What are you going to do if McCain wins?

Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

What Are You Going To Do If Israel Wins?

When I was there, there were soldiers all over the streets and we frequently got yelled at for doing stupid shit - like sitting on a sidewalk. XXP

big place, italy.

Venice wasn't a police state...

real talk if i got tortured by blax i would prob be droppin n-bombs too (more than i normally do, anyway), but i wouldn't just be using it wrt my captors. everyone gets it, even tracy morgan!!! iirc mccain only clarified that he was referring to his captors AFTER ppl called him out on his gookisms, i think it's p clear he didnt just mean a handful of slopes in hanoi.

You guys could move to Miami-Dade County; we don't follow the Constitution here.

So to get back to the original question -- besides emigrating, will people riot in the streets if McCain wins? Where will the anger be directed?

People don't get angry – they get sullen.

Acc. to 538, McCain isn't gonna win. So I don't know what people are worried about. Apparently no one has come back from a deficit in the polls this big this late in the game? Except, like, the Giants beat the Patriots last year. So I guess all bets are off.

America goes "tsk" and goes home.

I think part of the price you pay for being a small d democrat is that you've got to have the stomach for it. there will be long stretches, probably more often than not if history is any indication, that the "people" will make stupid hateful decisions. I guess why i grimace when people want to run off to more palatable places politically speaking is that it almost seems like they aren't willing to accept that price.

Hating *race* because *several individuals of that race* abused you == racist.

Hating *several individuals who held you captive for years and tortured you daily* and using *offensive racist epithet* to signify your hatred and disrespect of those individuals == kerm doesn't mind.

If you have evidence of McCain referring to Asians besides his captors as "gooks," or hating Asians in general, then there's your racism.

As far as I'm concerned: Holocaust survivors can call Nazis whatever they want. Freed slaves could call their former owners whatever they want. People who've suffered unimaginably can call their oppressors and torturers whatever they want, and people who share some sliver of identity with those oppressors and want to scold and tut-tut those survivors for their coarseness get to shut the fuck up.

You are all entitled to feel differently. Enjoy.

it's also especially annoying in the USA which is, as far as i can tell, probably trending towards a much more liberal society. fundamentalist backlashes notwithstanding.

Even assuming any of that makes sense, a person could choose not to be a Nazi. Choosing not to be whatever ethnicity your genotype demands is somewhat dicier.

xp. Probably.

No, some people are born Nazi, they can't help it.

Hating *several individuals who held you captive for years and tortured you daily* and using *offensive racist epithet* to signify your hatred and disrespect of those individuals == kerm doesn't mind.

that's cool my dude but why not just call it racism and admit that ur cool w/a little racialism? it's like bein a lil bit country, a lil bit rock n roll~~~

B-b-b-but it ain't. Can't do it, bro.

(PS I seem to have devil's advokermed this thread right off of my Site New Answers page... How'd that happen?)

nm, back now, musta been the glitch.

Don't worry about it, Kerm. Everyone wants to see everything in black and white. And I am SURE that if these posters were tortured they wouldn't have any bad words for their torturers. Just like one said "fuck you dumbass" up there. Nope, can't you see they don't have a temper?

(xpost)

I think part of the price you pay for being a small d democrat is that you've got to have the stomach for it. there will be long stretches, probably more often than not if history is any indication, that the "people" will make stupid hateful decisions. I guess why i grimace when people want to run off to more palatable places politically speaking is that it almost seems like they aren't willing to accept that price.

― ryan, Monday, 29 September 2008 16:18 (1 hour ago) Permalink

This is what I think too. Also, why it is pretty disturbing to hear people say things like "I just wish I could educate people to make voting choices that were better for them!" (FYI: Obama campaign volunteer) or "I don't think people who've never [had a "real job," owned land, served in the military] should vote" (FYI: multiple McCain supporters). Like wow, we'd better change the electoral system so that only people "good enough" to vote like me will have a say, and then it would all be better!

ps these people I am quoting are not crazies on the internet, they are people I have had actual conversations with in the last 3 days.

I don't know, does it make me one of the brain-washed liberals to think that "I just wish I could educate people to make voting choices that were better for them!" is really really OTM? Minus the "I" part, I don't think I should be setting out to educate anyone.

Because shit we make choices that are sucky for us all the time but when it mostly only affects you, that's one thing (hi dere sixth beer etc). I don't really need my drama to affect the rest of the world in an elected way.

how does

"I just wish I could educate people to make voting choices that were better for them!"

=

"we'd better change the electoral system so that only people "good enough" to vote like me will have a say, and then it would all be better!"

I want a parliamentary system already.

and what OTM - there is no "vote like me" implicit in the first statement

dunno about making choices "better for them", but how about making choices backed by facts/knowledge -- obama is not a muslim, iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, etc

Yeah I mean the bar is pretty low here.

Wait wait Maria, OWNED LAND?? Who do you have conversations with, 18th-century zombie noblemen?

