living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Wednesday, November 03, 2004 Don’t know much about politics -in Washington DC In front of Crossfile studio at George Washington University, there is a donkey dummy painted in motley and an elephant dummy interlaced with hundreds of white lists of political quotes written in black. The most conspicuous one, in the frontal side, is a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche: 'Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule’. The ironical thing with this quote in front of ‘crossfire’studio is that the show seems trying very hard to push people apart into the insane groups. I know a lot of people, represented by Jon Stewart, resent this show, but I found it a very entertaining for my everyday lunch break (actually, the whole political campaign is more and more like a show business to me). Since I was in DC and had nothing really specific to do, I joined the live audience this afternoon. The show is way too quiet in the studio than on TV, especially today after John Kerry’s concession. Paul Pegala is awfully reserved and sad; Tuck Clarkson is not even as half mean as before; Mcmahon, the guest from Democratic Party kept a pan face and hold his tears, while Fabrizio, the guest from Republic Party tried very hard to hide his smile. Fabrizio revealed that the strategy for Republicans is quite a simple one: targeting those with conservative value but never voted before, and knock their doors one by one and send personalized mail from three years ago. Bush won by 4 million popular votes, and the number of evangelists that came out to vote the first time is the same. The night before I flew over all those ‘fly-over states’ from LA to DC on Jetblue and scanning through all the TV news channels for updated election results. They say these red states are the real America while people in blue states live in a fantasy. Such a fantasy, however, is quite riveting to me. I came to understand why the president spent so much time in Crawford, Texas rather than in oval office in DC. In a city where 90% of population voted against him, where diversity and foreignness are appreciated, he might hardly find peace in mind. his supporters voted for value rather than economy or war on Iraq. That scares me a lot. It always struck me that republican has such die-hard supporter groups in South and the Midwest, while in DC where they exert their absolute power in, they are so unpopular. It will be very hard for me to believe that the people in city have no value, but urbanites do have broader information access and higher analytical minds, which I think, make the whole propaganda on value and ethics less appealing in cities. Value is the number one concern for republican voters , and they won the nation. However, when a nation concern more ideology and value over economy, education, science and diplomacy, according to the history, it seems to me a start of disaster; it happened not long ago in China when the whole nation is thrown into culture revolution and abandon everything else. I do realize it is not a good analogy, and I assume a disaster can be avoided in the US for the self-adjustment of its democratic structure (then again, how could all the authorities in capital hill are dominated by one party?) Carl Rove seems an even bigger winner than Bush in this race. He reminds me Professor Henry Higgins in My fair lady. Maybe Rove bet with a pal that he can make any one a beloved president, no matter how unintelligent he is, how he lack of class, how many catastrophic mistakes he made. And Rove won, twice. I don’t know how much Bush enjoyed another four years of ‘hard work’, but I do believe all the pleasure is Rove’s. posted by lmeimei @8:15 PM| permanent link| | |
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