So, there's this election coming up. Its kinda important. On Zach's request, I thought I'd briefly (and finally) offer my 2 cents on it - being an outsider for the time being, a European, holding a passport of this small Northern European nation called Finland. You have to keep in mind though that Finland is a strange European country in that it's unlike any other in there, so a generalization with the opinions of, for instance, Western European countries isn't justified. But you probably knew that. I hope.
The general consensus seems to be that choosing McCain over Obama doesn't get much support; some, like me, go as far as saying that picking McCain would be another huge mistake. The previous one being the election and re-election of "Dubya".
Now, when I say "support" I'm mostly talking about analysts of U.S. politics, some politicians (mostly people who are one way or another connected to foreign relations) and perhaps independent bloggers. The average Joe doesn't bother his mind with it. Why should he, it doesn't consider him, he thinks. But as we've seen (at least) in the recent years, the election of a U.S. president has true global consequences. Apart from news considering the election (like the recent conventions), The Finnish media is very selective in providing information about the candidates themselves, you have to dig that information by yourself. And apart from possible talk show appearances (we get Conan, Kimmel and Letterman on cable) we obviously don't get the televised debates etc that at least give a hint of the man behind the name (I know, politics is politics, but still...). Generally I'd say that both candidates get an equal amount of coverage, and there's no favoring one or the other, even though Obama's racial heritage is obviously an interesting issue. And don't get me wrong, at least the media broadcasts truly international information unlike the local U.S. TV news where "international news" means news about Canada or Mexico. But that's another story...
I think what the Finns do have an opinion on though, is Americans in general, for better or worse. And needless to say, thanks to W., that image could use some polishing. All over the world, not just here, but that goes without saying I'm sure.
The McCain campaign got an unexpected (?) turn for the worse when a certain Alaskan governor was chosen as McCain's future VP-to-come, for purely political purposes it seems, and the media seems to be obsessed with her. A former Miss Alaska, whose former aspiration (according to rumors) was a TV anchor, who was a mayor of a really small town, and the governor of Alaska for two years, and is now running for the "top post of the world" so to speak. Until 2007, she didn't have a passport, and her only following visits abroad were in U.S. military bases in Kuwait for example, where she met and spoke mostly to Americans. What kind of an image does she have of the world we live in? That it consists of three nations, the U.S., Europe, and Iraq? They say that she has "plenty of international experience" because of that trip, and that Alaska is neighbouring Russia and Canada...I rest my case. (You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm told a really small percentage of Americans actually have passports. That's fine, but when running for such an important position, without visiting other regions of the world how can you be aware of the diversity of culture in the world, let alone go to war?)
She seems to be a firm believer of creationism and teaching it in public schools, not interested in environmental issues, is anti-gay rights and anti-abortion - all the "good stuff", then.
It's truly a scary thought that Palin is indeed quite literally "a heart beat" away from being a president. When the primary candidate is a 72-year old man who has battled cancer twice...
In closure, for me personally it's quite a helpless feeling having to "sit at the sidelines" and watch basically the fate and the future direction of this world (if I'm being slightly over dramatic) being chosen in front of my eyes and I can't do anything about it.
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3 comments:
Nice post.
Interesting perspective, Kari. It is really amazing over here that, if anything, popularity abroad has actually been a liability for Barack Obama: it is now a common GOP line that he is "Europe's president." Spurning the opinions and collective wisdom of the rest of the world has unfortunately become all too common in the last eight years, even though the Iraq War has demonstrated the limits of American military power and the recent collapse of major Wall St. firms has shown the limits of US economic power (not to mention our 10 trillion dollar deficit...). All this should illustrate how impossible it is to go it alone in our increasingly interconnected world.
I've always thought that every person on the planet should be able to vote in the the US presidential election, maybe with 1/3 vote or something. You're right: it's too important a decision to leave up to the idiots who form the majority here.
Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the
following about Sarah Palin:
DRILL, DRILL, DRILL
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares.
I dreamt last night that she
was a member of a club where they rode
snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned
and starved polar bears around their necks.
I have a particular thing for Polar Bears.
Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness
or the fact that they live in the arctic
or that I have never seen one in person
or touched one.
Maybe it is the fact that they live
so comfortably on ice.
Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women.
I am a Feminist and have spent my
life trying to build community,
help empower women and stop
violence against them.
It is hard to write about Sarah Palin.
This is why the Sarah Palin choice
was all the more insidious and cynical.
The people who made this choice
count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in
and practices is antithetical to Feminism
which for me is part of one story --
connected to saving the earth,
ending racism, empowering women,
giving young girls options, opening our minds,
deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one
of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime,
and should this country choose those candidates the fall-out may be so great,
the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover.
But what is equally disturbing is the impact
that duo would have on the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, this is not a joke.
In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept,
the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.
In her world and the world of Fundamentalists
nothing changes or gets better or evolves.
She does not believe in global warming.
The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying
our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers,
are all part of God's plan.
She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list.
The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered.
The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered.
The oil is here to be taken and plundered.
Iraq is here to be taken and plundered.
As she said herself of the Iraqi war,
"It was a task from God."
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion.
She does not believe women who are raped
and incested and ripped open against their will
should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control.
I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence
and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking.
From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library,
has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently.
She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference.
This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States.
She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns.
She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle.
She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip.
She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God.
That is of course her right, her private right.
But when God and Guns come together in the public sector,
when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are
denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and
state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands.
This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet.
It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever
uninhabitable for humans.
It will determine whether we move towards
dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence
through invasion, undermining and attack.
It will determine whether
we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in
alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction.
It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or
whether we build more and more methods of killing.
It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society
or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected
then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Dril Drill Drill."
I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination.
I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent.
I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in
the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008
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