Just a note...

My voting story

victimofcircumstance:

(First off I should mention that I was in a church two times today before 9am, once in a Catholic church to vote and the second in a Lutheran church for an IEP for a student at the Lutheran school….that may be some sort of record for me…)

I got to my polling place at 6:40am for the 7:00 opening.  I was the 70th person to vote there.

On my way back out to my car, a man points at my sticker that says “I voted” and in very broken English says “I vote here?”  I said, “Yes, this is where you vote!”  He says, “Is easy?  I can do?”  I said, “Yes, it’s easy.  You can definitely do it. Is this your first time voting?”

He said yes and started crying a little bit.  He told me that he just became a U.S. citizen in September.

An elderly man crying about voting for the first time in a parking lot at 7:30am puts a lot of things back into perspective.  It was awesome.

This is just awesome. I almost cried.

*sigh*

I’ve been talking to my Mom. A bit of background here… I am a liberal democrat (I belong to the ACLU- gasp! Civil liberties are important to me!) and she is a strict conservative right wing Republican. I am literally in tears. It consistently scares me how people like my Mom, Susan,  are so quick to refute facts. I’m aware that facts in politics are waning but there are some that can be refuted. She said to me, about Fox News, “they are the most reliable source of non-biased information”. I’ve showed her printed facts that they are not. She consistently denies this.  And what scares me even more is that when I try to show her facts she literally talks over me so loudly it is impossible to speak to her. I’m not sure what she is so scared of when it comes to learning, but it’s apparent. I’ve showed her printed facts, accepted both by Dems and Reps on current issues, but if they don’t support her point of view, it is worthless. My mom votes on values. She has no concept on voting as a whole on what is better for the US. I understand values are important, but when is it so important than we’d rather have abortion outlawed and have people living on the streets? I have no understanding of women supporting Palin. My mom thinks she is the next coming of Christ apparently. She freely admits she isn’t qualified but would rather vote for her than what… Obama? Her biggest woe is the supposed “socialist” view of Obama. I’m not sure, I think she is confused on what Obama really wants, but yet she isn’t open enough to research his position. On Palin… she supports her, yet knowing she’s unqualified. And yet, despite her own daughter being a rape victim. I don’t understand. Palin would actually make me pay for my own rape kit, yet my Mom still supports her. Values may be important, but when it comes to individuals, who are you to impose anything? People like my Mom truly scares me, makes me sad, and forces me to tears. If Obama doesn’t win, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.

I've been gone... so so long.

I haven’t written an actual post in so long. I know Tumblr, I miss you too (I don’t think Tumblr actually missed me though, that self righteous whore, but whatever). In my MIA days this has happened:

Saginaw courts: More parents have not given a fuck about their kids. Most notably the mom who hasn’t taken her child to her chemo appointments. The child is two.

Work at alcohol/drug rehab: Clients great, co-workers drive me insane.

School: Stupid. As usual.

Spirit: Downtrodden. Severely sprained my foot. On a pile of shoes which I notably said I should move a few hours before said sprained foot happened. Serves me right.

Not sure if I should give up my education and move to some other area and become a bum. Mer. Any suggestions on good bum areas?

Again, On Religion and Politics

squashed:

topherchris:

It’s more complex than that, though. Evangelical Christians and many other religious persons have beliefs which are completely incompatible with political realities: Abortion is safe and legal, gay marriage is gaining legitimacy….

…

What would be more appropriate, of course, is for an event of this nature to be conducted by journalists. Good ones. Real ones.

As a religious person, I don’t think my beliefs are incompatible with political realities. But rather than pretending to take things too personally or arguing over what constitutes a political reality, I actually want to offer an observation.

I think the world of political discourse—even serious political discourse—is a bigger world than we often imagine it to be. Journalists have there role—but they have no monopoly on the dissemination of information. Why not let scientists conduct a forum between the candidates? Why not get some trial lawyers to really hold their feet to the fire? What about other politicians? Maybe a teacher?

And of course, why not a pastor if that’s what people want? To say that religious belief, religious conviction, or even religious people have no place in political discourse, in itself, unconscionably exclusive. The opposite proposal, that religious dialog—or a specific type of religious dialog—should dominate political discussion is similarly exclusive. Ultimately, we have a few hundred million people who are going to vote—and they can vote for whatever reason they want to. The guy who votes for the candidate with the nicest tie or the hottest wife, gets the same size vote as you do. The trick is to convince this guy to vote for something you consider more important.

A huge portion of the country considers their faith the most important part of their life. They don’t want to be told to segregate this portion of their identity from their public lives. Why should the campaigns ask them to do this?

______________________________________________________

Although I am a Christian I can separate certain ideals. Yes, I think abortion should be considered a personal decision, and yes I believe in gay marriage. I do not believe in “voting for values” though. Especially since a Christian trend has popped up… I can understand that although this may be an important part of MY life, it may not be important part of someone else’s life… I just want people to remember the line between church and state. It may have gotten blurred with Bush (I know my Mom “votes on values” even though I have told her “just because someone is a Christian doesn’t make them a good president”— who gets the last laugh in that one?!). Just remember, there is a line. In all of this I don’t think my religious beliefs quell with any political beliefs, if anything, they go hand in hand… just remembering to leave that at the church and state line, which many politicians famously forget.

Just look at the social costs of Wal-Mart's 'Low low, prices', and this is even the start...

squashed:

Johnbrissenden, nikography, and karmcity have had an interesting mini-discussion on Wal*Mart and its attractively low prices. Nikography and Karmcity essentially argue that people are just trying to get by, which is why Wal*Mart’s low, low prices are so attractive. And people shouldn’t be blamed for just trying to get by. Johnbrissenden’s argument is a bit more complex and involves the structure of global agricultural market. Read it here and here.

I’m not anti-Wal*Mart. Or, to be fair, I’m ambivalent on Wal*Mart. When there are no alternatives, it’s hard to be too critical. And it has done a lot of good things on the environmental front. (It’s got a ways to go on the labor front.) But I have two criticisms to add.

1. Those low, low prices may not be particularly lower than that Mom & Pop store. If Mom & Pop are selling at the farmers market, their produce is likely to be both cheaper and better than Wal*Mart. However, Wal*Mart is very convenient in a car-centric culture. When I lived in Boston, it was a whole lot more convenient to get my hardware at the hardware store, my fruit at a little fruit stand, my records at a used record store, my software at the software store, and, of course, my books at the book store. All of these were on my walk back from school. But if I were driving, I would want somewhere with a giant parking lot where I could do everything in one stop. As the Mom & Pop stores become fewer and further between, patronising them becomes less convenient, regardless of their prices.
2. While that single parent might want the $2.99 pack of toilet paper rather than the $3.99 pack of toilet paper, the math might change if the single parent knew the social cost of delivering the product. If you were offered a $2.99 roll of toilet paper and knew that purchasing it would support a subsidiary that exclusively used old-growth forests for raw materials and ten-year-olds were forced to labor for pennies a day and cast aside when their adorable little fingers were caught in the machinery leaving them maimed for life, but managed to do this by bribing a genocidal government to look the other way, would you pay the extradollar for whatever the fair-trade equivalent of toilet paper is? (In fairness, I don’t know whether any toilet paper company actually does this—but nasty environmental and labor practices by subsidiaries in the global south are quite common.) On one hand, we’re not personally doing all the wage-slavery and all that, but we are sort of paying somebody else to do it for our low, low prices. I don’t mean to condemn capitalism as a heartless system—but the information corridors that connect the heart of capitalism to the brain of capitalism are missing.