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The View From Abroad

“A friend of mine says the US is like a sandwich, made up of two coasts of sanity with an asylum in between.”

By Matt McCarten of the New Zealand Herald via Life is a Sexually Transmitted Disease:

On Wednesday the Americans will decide who their next president is. After the recent Republican Party conference I wrote in this column that their nominee Mitt Romney could actually win. It seems incredible that this obvious phoney could beat incumbent Barack Obama.

With increasing globalisation and dominance of the US, any visiting aliens would assume the US president was the leader of the world. Every day, the world’s newspapers and television breathlessly cover each twist and turn of the presidential campaign.

If the world got to vote, Obama would romp home. We scratch our heads that there is barely one percentage point between the two presidential candidates. Racism plays a big part.

But it’s even more depressing than that.

Because American culture via media, film and lifestyle so dominates us, we think we know the American psyche. A friend of mine says the US is like a sandwich, made up of two coasts of sanity with an asylum in between.

It’s true that the west states and the New England states in the northeast are liberal and the south and much of the mid-west are barking mad. And I’m being polite.

I admire Americans. I love their enthusiasm and self-assuredness. They have an innocence and a naivety that you don’t find in countries with more history. There’s an ugly side to them, too. They are spoilt and have simplistic views about life. These traits infect and drive their politics.

Despite depressingly regular massacres by deranged nutters, no politician dare oppose the pro-gun lobby. The mind boggles that people are allowed to carry concealed guns in bars when they’re drinking; buy machine guns at fairs and over the internet; and have the right to shoot someone on their property. No wonder they have more handgun deaths than the rest of the Western world combined.

New Zealand’s Christian right-wing are so fringe they can’t get a class monitor elected. Unfortunately in the US, they run the Republican Party and intimidate the Democrats into going along with much of their nonsense.

No US politician is elected without saying God told them to do it. When a majority of their right-wing voters actually believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old and really was created in a week you know what a candidate has to spout to succeed.

Abortion has been off the political agenda in New Zealand for a generation. In the US election, it’s the number two issue after the economy. The Republican Party official election platform is no abortions for women even in cases of incest or rape.

Their Indiana candidate claims a rape victim has to carry a rapist’s child to birth because it’s a gift from God. Presumably God was okay about her being raped too. If she aborts, she and the person who carries out the procedure go to jail. His colleague running in Missouri publicly claims that if a woman is “legitimately” raped then her body has mechanisms to reduce the likelihood of conception. Both of these candidates could win their seats along with their vice-presidential nominee and 13 other Republican senatorial candidates who have signed up to the same policy.

If Mitt Romney and his party win, women’s rights will be set back two generations. The Republican Party already opposes equal pay. With impending new appointments to their Supreme Court by the next president, women’s rights to control their own bodies will be illegal. I can’t believe any woman would vote for these men. Do the Republicans see the irony of their holy war against Muslim fundamentalists espousing the same reactionary beliefs?

Let’s hope enough Americans do their duty for the rest of the world’s humanity and save us from Romney and his dangerous ilk from becoming an example for every right-wing nutcase who wants to get into politics.

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Unfuck Your Election Day By Getting Your Ass to the Polls

Here’s some useful shit you need to know before your epic journey on November 6th…

This list is fucking incomplete—so if you have anything important, how about adding that shit? People out there could fucking use it, you know.

Unfuck your voting!

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Movie Review

I’ve been meaning to write this all week. We saw Cloud Atlas last Saturday and both Ben and I came away very impressed and wanting to see it again.

In my humble opinion, this film showcases the concepts of karma and reincarnation in the most beautiful manner I have ever seen on film. There have been other movies over the years that attempted to do this, but none have succeeded the way Cloud Atlas does.

Sadly, like many reviewers have noted, it’s also a bit of a hot mess. The so-called “yellow face” makeup was somewhat of a distraction, but necessary to telling the story and keeping the thread of “same soul, different lifetimes” intact.

While I consider myself an atheist, I cannot deny that the idea of reincarnation still resonates on a deep level with me, and if I had to choose from and embrace any of the multitude of belief systems that—like reincarnation—have no scientific proof to back them up, reincarnation would definitely be my selection.

In fact, this pretty much would sum up my belief—if I believed in karma and reincarnation.

If nothing else, the movie has reminded me to be a little more mindful of my interpersonal relationships…just in case.

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Blogger Meetup!

It took nearly seven years, but I finally met fellow blogger Erik and his husbear in person tonight.

Erik and Robert are on a semi-cross country adventure to Las Vegas and they made a small detour through Denver to meet up with Ben and I.

It was fun, but much too short of a meeting. Ben and I had been talking about making a road trip next summer down to Pea Ridge so Erik could ink both of us; I think it’s now a definite plan.

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