China-Latina

Friday, November 03, 2006

Let’s Take Back the House this Tuesday

Earlier this week I was riding home on the 4 train from work (I’ve been temping lately) and I overheard a conversation that really moved me for some reason. A man and a woman got on the train at Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall and stood right in front of where I was sitting. They seemed to be in their mid to late forties and mid thirties respectively. From what I gathered, the gentleman worked some sort of maintenance job for a company that had at one time occupied two buildings, but closed one down over the summer, causing layoffs and the cutting of hours based upon seniority. Initially, this change did not affect him, but recently he was cut back from five days a week to three days a week. He sounded disappointed and mentioned that it was lousy timing with the holidays approaching, but that he felt it would work out and he’d be back up to five days at some point. He wasn’t necessarily optimistic, but there was something really heartwarming in his tone that conveyed acceptance and the belief that things would get better. Listening to him made me feel sad, but oddly hopeful. And then I started crying. I reread the hilarious article in the previous post, with the hopes that it would make me laugh again, or that if anyone saw me crying they might just assume I was reading something really sad. Anyway, it prompted me to start thinking about our wounded country, how we got here and the hope that things will look a lot brighter when I wake up on November 8th.

I mean, it’s fairly obvious how we got here. Have you ever seen that movie The American President? Despite the fact that it’s not terribly good, I sort of liked it (read liked it a lot). I usually enjoy all movies with fake presidents. I especially loved Dave, but that’s not important right now. Anyway, Michael Zeta-Jones plays the Commander in Chief, who is on the receiving end of some horrible mudslinging coming from the far right. He refuses to respond to it as it has to do with his romantical life, which is personal and therefore off limits. His silence prompts one of his key staffers, played by Michael J. Fox, who will always just be APK to me, to take him to task with the following:

“People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.”

Cheesy, formulaic and trite? Definitely, but APK is nothing if not on point. Because democrats have largely been dispassionate, standing for everything and anything, which ultimately translates to nothing (with the exception of a reborn Al Gore – my favorite!), we’ve been completely alienated from our own government by conservative mustache-twisting assholes, who inexplicably have abandoned our forefathers’ doctrine of separation of church and state. And our countrymen have accepted and chosen this with open arms, simply because the conservatives are actually saying and believing in something. Their enthusiasm for their backward ideals has caused many Americans to vote for perceived morals, rather than their own self interests. The democrats are looking out for them, but they don’t even know it. But I really feel that a lot of this has changed over the last year, with people growing weary of the war in Iraq and the now more obvious hypocrisy of elected republican officials. For instance, I am extremely grateful to Congressman Foley, who is hardly a bastion of morality. I have to say, I think his highly publicized pervey behavior will really help us win back some seats.

And now that the junior Senator from Massachusetts is off the campaign trail, postponing his fledgling career in comedy, I think we should be ok.

Listen, I may sound really jaded and un-patriotic, but the truth is, I’m a huge patriot. I was adopted from Thailand where I am certain, had I remained, that I would be a prostitute leading a bleak life filled with perverted British ex-pats. But instead I got to come here and live a life filled with privilege and opportunity. I love this country and I want to feel good about it again. I just hope that my fellow countrymen don’t break my heart the way they did in 2004. I really believe that enough people, my mother included, have successfully removed their heads from their assholes at this point to vote democrat this Tuesday. But with so many Americans inexplicably lacking health insurance, who knows? I would imagine a procedure like that would be prohibitively expensive for someone who is uninsured.

But truly, I am hopeful - for myself, this country and that nice man on the subway who is just trying to get by. With any luck he’ll be back up to five days a week in the New Year.

OK, climbing off my soapbox now, but if you live in New York City and don’t know where to vote, click here.

8 Comments:

Blogger Listmaker said...

>conservative mustache-twisting assholes

if any of the conservatives actually had staches to twist, i might actually vote for them.

nice post btw.

make sure to vote working families as well.

06 November, 2006 17:17  
Blogger China-Latina Chowhound said...

Thanks!

Yeah, I voted for Spitzer WF instead of democrat, and so on and so forth.

07 November, 2006 12:28  
Blogger youthlarge said...

Is it just me or does anyone else get a little nervous when they pull the lever?

07 November, 2006 15:21  
Blogger China-Latina Chowhound said...

You're not alone on this one. I always get nervous that pulling the lever back to the left will somehow undo all of the choices I've just made.

07 November, 2006 19:02  
Blogger Listmaker said...

a thai prostitute?
i thought you were from india.

08 November, 2006 15:00  
Blogger Listmaker said...

let's take back this blog this wednesday!

02 January, 2007 20:20  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

CLC will always be
a Thai princess
not a prostitute
to me.

Happy Christmas,
ez

06 January, 2007 20:36  
Blogger China-Latina Chowhound said...

Hiya EZ Love!

11 January, 2007 16:01  

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