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Aug. 29th, 2008 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ricardienneThe last couple days, my last couple days at home, my parents have had the television on more than I can ever remember in my life. (Disclosure: we didn't even have a television until I was at least 12; I remember listening to the Senate vote on the charges against Clinton on the radio). So I have heard bits of a lot of Convention speeches.
I don't like speeches, and I don't like listening to people give speeches. Hilary Clinton is one of the few whose voice doesn't make me uncomfortable; in general, I don't like the sound of politicians making stirring speeches. But mainly, I am a sucker for rhetoric, and I don't like being emotionally taken-in.
Because I desperately want a Democratic victory in November, I want things to get fixed and get better, and I want to have people in office and around the (Oval) Office who are trying and successfully doing good and who will let me say that "government is more necessary than evil" not just in theory but in reality.
But I don't really believe it. Obama as president, even with the most intelligent, capable, and progressive cabinet, wouldn't fix half the things that need improvement half as much as they need it. And it just isn't the case that the Democrats are saints trying to selflessly serve the greater good.
On the one hand, I do understand that politics more or less works through the pretense that it is all about ideals and service, and I suppose I tend to think that many of them (on both sides of the aisle) do think that they are playing the politics game in the service of something other than their personal/party's gain. But on the other hand, well, you know: the dirty world of political infighting and ambition, all politicians are alike and greedy, the system is inherently broken, etc.
THERE IS A GAP HERE, DAMN IT, AND SAYING "WE'RE MOVING BEYOND ALL THAT BAD STUFF AND CORRUPTION DOES NOT ADDRESS IT AT ALL
I don't like speeches, and I don't like listening to people give speeches. Hilary Clinton is one of the few whose voice doesn't make me uncomfortable; in general, I don't like the sound of politicians making stirring speeches. But mainly, I am a sucker for rhetoric, and I don't like being emotionally taken-in.
Because I desperately want a Democratic victory in November, I want things to get fixed and get better, and I want to have people in office and around the (Oval) Office who are trying and successfully doing good and who will let me say that "government is more necessary than evil" not just in theory but in reality.
But I don't really believe it. Obama as president, even with the most intelligent, capable, and progressive cabinet, wouldn't fix half the things that need improvement half as much as they need it. And it just isn't the case that the Democrats are saints trying to selflessly serve the greater good.
On the one hand, I do understand that politics more or less works through the pretense that it is all about ideals and service, and I suppose I tend to think that many of them (on both sides of the aisle) do think that they are playing the politics game in the service of something other than their personal/party's gain. But on the other hand, well, you know: the dirty world of political infighting and ambition, all politicians are alike and greedy, the system is inherently broken, etc.
THERE IS A GAP HERE, DAMN IT, AND SAYING "WE'RE MOVING BEYOND ALL THAT BAD STUFF AND CORRUPTION DOES NOT ADDRESS IT AT ALL
