h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In my 30+ years of political awareness in California, I have noticed that a Latino politician needs to poll at least 8 points higher than his opponent, and a black one 15 points in order to win. When people get to the privacy of their ballot box, they vote their true feelings, irrespective of political party.

I was singing in the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles, and we were singing a 60s music concert. So when we marched in Christopher Street West that year I dressed in made-by-my-own-hands love beads, tie-dye and headband, and jeans with appliques that looked like the embroidery popular then. I also bought a large boquet of chrysanthemum daisies (purple!) and endeavored to hand them out to anyone who was grooving on our music, or who showed uncertainty about it. We were singing "We Shall Overcome".

Typical for Gay pride, there's an enclosed section, protected by the law, for counterdemonstrators along the route. When I tried to hand a daisy to one of them, they all ran screaming to the farthest corner of their cage. I left it there on the border: if they just objected to me, they were welcome to pick it up later, or if they were allergic to flowers, they could just leave it on the ground.

There are some very sad people out there if they can be threatened by someone else's sexuality. I thought it telling that when people got to the ballot box, the issue of gay marriage was far more important than the budget deficit, education, healthcare, or Iraq.

Yes--it's an issue that's put me right off Arnie.

As for running away screaming--you just can't credit it, can you? What, do they think they're going to catch gayness off you or something?

I was watching a programme the other day, following the dirty tricks used by both Bush and Kerry during their campaign. Apparently, church sermons across America urged congregations to be good Christians by voting, and voting for the candidate who is against abortion and gay marriages and whatever else Bush is against. One of these sermons was filmed. The priest (or whatever) said something like, "gay marriage is an abomination. It shouldn't be a political issue: you don't want to hear about their perversity. You don't want to find queers in your closet, OR IN YOUR CHILDREN'S CLOSET!"

It always makes me feel sick when people perpetuate the myth that gay=paedophile.

One just has to look at what Bush has done when he didn't have a clear mandate. Now he does have one, so what will happen to those people who don't subscribe to his new Conservative agenda?

The Democrats have only themselves to blame for this. The reason why Bush's backward-looking, fearful campaign worked is simply because they couldn't offer a coherent vision of what Democratic America should stand for.

Coherency is highly overrated for large groups of people. I really don't think coherency relevant, or I wouldn't have started this particular Journal entry the way I did. Most people believe in a women's right to choose abortion, and most Republicans believe this, too. The syncretism that the Republicans have chosen happens to NOT include gays, and the Democrats simply chose to be internally consistent instead of emotionally resonant.

Politically speaking, I'm Green, so I didn't expect a good result to this election anyways. Both parties are too beholden to the corporations, so that while Clinton approved of the (american) football field sized lakes of pig manure, Bush II approved of chopping up mountaintops and dropping them in streams. Poison Gaia or rape her, the harm is still done, and is becoming increasingly irreversible.

It's a popular insult, so popular that the people who use it don't seem to realize it, that my vote is 'wasted'. As if I exist to serve the parties, instead of them to me. The Democrats could have won my vote by talking some Green and it's easy enough to talk about Mother Earth in a baseball and apple-pie way, yet they choose not to do this.

50 years from now, when the property they might wish to leave their children or grandchildren is underwater and everyone out of survival and desperation starts to see Green as quite reasonable, they will look back and know just who's vote was wasted.

You see, I will *never* be a Green, even though I'm an environmentalist. I tend to believe that views should be coherent on a small scale first before anything else, and this is where the UK Greens fall over. They have a lot of unnecessaryily emotive baggage, being against animal experiments and GM on principle, refusing to make distinctions on the basis of individual cases. I don't see that either the former issue has *anything* to do with environmental issues and that the latter issue has been dealt with on anything like the appropriate level of granularity. I am, however, heavily pro wind farms, fuel conservation, curbing greenhouse emissions, stopping over-fishing, you name it. But then, I've said all this beforehand: A2028854.

I know you are not fond of Green. But since you are in my Journal, I'm gonna take the time to tell you how wrong you are.

Talking philosphy is fine, my roommate is a philosopher, I do it all the time. But, I am by nature deeply pragmatic. And I think so are you-all.

No political party ever gets anywhere in a first-past-the-post kind of system that doesn't have a broad syncretic base. I'll bet that you don't absolutely agree with everything in the party that you *do* subscribe to. I'll also wager real money that they assert things which not only have no basis in science, but which flout that what we do know. Just how awful are those things, and what long term evils do those things do to the places you live work and breathe?

It's OK to like lots of Green things. American society and economy is so configured, that the *being* of Green takes a lot more energy than letting it slide. Do you put your money, your body, and your mouth to work in such a way as to make persistent societal change? In the USofA if you subscribe to the Democrats or the Republicans, you are kicking yourself in the shins.

All the Catholics I know believe (really!they really do!) what the church says about abortion & birth contral is true. But when they act, they use condoms and birth control. Diedzoeb talks about abortion being 'generally approved of' in the gay marriage Conversation I am subscribed to. Yet I, who donate my time money and body to Planned Parenthood do not 'generally approve' of abortion. (To those Gentle Readers wondering about the body thing, yes I am XY, but I am a clinic defense volunteer).

I don't generally approve of using animals and I don't generally approve of willy-nilly inserting GMOs in the food supply. BUT I NEVERTHELESS know that they are absolutely necessary for any scientific society. (If the theocratic-fascist revolution that is currently brewing here finally wins, this will be irrelevant. Mortal illness aside, as a college science educated gay pagan who really believes the very first thing that that Judaic god said about taking care of the earth, they will burn me at the stake post-haste, so no worries there)

"You see, I will *never* be a Green, even though I'm an environmentalist"

I'm with Felonious on this one. May I recommend this rather excellent book?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521010683/ref=pd_sim_b_dp_1/026-7710978-9460446

"Diedzoeb talks about abortion being 'generally approved of' in the gay marriage Conversation I am subscribed to"

My last comment, which linked gay marriage and abortion rights, might've led you to think I link them in my own mind, or consider them in a similar way. I don't. Abortion really creeps me out. I'm pro-abortion only because, in cases where, for example, a thirteen-year-old girl becomes pregnant after having been raped by her father, abortion does seem like the least awful option. It's said that some prostitutes use abortion as a type of contraception; but abortion is such an invasive procedure, I can only think that these women must be in extraordinarily desperate situations to go through it repeatedly.