Well, it's true. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be in glorious Butte, Montana today! And I'll be there to witness this historic event.How long has it been? You know, since a democratic presidential candidate has campaigned in this state? Who knows, and frankly, who cares? All I know is that sometimes it pays to be an insider. Actually, my position in the party didn't get me shit! But, like the old saying goes, it's not what you know rather who you know that counts! I tried to get the tickets online, that was a waste of time! It seems that of the 2400 or so tickets sold, only a hand full were actually available for purchase online. The rest you ask? Well, although there was a 10 ticket max. per person, mysteriously two large blocks were purchased by...you guessed it! Clinton and Obama! So after cursing and swearing the Montana democratic party for the crappy online sale, I received a call from a friend. The friend said, "Clinton's campaign called, they have tickets available if you're a supporter." Hell yes I'm a supporter, I'll take three tickets! (A supporter of what, they'll never know!) So I have three tickets and I'm headed to Butte, Montana (the richest hill on earth) to sit in the Hillary section at the Mansfield-Metcalfe Dinner. I don't know, maybe in a way I feel a little cheap, sitting with all the Hillary cheerleaders while privately rooting for the other team. I suppose it might feel like sitting through el Classico in the Bernabeu in a white shirt. Eeww! That just gave me the chills! Does this mean I'm a political sell-out? Please no....a double agent maybe, but never a sell-out!
Truth be told, I'm not sure who I'll vote for, if I vote at all. Of the three big name candidates, I'd say Obama. But why? Aren't all three really that same wolf in different sheep's clothing...the old white ram, the young black ram, and the uh, hot little ewe? I suppose the campaign is not unlike voting for the Prom King and Queen. That's what it boils down to, right....a popularity contest! There's really not much substance, nothing radical anyway...like say an end to this out of control consumer-driven, oil-thristy, voilence-loving society we call home. It's just who you like the best and who you can stand to listen to for the next four years. In the end, will any of the three really make the changes needed to right this ship's misguided course? One can only hope....and so it goes, I'll be supporting the blaugrana in a white shirt today! Barack for Hope!?
3 comments:
The year was 1932 and the candidate was FDR in case anyone was wondering!
Canyon Fairy,
You need to write more often! I like your thoughts and ideas...they're refreshing. I especially like your budding irreverence for the Spectacle. Please do read Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord. Yeah, yeah it's really intellectual language and very hard to struggle through as far as language is concerned. However, it is undoubtedly one of the most important works one could read. It will add such profound depth to so much of the analysis at which you are just now arriving.
Or, if you like, find Raoul Vaneigem online and read one the chapters of his book "Revolution of Everyday Life."
76 years, amazing! I wonder how the "Big Delegate/Electoral States" would feel if they were not visited by a presidential candidate for 76 years?
I don't know, maybe in a way I feel a little cheap, sitting with all the Hillary cheerleaders while privately rooting for the other team.
Sounds more like a need to be included and acknowledged by the system. I know how you feel having lived my entire adult life in the national political backwater of the west.
Seems to me that if one lives east of the Sierras & Cascades, west of the Mississippi and north of the Sunbelt you might as well live on the moon to compare the depths of political neglect we suffer.
I might be over stating it a bit. We don't suffer total neglect, if the nation need resources, people, or environment to exploit, we get lots of attention. If this country was a family the west and westerners would be the bastard child that lives in the attic above the garage and pays half the bills. Lots of space, great view, but we have to live with all the family cast-offs.
Need a nuclear missile base, how about Montana! Nuclear waste dumping site how about Nevada! Need more coal, natural gas, oil, how about Wyoming, so what if it pollutes the water, as long as Yellowstone stays pretty who cares? Want to play cowboy or ski, how about Colorado, plenty of people to clean up after you when you go home. The next person I hear tell how bad it smelled in Nebraska when they drove through on I80, better be a vegetarian.
Sorry if I sound a tad bit bitter, but I am. I am so very tired of being considered irrelevant just because I live outside the pale of national attention.
I often like to muse how would things be different if Omaha was made the nation's capital. Could happen, when sea level rises and floods DC.
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