Elect Obama Tomorrow

Ramin's Reasons For Voting Obama
-symbolic value of black president
-global symbolic value of black president
-indictment of bush era republican party, war on iraq
-positive vibes
-more discipline, economic intelligence
-let's start over america feelings
-america might not be so bad after all feelings
-vote for positive not negative reasons feelings
-blown away by race speech
-only guy who told the truth all through the last eight years
-not hostile to science, culture, academics, knowledge
-intellectualism is not akin to 'falsity' in obamadeology
-tired of culture war
-Palin representing the antithesis of Obama message, culture war, antagonist to reason, education, intelligence, under the guise of authenticity
-speech on race blew me away
-McCain not a maverick, not intelligent, has proven that he will not stick to his 'guns,' talks about guns far too frequently, speaks of presidency as akin to a war, asks for permission to go on 'one last mission,' a hostile stance to an increasingly hostile world, not a good stance, or a kind stance, or a virtuous stance
-no longer possible to believe in goodness of supply side economics
-endorsed by economist, (Adam adds: Ramin Loves the Economist)

Nobody with a good reason to vote otherwise. The idea that you can decieve 'everyday' and 'working' people in 'real' America into believing they are voting for down to earth authnticity, even when they are voting out of their own economic interests is not good. This is called false consciousness.

Sarah Palin is bad for America. For real America and fake America. I am convinced.

Today I am going to make phone calls for the Obama campaign. I mean it this time. I am in a melioratic fervor right now. Melioratic is not such a bad thing. It is better than the opposite, which is fatalism. If you can say to me that no we can't do any good in this world, and we are doomed to human folly and people acting stupidly and violently, and people being greedy and anti-social and ruled by anger at nothing in particular; if you told me all of this I might say, yes, I understand and can agree. Karl rove seems to have told me these things and it has required intellectual gymnastics to get that into my head - even the remotest understanding of how a man could enable such bullshit. How a man could act in such a way as to take life and spend money recklessly and still feel like he was not the exact evil that comes from textbooks and bibles. But now I understand. It is because they don't believe the future can be saved, they believe the future is an abstraction, and is not worth anything. And I might agree.

But the Obama appeal is better. The Obama appeal says we might as well try. Tomorrow will be the day that we get up and some of us will vote, and when that guy gives his speech at midnight or whatever, maybe even later, we will know that we are trying to be better, and that is worth more than not trying to be better at all.

Conservatives believe in unique human excellence. Liberals believe that excellence is not the sole determinant of someone's fortune. Obama is excellent and lucky. He deserves to be prez.