that is bad, and, when that fails, at least limit its effects.

I am unwilling to believe that the same scrutiny applied to elections and the political process in France, Canada, Belgium, Germany, The UK, even the Netherlands would not reveal all the same apparent superficialities and defects - perhaps expressed differently in keeping with national styles, but present nevertheless. That others feel our process may be more interesting (or amusing) than theirs is OK, but it doesn't give them any rights in the process.

I find expressions that "the fate of the world hinges on American elections" as ponderous and stupid coming from foreigners as I do when Americans express them. The world is a big place and, as can be readily verified, it gets by despite lots of stupidity, wrong-headedness, greed, and cruelty coming from many sources worldwide - some even (gasp!) in Europe.

In the modern world the actions of any country can have far reaching effects on others - and some countries more than others. It is a two-way street though, and there are usually several ways for all involved to adapt. However that in no way gives those so affected any rights over the internal processes of those affecting them. Such issues are resolved between governments. The growing presumption that the UN can or should become some sort of universal nanny correcting the misbehavior of unruly nations is part of this. Governance of human beings is a difficult and varied thing. No one has a monopoly on all its virtues, and the UN itself in terms of the intrinsic values, ethics, and capability of its various organs is a bit below the average for the world. The best we can do is, when necessary, deal with the worst and most dangerous elements out there in a manner that promises to be effective and offer relatively little harm as a byproduct.

The decline in the popular esteem for the U.S. government in the eyes of people of other nations so breathlessly reported in many quarters is hardly a surprise, given the demise of the former Soviet Empire. No one really likes Microsoft, but we all depend on its products. It is easy to imagine better products in a lovely open source world, however such a thing does not yet exist.

Georgeob1 wrote:



Well, first ask them how they like being part of the lumpenproletariat.

There is a reason that pollsters ask multiple choice questions. People like to hear short, simple answers that be chosen merely by saying the letters
A B C or All of the above. Ask them to compare and contrast the foreign policy goals of England and the United States of America, no- something easier - ask them if they know the name of the person who represents them in the US Congress and what that person's stance is on Healthcare and see what you get in response.

It would take an effort to be informed in order to answer either question and Americans as a whole do not take the time. We busy ourselves with our jobs or our children and finding things to amuse us if there's time left, which for many people never happens. I daresay more people in America know which Red Sox pitcher will be having foot surgery after the season than know how the Prescription Drug Benefit Card system works.**

It's a complicated world. Things are not getting simpler, just how many features does your cellphone have anyway and how many do you use? The complexity plays into the hands of the conservatives who tell people not to worry, it'll all work out in the end, meanwhile making sure that is works out at their end for sure.

The hypocrisy is rampant, their candidate stands up everyday and tells the American people everything is rosy while the job market staggers along, education mandates are underfunded and every week another 6,000 lose their healthcare benefits. Not to worry, says the President, we're working on it. Yeah. Well, from down here it doesn't feel like it, but what do I know, I'm just a member of the lumpenproletariat.

Joe

** This is an unfair statement, I know, no one knows how the card system works

More



It is not a two-way street, my brother, it is a massive, one-hundred and sixty six lane mixmaster of mayhem with a couple of SUVs ignoring the right-of-way of everybody else on the highway and not a cop in sight.

Georgeob1

You start your post as follows:


It would be a lot of crap, which is probably why I neither wrote nor implied what you read into my post.

Not for the very first time, you appear to be responding in a rather knee-jerk manner to what you expect the other side to be saying - to the caricature you've drawn of the other side rather than to what is actually up there.

It leads to a certain contamination of the debate. Kind of like when George Bush brushes aside all details that were just presented about Kerry's health care plan and asserts: he wants to turn our health care into a government-run program, "because that's what liberals do". Eh, no. Perhaps "liberals" do, those mythical liberals that have become etched, like an iconic image of sorts, into your perception of the never-changing enemy, back in the sixties. But that's about as far as that goes.

To the matter at hand. You follow up the above opening paragraph with what I dare say is the usual rant about the arrogance of Europeans - how they always claim to know better but really are no better than the Americans, etc etc - followed up by a stern rebuke that, really, we dont have "any rights in the process" (not quite sure what rights I would be claiming here exactly, except for the right to comment - just like you do not hesitate to comment upon European politics in the "Following the EU" thread, in at least as broad a sort of generalisations). Here we are:


But - looking at this bit here - what part of my post (me being the only European posting here at length, Einherjar's one-liner excepted) triggered this renewed indignation? Shall we go back?

I asked "the maddening question why American viewers and voters let themselves get all riled up and absorbed by any trivial sideshow, even after three debates just outlined any number of fundamental, far-reaching stakes in this race in the starkest terms." A fair enough question, considering the topic of this thread - just like I would have asked it about Dutch viewers and voters if the topic had been the renewed interest in Princess Margarita's private life. "Poll respondents make snap decisions on the basis of whether one guy, that one day out in Vietnam thirty years ago, happened to rescue a man's live more or less by happenstance or through an act of heroism", I observed, and asked, "Why?"

