Well if I'm going to do this, what better place to start then with potentially the greatest political leader we will see in our lifetime. I suppose I'll start this blog re-launch with list all that I think about Bams, and chronicle my experience of following the 2008 US election.
Quick summary – I’m a political junkie, and freaking love Barack Obama. Probably the biggest reason is that despite being a very astute politician, he's the closest thing to a genuine outsider to have been elected to such a high office in our lifetime. It also helps that he's relatively progressive, self-analysing, and self-made (as a man, obviously not as a President, you need help for that). And after the ludicrousness that was 'alphabet soup Bush', a great orator as world leader means a great deal to a 'words' man such as myself.
Quick summary – I’m a political junkie, and freaking love Barack Obama. Probably the biggest reason is that despite being a very astute politician, he's the closest thing to a genuine outsider to have been elected to such a high office in our lifetime. It also helps that he's relatively progressive, self-analysing, and self-made (as a man, obviously not as a President, you need help for that). And after the ludicrousness that was 'alphabet soup Bush', a great orator as world leader means a great deal to a 'words' man such as myself.
On a related note, I told everyone who would listen to me that Obama was going to win months ago. The media loves a race, and the establishment hates to admit a loss, but he had it from the early primaries. I wish I had written a blog post or something to prove I called it, oh well. Ask someone I know and they'll tell you what a broken record I was.
But on with the history I suppose. In all likelihood a non-linear ramble, but that's called a blog isn't it?
…
My interest in US politics really started in 2000. The Bush/Gore/Florida stuff was gripping, disturbing and insane. I started following that election in the primaries, remembering the two more interesting candidates were the basketball player and the war hero, but it settled on Gore (boring VP) and Bush (to quote Letterman at the time 'a colossal boob’). I started watching 'The Awful Truth' on TV back then, and the consensus from that and most other commentary was that there wasn't much difference between the two candidates. That’s right – Michael Moore thought there wasn’t any difference between Gore and Bush (I went back and watched those Awful Truth episodes years later, and my memory served me correctly).
But it was really ‘hail to the thief’ that got me hooked. Bush lost, but his brother was governor in the deciding state, so he ‘won’. It was ludicrous – how could this possibly happen in a first world country? On a related note, how could almost half of Americans have voted for a guy so stupid? At the time many said it was stage fright that caused Bush to look retarded 95% of the time. We’ve since learned he spent most of his life frying his brain with alcohol and blow. He’s the only President to ever have a criminal record (from a drink driving episode where he almost killed his sister). Many wrote off his earlier indiscretions as from his youth, but he was in his 30s!
Anywhoo, everyone forgot about the silly boy who was ‘President’ for a while, but he popped up again as star of the September 11 show in 2001. Without going into too much on that event, it made him something of a decent figure for a while (leaving aside the fact the attacks happened on his watch…). He looked like he and his cronies would go down in history as forgettable guys in non-forgettable circumstances. Pretty remarkable that they changed the world much more then whoever hijacked those planes did.
This, combined with the 2001 re-election of the Howard government based on lies, fear and racial prejudice, began my longstanding mistrust of many Christians’ conservative political views. I became very angry at Christians who I believed ignored the idea of liberty for the sake of generic rhetoric on sticking point issues, usually combined with a lack of political knowledge and/or any idea of expediency. They could support a fool/egomaniac/racist/sexist/whatever just because he called himself a Christian and was anti gay rights/abortion/muslim/some other issue that they can barely change anyway. Yet would never consider a politician whose views were about very Christian things (such as helping the poor, freedom of speech etc), just because they had a different position on some fringe issue and didn’t pretend to go to church. I imagine my take on that will be intertwined throughout this narrative. Hopefully I’ll be able to see my own blinkers while writing this out too.
Next up, Iraq and Kerry v Bush. Maybe. Who knows how far I’ll get.
…
My interest in US politics really started in 2000. The Bush/Gore/Florida stuff was gripping, disturbing and insane. I started following that election in the primaries, remembering the two more interesting candidates were the basketball player and the war hero, but it settled on Gore (boring VP) and Bush (to quote Letterman at the time 'a colossal boob’). I started watching 'The Awful Truth' on TV back then, and the consensus from that and most other commentary was that there wasn't much difference between the two candidates. That’s right – Michael Moore thought there wasn’t any difference between Gore and Bush (I went back and watched those Awful Truth episodes years later, and my memory served me correctly).
But it was really ‘hail to the thief’ that got me hooked. Bush lost, but his brother was governor in the deciding state, so he ‘won’. It was ludicrous – how could this possibly happen in a first world country? On a related note, how could almost half of Americans have voted for a guy so stupid? At the time many said it was stage fright that caused Bush to look retarded 95% of the time. We’ve since learned he spent most of his life frying his brain with alcohol and blow. He’s the only President to ever have a criminal record (from a drink driving episode where he almost killed his sister). Many wrote off his earlier indiscretions as from his youth, but he was in his 30s!
Anywhoo, everyone forgot about the silly boy who was ‘President’ for a while, but he popped up again as star of the September 11 show in 2001. Without going into too much on that event, it made him something of a decent figure for a while (leaving aside the fact the attacks happened on his watch…). He looked like he and his cronies would go down in history as forgettable guys in non-forgettable circumstances. Pretty remarkable that they changed the world much more then whoever hijacked those planes did.
This, combined with the 2001 re-election of the Howard government based on lies, fear and racial prejudice, began my longstanding mistrust of many Christians’ conservative political views. I became very angry at Christians who I believed ignored the idea of liberty for the sake of generic rhetoric on sticking point issues, usually combined with a lack of political knowledge and/or any idea of expediency. They could support a fool/egomaniac/racist/sexist/whatever just because he called himself a Christian and was anti gay rights/abortion/muslim/some other issue that they can barely change anyway. Yet would never consider a politician whose views were about very Christian things (such as helping the poor, freedom of speech etc), just because they had a different position on some fringe issue and didn’t pretend to go to church. I imagine my take on that will be intertwined throughout this narrative. Hopefully I’ll be able to see my own blinkers while writing this out too.
Next up, Iraq and Kerry v Bush. Maybe. Who knows how far I’ll get.
2 comments:
Let me go on record Dave and say you convincingly called Obama's victory VERY early!
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