not ready to make nice

[mellowtigger]

The Dixie Chicks are right about some things. I approve when they stick to their principles, even especially when it's unpopular. I see that mai_neh  and kauko  both want people to make up and move on politically. I don't want to, though.

I'm tired of legacies. Really, really tired. There's been a Bush or a Clinton on the ticket since 1984. That's an entire generation of people under the guiding voice of just two families. Please, make it stop. And this nation needs to face some harsh realities, make some decisions about very unpleasant matters. We need, for once, someone who can actually lead the nation, to teach us about the difficult choices ahead of us so we can make some informed decisions about matters with painful consequences to all of the available options. I feel strongly and clearly enough about what I want, that I'll repeat my post from a different thread...

---

If Clinton showed up on the ticket with Obama, I'm not sure I could vote for Obama at all. I'd have the same problem as voting for Clinton for president. I don't want a) yet another legacy presidency (in the making) or b) Hillary's inability to stand for anything meaningful without the polls to back her up. If she wants me to respect her, she's going to have to do something memorable, like explain WTF actually happened during Bill's escapade.

Obama can survive telling unpleasant truths, which is exactly what this nation needs to face crises in personal income, access to medicine, global warming, and oil addiction. I want someone who can turn the boat against the tide. That person is absolutely not Clinton... or McCain.

Or, as Molly Ivins put it, "Not. backing. Hillary."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/20/ivins.hillary/index.html

If that's the "compromise" that the Democratic party asks me to make in November, I'll likely make the same "compromise" that I've frequently chosen over the last few election cycles. I'll vote for the Green Party candidate instead. I'll remain a persistent statistic, proof that some people in the country are ready for changes far more radical than either of the two major parties can handle.

Unless Obama crafts a ticket and cabinet based solely on the message of change that I've been wanting to hear for so many years.

Comments

[kauko.livejournal.com]

Well, i think you've been unfairly dismissive of my post, which stated outright that its fine to have a preference for a candidate, and if you feel strongly for one candidate fine. But the real point of my post was that the decree of rancor people and stooping to in regard to the candidate they don't support AND their supporters is uncalled for and childish. My post was made in responce to a post I read in someone else's journal which wanted to fully attribute Clinton victories in Mid-Western states to racism, a post to which some made a reply stating that if Clinton won the nomination it would be via the votes of 'old people and racist whites'. That's the kind of childish hatred I'm decrying in my post. That was the real point of my post.

[phreddd.livejournal.com]

kauko, that's a fair (and more than acceptable stance to present form).

As a person of color living in the state that so far seems the exception to that rule (Wisconsin, where Obama gangsta-smacked heavily on the strength of those same working-class whites that he couldn't grab in Ohio et. al.), I can't say I always have any clue of what goes on in the minds of my paler neighbors some of the time, i.e. the ones who keep sending Dems to the Senate while voting for one man/one woman nastygrams.

I can say that I would like an idea of what real things - past or present - play into some of these decisions (and not the answers that "help" one or the other candidate, either - I mean the painful answers that help movements and societies grow... assuming they/we want to grow.)

[kauko.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my problem with the racism excuse here is that its too simplistic, don't get me wrong I think there are unfortunately plenty of people out there voting for Hilary because they can't bring themselves to vote for a non-white person, but to take it to the extreme of basically dismissing all voters of Hilary as 'old people or racists' is ridiculous and unfair. And as you pointed out, looking at the map of where Obama has won, he's won A LOT of very 'white', rural states where honestly I would have thought his race might have worked against him (like the northern parts of the central and mountain time zones), but none the less he did win. So I give people a lot more credit than just to sweepingly dismiss their votes as being motivated by racism.

[mellowtigger]

Ah, yes, the specifics of the matter make it much more understandable than the general post. I would agree with you about the racist/sexist propaganda.