an important election?
Published October 29, 2004
Twenty-four-hour news stations and daily tracing polls will do the heavy lifting, turning a cut into a fatal blow. Except that Iraq is Somalia times 10. The election of John Kerry will serve notice to every terrorist in every cave that the soft underbelly of American power is the timidity of American voters. Terrorists will know that a steady stream of grizzly photos for CNN is all you need to break the will of the American people. Our own self-doubt will take it from there. Bin Laden will recognize that he can topple any American administration without setting foot on the homeland.
It is said that America's W.W.II generation is its 'greatest generation'. But my greatest fear is that it will become known as America's 'last generation.' Born in the bleakness of the Great Depression and hardened in the fire of WW II, they may be the last American generation that understands the meaning of duty, honor and sacrifice. It is difficult to admit, but I know these terms are spoken with only hollow detachment by many (but not all) in my generation. Too many citizens today mistake 'living in America' as 'being an American.' But America has always been more of an idea than a place. When you sign on, you do more than buy real estate. You accept a set of values and responsibilities.
This November, my generation, which has been absent too long, must grasp the obligation that comes with being an American, or fade into the oblivion they may deserve.
I believe that 100 years from now historians will look back at the election of 2004 and see it as the decisive election of our century. Depending on the outcome, they will describe it as the moment America joined the ranks of ordinary nations; or they will describe it as the moment the prodigal sons and daughters of the greatest generation accepted their burden as caretakers of the City on the Hill."
Mathew Manweller
- an important election?
- Published: October 29, 2004
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- Section: Politics
- Writer: Andy Marsh
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- Andy Marsh's personal site
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If you haven't already figured iyt out, here you are either preaching to the choir or spitting into the wind.
While most people here agree that this election is tremendously important, and even agree tat the GWOT is a key point in choosing, almost all of us have our made our choices, and won't be swayed by the above post. Those who agree say "Amen brother !" and go to the polls, those who disagree will offer up all of their pro forma responses that we have already beaten to death. I, for one, have voted, and will be glad when this election is over, hopefully moving on to the real matters at hand. This has been the ugliest campaign season that I can remember in my voting life.
I agree with you Ski. This has been a pretty ugly election season. I also agree that no one seems to be swayed by anything either side has to say, be it facts or inuendo!
I don't know, maybe I was hoping some poor undecided voter might read it and...ah the hell with it!
Ski---I couldn't have said it better myself. I can't wait to start talking to my conservatives friends about things other than why the hell I'm voting for Kerry.
Hmmm. A verbatim reproduction of someone's (rather vapid an embarassingly inacurrate) material passing as someone's blog entry. Those who can't, fake.
Is Manweller saying he'd leave the country if Kerry wins?
Perhaps he didn't want to say that part out loud, but this is certainly one of the more overwrought pieces of electioneering I've seen this year, and that's saying something.
This election is certainly important enough to vote in, but I highly doubt it has the potential to be "the end of America" no matter what way it goes.
This country may be in a time of crisis, but is it really that much worse than the crisis of the Civil War? We may be failing to live up to some of our values and responsibilities as a culture, but are we now failing in any way that is really so much worse than the systematic denial of rights to black people for more than a century after the Civil War? Or worse than our systematic attempt to wipe out red people?
The terrorists of al-Qaida and their cohorts may be a resolute and deadly enemy, but are they really so much more resolute and deadly than the Soviets and their allies in the Cold War?
What is needed now is not the panicky haste of crisis thinking, but the steady endurance of long-term thinking. We must build our confidence that the core values of America are universal human values. We must build our conviction that we can prevail in the end, by seeking to becoming better at adhering to those values, no matter who may win any particular election.
If I saw any prominent public figures saying things like that, they are the ones I'd consider deeply patriotic.
This is wrong on so many levels. Re-electing Bush is accepting our obligations? Bush has arrogantly and foolishly taken on debts (financial and otherwise) for this country that will be paid for by generations of hard-working (not wealthy Republican) American workers. Retreat, abdication and ambivalence? Please, let's not be so dramatic. It's the Democrats who are typically mocked by Republicans for undertaking big, ambitious (often worthwhile) projects like REDUCING poverty and inequality. The fact is that the Bush administation has not only gone against core Republican and conservative principles, but has simply done a really poor job of running this country. Manweller is completely backwards - if we don't get Bush out of office, the damage done in the next four years will dwarf what has been done in the previous four (not easy to do) and may turn out to be the beginning of the end of this country's greatness. Rhetoric like "rise to the demands of history" neglects the reality that the Bush administration (led by the half-wit himself) has learned nothing from history.
This is nothing more than the bleating of a conservative lamening the inevitable Kerry victory but who should actually realize that Bush is no friend to him. What's unfortunate is that this type of thinking has grown stronger in the last four years and will certaininly rear it's ugly head in years to come, with no benefit to anyone.
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(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/21580)
what a load of total propaganda.
try reading some facts instead:
http://tinyurl.com/6p4dq