The problem with "I just wish I could educate people to make voting choices that were better for them" is about semantics and mentalities, I think -- if you have the attitude that you are condescending to "educate" people about the facts and truths of what they should do, you are lost from the get-go. I often wish people on the left were better at finding the space between that kind of condescension and despair/apathy -- the space where you actually have the desire and opportunity to politely explain to others what you believe (and, even if you don't convince them, at least give those views the face of a reasonable, well-meaning person).

strike voting from that sentence and the american people are happy to eat up people who want to educate them on how to make choices that are better for them - oprah, dr laura, miss manners, joel osteen style prosperity ministries, dr phil, sex advice columns, consumer advocates, etc

lol "eat up people" yall know what i mean

WHO ATE DR LAURA?

damnit xpost

Yeah, I've never seen evidence that American don't like to be edumacated. Style and tone count for a great deal, as nabisco said.

okay major xpost

This was part of a conversation about how the Obama campaign volunteers talks a lot to people who vote Republican based on "social issues" abortion. She thinks they should be voting instead to improve their economic situations, and if they only knew how their votes could materially affect their lives they would change their minds. I think if you're already voting on issues that clearly won't affect your economic situation, it's probably not because you're too uneducated and would just change your mind if you knew more about economics or sociology or whatever, it's probably because you have different priorities. Ones I strongly disagree with, but that still aren't the result of stupidity or ignorance.

And I'm not saying that all these people are saying we need to go make it illegal for stupid or inexperienced people to vote. I'm just bothered by the implication that people who vote differently are doing it because they have some flaw that makes them inferior (it must be lack of education or work/military experience!), and that these people I know in their early 20s who aren't experts in anything themselves are qualified to pass judgment on the other half of the country that way.

...and I should probably get off the crotchety soapbox now, I want to watch this vote.

Maria is OTS (on the soap)

Um, first sentence above should say:

This was part of a conversation about how the Obama campaign volunteer talks a lot to people who vote Republican based on "social issues" like abortion.

And the one about land ownership was from someone who probably would like to go back in time and be an aristocrat, and who should be ineligible to vote based on that comment anyway, so I don't put so much stock in that one!

mccain will win. reps will scam the election (again) if he doesn't.

McCain is not going to win. Bailout bill fails = economy goes even further in the shitbin and Republicans will get blamed.

mccain is not going to win, I do not think this vote is going to be close enough for them to pull the shit they did in 2000

This was part of a conversation about how the Obama campaign volunteers talks a lot to people who vote Republican based on "social issues" abortion. She thinks they should be voting instead to improve their economic situations, and if they only knew how their votes could materially affect their lives they would change their minds.

Yeah, and I guess that comprises so much of the blue state/red state thing that has been on everyone's minds since 2004.

I could be completely and totally wrong in thinking this, but I'm inclined to feel that people who have in the past sided with candidate x b/c of their position on abortion legislation, their espoused love for baby jesus and family, etc... will this time around, due to the severity of the current economic situation, put the priority of feeding their kids ahead of that other stuff. It's not like there are a million Ghandis living in the heartland-- when push comes to shove, I'm thinking people will vote with their stomachs, as it were.

The problem that remains, though, is what has been echoed many times over as concerns the apparently willful ignorance of so much of the population. The fact that there are people who are still "undecided" at this point is more than proof enough of that. I hate to say it, but I also think that many people are swayed on such an unconscious level when it comes to things which loom this largely on the spectrum of events...so sadly you get the phenomenon of people voting based on the candidate who they perceive as being more physically attractive, or taller, or more fun to watch football with, or less intellectually intimidating, or more of a "big daddy" figure...

Not to mention the racism nonsense-- e.g., see my uncle, who had been volunteering for Hillary's campaign, and then upon her losing the nomination to a dark-skinned man, overnight became a McCain supporter. (BTW HE (my uncle) IS WHITE!!!!!!!!!!!)

mccain is not going to win, I do not think this vote is going to be close enough for them to pull the shit they did in 2000

How bout the shit pulled in 2004?

xxpost

Have you been watching the polls?

All I know is liberals have been in shock both times Bush has won saying things like 'I'm going to leave the country,' 'there will be riots' etc. etc. and look what's happened.

I've lost faith in the American voter.

i watch the polls via 538 and it currently indicates a pretty wide margin. I personally think 538 is being conservative as well.

Yes, god knows I've lost faith, but this is a pretty singular situation (insert A Chorus Line parodies here).

Shit is so fucked that even the most elaborately constructed edifices of people's potentially limitless capacity for self-delusion are falling apart.

xpost

OK, the gap has widened from the last time I looked.

Perhaps this is due to Palin's hilarious interview with Katie Couric. Oh, if it could only be so easy.

I'll do the same thing I did when Bush won re-election in '04. Get drunk on election night, spew some hateful bile the next day, disengage from politics for a month or so, then resolve to get more involved with local politics/elections.

Around the time I resolve to take a more positive stance is when my relentless mockery of friends who claimed they would move to Canada will begin.

Dude, my friend who swore up and down he'd move to Canada if Bush won in 2004 didn't move to Canada, but did get depressed, gain a lot of weight, and drop out of school for a year. He was seriously that upset by it. No laughing matter.