Thoughts on Palin and Gramps

In many ways I would not dread a John McCain victory. His pick of Sarah Palin as his VP, his "we are all Georgians now" comment, his belief that anyone who makes up to $5 million a year is a part of the middle class, his inability to define terms such as Sunni or Shia, are all demonstrations of a serious disconnect, if not dementia. Sen Obama was probably correct in his charge that "it's not that John McCain doesn't care, he just doesn't get it." But as someone who would not suffer as much as the majority of my countrymen under a McCain/Palin administration (I am a student, not a mortgage holder), I anticipate with my eyes to the future the predictable increases of poverty, warfare, economic turmoil, ugliness, incompetence, inaction, and stupidness (Palin is a creationist and her entire mental faculty is therefore called into question) that would befall my once great nation during their theoretical 4-8 year administration. For I believe that even with an Obama victory, Americans will continue to ignore our individual responsibilities as members of a democratic republic, that we will continue to consume a declining fuel source on a massive scale without any notion of consequence, that we will be unable to confront effectively and constitutionally the growth of subnational threats from individuals and small groups and increases in systems disruption as the brittle energy supply chain gets tossed around the global stage like a hackeysack (see: Georgia vs Gazprom and the BTC saga, US natural gas supply and hurricanes, Canada pipeline rupture of 2007 among others). Hallowed out states will probably propogate (see: Cambria, Lebanon, Mexico, Iraq, Colombia, Pakistan, Nigeria), and those new fangled global supply chains and internet that Sen McCain just discovered will all abet this increased fracturing. Americans will be unable to confront these challenges. I agree with James Howard Kunstler that only a massive social disruption, prompted by a final energy crisis, will radically alter the material ugliness, petty religion, and fucked up lifestyles of socially stunted rich white kids that I saw growing up in the idealized American suburb (FAMILY VALUES). Obama's victory will not change the insanity of the 45% or so of our population that will vote against him, no matter how intelligent his Russia policy is, or how quickly he fixes health care, or whether or not he can successfully pull US forces from Iraq. Pick a policy -- any policy!, to these people results do not matter. I agree with Mr Kunstler that only such a dramatic crisis as fundamental energy shift could call to cause the full, restless strength of America, that maybe we deserve to have our noses to the grindstone after the past three decades, and it is my belief that Obama is diligent enough to ease and prolong such a crisis. America and the globe will, at some point, confront the holistic nature and dominance of the global marketplace that they've created, and we will all understand that interdependencies create shared catastrophes as well as shared opportunities. And McCain/Palin is the perfect vessel to carry forth that apocalypse. Never in history, to my knowledge, has such a disgracefully awkward ticket been offered to the electorate. Sarah 'Who the Fuck' Palin? It is obvious that they will not confront the energy issue, that they cannot manage our international relationships, that they will only increase American political isolation and economic suffering. I feel insulted and confused at the same time. The soccer-mom-MILF who carries a shotgun to work and seems a tad unsure about what it means to be a "feminist" (or a VP for that matter) is surely a desperate lunge at the female vote, though I reckon that at least a million American men will vote for her based solely on her fuckability. But if John Robb's eloquent definition of the future of American and global security is correct, that we face either a global guerrilla security rule set or a resilient community rule set, and if we consider the implications of the nebulous anarchy of the former, I realize that, even if an American renaissance necessitates the fires of the alttestamentarisch, I would much rather see mitigating wisdom now than a whole generation of FDRs, Miles Davises and Jack Kerouacs later. And that's what Obama represents to me, this election. American greatness, hope, integrity, class, and above all our best chance to navigate these uncertain times.

"I hope I die before I get old (like that fuck John McCain)"
- Pete Townshend

note: for much better writing please read John Robb, James Kunstler, and Lawrence Velvel