Life on the Left Coast

Obviously, I am very pleased that the Democrats have regained the house. However, I say that with much trepidation because I am at a point where I've lost my faith in my party, in their ability to rally and fight and take a stand and do more than bitch about the other side. Because we won those seats not because of any concrete actions taken but because people hated the other side more! That's a shallow victory and it's one that should make all of us mildly ashamed of our role in the political process, should make us strive to do better - be more informed, more educated, more active in what happens around us. We talk a good game, but how many of us are actively working to support the causes and issues and individuals that we believe in?

And I include myself within this caveat.

Democrats, (elected democrats, not the rest of my lefty liberal playmates), please make us proud. Make it look like you've got something to give and deserve to be there. You got your asses kicked not too long ago and it happened for a reason and it can happen again.

More than anything, look at the issues, look at where you stand and don't be so worried about your fucking political capital that you won't take a stand on the things that are important to you.

And here's another tidbit from your friendly neighborhood pinko commie - Republicans are not evil. They are not the enemy. The simply have a different viewpoint than ours. Respect it. Don't have to agree with it, but you do have to respect where they come from.

I find the defense of traditional marriage fairly vile because we evolve in our understanding of human relationships and human dynamics and people are going to look back at those laws like they did the Jim Crow laws and prohibition and find them laughable and embarrassing and wrong.

But I also find deplorable many of the ways in which my party has exploited the misfortune of other candidates to get elected instead of doing a god-damned thing to deserve it. Again, Dems, earn these seats. Do not make me go all crazy Independent, Peace & Freedom party on you. I'm this close to saying fuck off to government in general (because the state of California has mostly sidled me with a variety of impossible situations and I kind of hate my life at this moment and a healthy portion of that rests on the laws governing smog polution and business licenses and I am a good liberal tax loving environmentally supportive commie pinko. And I kind of want to burn rubber tires and stand naked on them and yell, "Live tax free or die" and tell the whole system to go fuck itself). (And yes, I did vote for a P&F candidate. I don't even know what that party does, but I was pissed off at the Big Two, and the office was meaningless and I figured everyone deserves at least one vote. With my luck, it's a puppy eating religious right party that performs voodoo.)

Anyway, I'm pleased by the air of change, hoping we can live up to it - not just in terms of one party or another, but in trying to figure out how to make this place better, how to live up to the ideals that we've set, and regain the respect of the rest of the world.

I will talk about the disaster that is my car at a later date because sometimes it's just nice to be concerned with the bigger world around me.