This is how I attempted an answer: "When feeling intimidated and overwhelmed by too big, too serious a set of choices, the first thing people naturally lose is their ability to prioritise, to distinguish the main things from the lesser things", adding: "Works that way for me, anyway." Continuing on how it works for me, anyway, I could add from personal experience: "You get a sense of escapism, a desire to flee into dealing with something overseeable, something that's not larger than life - something petty, even."

I know this all too well. I am now at a point in life where I have to reconsider basic choices in work, love and personal future. In the short-term, I really ought to be preparing a rather intimidating presentation for next Tuesday. Yet here I am, distracting myself into an issue of easily overviewable proportions: was Father Cheney right or just cynical for blasting Kerry about a remark on Mary Cheney?

That's how that works. If you find a cursory read of such ponderings to deserve yet another cookie-cutter litany on the arrogance of liberals and the haughtyness of Europeans, I take no responsibility for it.

Finally:


Again, the blast of anti-European sentiment suggests some personal issues more than any correlation to what was posted here. But concerning the topic at hand, of course the fate of the world hinges on the American elections. You are, by now, by far the most powerful country in the world. Your economy is of a size and dynamics that makes ours directly respond to anything that happens over there. Sure, we can adapt some things here and there and add a layer of our self-created problems over it all, but if the US goes into crisis, we do too, and if it does exceedingly well, we get a boost too - and Europe ain't the only continent for which this holds true.

Not to mention some topics that lie close to my heart. IMHO, a lot of progress was made in creating a semblance of institutional arrangements on global security in the 90s. Baby steps, but with a clear direction. To my mind, global security per se has now come to be at stake with the disastrous notion of "preemptive attack". There is also the future of international justice, with the ICC lamed by American opposition. The US, due to its economic size, also has enormous effect on global warming, even if all of the rest of us would sign Kyoto. All these issues are, to you, anathema. But you cannot deny that America has a decisive effect on them.

Under President Gore, I don't believe the US would have gone to war in Iraq. That means OUR SOLDIERS would not now be in Iraq. It also means - again, IMO - that anti-Western sentiments would not have run as dangerously high as they have in the Arab world and, to some extent, in the immigrant communities in our own countries.

Dutch politics has no bearing on the US. But American politics, and American elections, directly impact our day-to-day life, here and in Latin-America and in the Arab world, and can both throttle or boost any development concerning, yes, the future of this world.

Mary Cheney has done a lot of outreach in the gay community for the Republicans. She's refused to campaign for gay rights, probably because it would embarass her father who's hitched his wagon to the star of bigotry and fear, but that doesn't make her, or her homosexuality, any less public.

Every commentator on every national network commented on Mary Cheney's homosexuality when she went on stage after the VP debate, her partner - also a homosexual - in tow. Given this, the privacy argument is ridiculous. Gayly ridiculous, I might add.

at least that would be mildy interesting......

Fantastic pair of posts there, nimh.

ILZ, that adds another clue to what Sofia and I have been trying to figure out about Mary Cheney's own take on this. Which has a larger audience, the veep debate or the Republican National Convention?

I just did some research, and evidently there were at least 43.6 million people watching the debate*, vs. about 20.9 million for Cheney's address at the RNC**. So if Mary Cheney was concerned about being in the public spotlight, herself, you'd think she would be less likely to be on stage at the debate than at the RNC.

Nothing conclusive of course, but that suggests to me again that it was specific to the RNC -- either the atmosphere was inhospitable and she didn't want to, or she was persuaded not to.

* http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/television/9862316.htm?1c
** http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/03/MNGL98JA8Q1.DTL Plus I added a 2.6 million figure I found for CNN elsewhere.

A couple of quick observations:

I really appreciate the way nimh holds up a mirror to the USA although sometimes it's a fun house mirror. His post with the hyperlinks was most useful for an overview of the debate, especially after 26 pages.

I agree that soz and O'Bill do a great job of calmly searching for the truth with a lack of ego that is refreshing.

For a silly sidelight to the debates this thread has become one of the best I have seen on A2k. Kudos to all.

and what office are you running for pan? :wink:

It was a satirical joke as it's almost impossible to know if she does but it's not difficult to know that she's a Lesbian. She outed herself and her father has confirmed it on national TV. In reality the parents are likely trying to bridge out of their denial and what it means -- they have outed themselves as parents of a homosexual. It's pretty simple and doesn't require long winded essays to explain it. If they didn't expect it to come up in a political issue that the Republican party itself has harbored to capture the religious right vote, they are very foolish people. Sure one could read into Kerry mentioning it once again in the context of how people are homosexual that he could be using it to piss off the religious right. You go, baby.

Oh, I'm sorry bear. I neglected to mention your interjections of levity which keep things on an even keel.

pssst Anything I can win Bear!

Lightwizard I am now at a point where I am equal parts amused and incredulous at the amount of energy being spent by so many to make this into an issue.......and it has no real legs......

I wasn't fishing for a compliment good buddy but how about you and I run for Drug Czar?

That'd be like electing the Elephant to guard the peanut warehouse.