Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.
Tues 11.02.10 – I don’t like horror or scary movies, but I feel like I am living in one. Early this morning I woke up in the 5am hour from a nightmare in which everyone around me turned into a zombie. My first waking thought, of which I tweeted fairly soon after was:
“Is it just me or does it seem wrong that US Election day this year falls on Dia de los Muertos?“
I attempted to go back to sleep as it was still dark outside, but the idea that the American voters had turned into Zombies chanting, “More Change, more change…”, as they sucked out politicians brains, kept me wide awake.
I live in California of which we, as an electorate, have spent the last decade plus ranting and raving about “Those [*shakes fist*] damned [*shakes fist*] no good politicians in Sacramento!!”. We have voted in term limits, which have only given us inept, freshmen politicians who are more entrenched in their partisan ideology as they don’t have to stick around to compromise and use diplomacy. We have come to regret term limits. We have had a serious budget stalemate for years, even before the financial crash California was in a financial crunch from frozen politics.
And somehow y’all thought that would be a good idea for the whole nation?
My friend Kevin Tamura, a native Californian now living in Washington, put it best in two tweets this evening:
“Hearing the Republicans talk about fiscal responsibility is laughable. We’ve already had a lost decade thanks to them.”
“Republicans spent 2 years opposing everything and preventing this country from moving forward. And now we vote more them in? Insane.”
The zombies out voting today must have been the same folks who blithely kept giving GW Bush a high rating in the face of increased government size, huge deficits, and torture in the name of patriotic Republican Bush-era America.
It took GW Bush & Co. 8 years to severely screw the United States over with fiscal irresponsibility of the highest order* and it will take Obama & Co. more than 18 months to un-screw it, how does voting the perpetrators back in make it all better?
Strong wording aside, I am more than stunned that folks think change will happen by voting back in the same folks they voted out 2 years ago. Bewildered and sad for our nation is more like it.
Yes, we absolutely do need systematic and structural change, but voting for a party known for only protecting themselves and the rich while spouting platitudes about small government & fiscal responsibility, while they increase the size of said entity with overspending is not the way to get it.
* I love when Republican members of my family talk about fiscal responsibility and small government, I just giggle. Everyone has to have some sort of nostaglic fantasy life for an bygone era that never really was, right?
