msagara | Really cranky this morning

Not your country, not your election-yes. It is your planet, too, however. I'm sorry we're managing to screw it up for everyone else.

I agree. I feel bad, in many ways, for all those who will feel the consequences of this election but had no role in the outcome - Americans or otherwise. Being voiceless hurts, when the choice is as big as this one. I have trouble imagining what it must be like to watch something like this happen and know it's going to affect you, and be powerless to react or affect the outcome. Americans don't know this experience. Canada just had an election - most Americans didn't even know it happened let alone what the result was. NONE of the major US news outlets even covered the outcome. (For that matter, close to 25% of my political science students at the University of Michigan can't identify Canada on a map; it's also known as the Soviet Union to at least two of them.) ::rolling eyes::

But yes, we Americans are screwing up the world for an awful lot of people, many of whom would LOVE to be in our shoes and be able to participate AT ALL. I'm starting a campaign (http://www.livejournal.com/users/drenilop/87374.html) to get people to learn about politics and participate more, wherever and whoever they are. It's not a big effort, and it won't be a lot of people, but an ocean is only a lot of drops of water....

(sorry to spam you, Michelle)...

(sorry to spam you, Michelle)...

No, no, this isn't spam. I don't consider posting links to things I don't find offensive spam. In the right context, I don't consider posting links to things I do find offensive spam, fwiw.

Comment spam has to be divorced from the original post in order to be spam. Bad spelling? Absolutely necessary unless you're an amateur. And gender confusion? (You know, sending email about penis enlargements, except both words spelled in alternate-world English, to women) is a bonus. Sex, drugs, more sex, Help Nigerian Widows, You've Won A Zillion dollars -- spam.

That wasn't spam.

Or to put it another way, holding a conversation isn't spam.

---L.

Or to put it another way, holding a conversation isn't spam.

See? This is why you're the poet and I can't finish a book in less than 150,000 words <g>.

I apologize for the stupidity of a huge portion of the populace of the U.S. (Specifically those that didn't vote, one way or the other.)

It saddens me a lot. Maybe they should go live in a country where they don't have the ability to vote. (How about North Korea? Or China?)

I think things are hairy enough around North Korea. :-/

The 3,000-years-from-now worldview I may try to maintain helps my sanity level somewhat (granted, more brainspace is being consumed by lizard-watching than politics)...but for figuring out what to do and how to make a difference here-and-now it's pretty sucky.

More than a few of us were looking longingly at our shared border this morning.

I eliminated someone this morning after seven horrifically long posts and no lj-cuts. People are, of course, free to post what they want in the manner they want. But I've realized I'm also free to choose not to read them anymore.

I eliminated someone this morning after seven horrifically long posts and no lj-cuts. People are, of course, free to post what they want in the manner they want. But I've realized I'm also free to choose not to read them anymore.

That's pretty much where I am. It's the curmudgeon in me. It also, oddly enough, has very, very little to do with content. It's not that I find the LJs in question boring, or infuriating, or whatever -- it's the consistent lack of cut-tags.

I read pretty much every post that

yhlee writes, for instance, but I would have cut her LJ almost at day two if she didn't use cut tags. Which she does. And better than I do.

The logical person would, at this point, then ask -- if you're reading everything she writes anyway, why the hell do you care?

Because I'm bent. Next?

I'm pretty upset about it, too. Why couldn't more of the US realized just how bad four more years with Bush is going to be?

Because their fears have been pandered to: first affirmed (and so heightened) and then their solution asserted (and so bought).

---L.

I phrased that badly: first affirmed (and so heightened) then the solution offered (and so validated).

---L.

What is bad about putting religion into the administration's policies (when you are a follower and believe that all should follow its rules)?

And what can be bad about a president that gave us a whole $300(!!!) in tax rebates and rolling back of taxes (thereby helping dig the country into the largest debt ever)?

And hey, isn't our administration helping put democracy in countries that never had it before (by force, and don't they just love us for it)?

And isn't this administration about protecting the unborn (while abandoning those already living to reduced chances of overtime pay, affordable housing, health insurance, and even a JOB)?

But you know, Cheney guaranteed that if Kerry took office there WOULD be another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Apparently some believed it.

I am so very sad.

Thank you both for your replies. My question was more retorical, but you both gave better answers than I could have done on the spot.

A very large part of me really wishes I was living in another country right now. I am not proud of being from the US, or being an "American."

It alwasy bothered me that The US doesn't have a better tag than that, since there are two entire continents of Americans, and by taking the title we just sort of disclude them.

I remember being in Mexico and some one asked where we were from. My friend said she was an american. The guy living in Mexico, said "so am I."

I'm now convinced Cheney is backing the terrorists. How else could he guarantee they'd attack? But that stuff you mentioned is mostly smoke screen -- the Republicans already control what results come from the polls in a few key states. So fewer Americans are to blame than someone might think.

I'm with you on cut tags. There are many people who have unwisely vented in a place where I could see them, and whose opinion of my opinions is now so obvious I can no longer read them.

I have no problem with people spewing. They should realize that if they spew publically, in a way that no one can NOT see it, that the spew will have consequences. :,

I'm with you on cut tags. There are many people who have unwisely vented in a place where I could see them, and whose opinion of my opinions is now so obvious I can no longer read them.

I have no problem with people spewing. They should realize that if they spew publically, in a way that no one can NOT see it, that the spew will have consequences. :,

Ummm. How to say this.

I don't actually care what the content of the one- four screen post is. I hate it when people don't use cut-tags, but I'm cranky and tired today, so today, I'm doing something about them. I don't hate the person; I realize that not all readers have my reading protocols.

I don't care if what's on the screen is pages and pages of lush, fabulous prose or hysterically funny commentary (although I lean toward the latter); I don't care if it's inspirational and warm and human. I, in fact, don't care if it's political drivel.

I just don't like to have to scroll through screens of something I probably wouldn't be reading. No, let me change that: I don't like to scroll through the ones I would read otherwise.

Everyone should do as they please with their LJs; it's their own space, their own word-corner. I should have just cut the list a bit, instead of ranting, because by telling people to use cut-tags, I -am- stepping over a boundary. But it's not any fault of their content. It's just me.

And. Ummm. I don't think I've ever seen you use a cut-tag.

Really cranky this morning

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Guaranteed

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