Nothing against the candidates, but let's focus on the issues for now.
Because I live abroad, I’ve been shielded from a lot of the
media hoopla over the presidential primaries. However, it is a constant theme as I read through various American news
sources, be they mainstream, progressive, net-based, or anything else. The overexposure of the election, which is
still long off, is one reason I’m happy to be living abroad. Even though I’m temporarily out of the
country, I would be severely disappointed to return to find that the discourse
and dialogue about our country’s affairs had gone no where since I left. And with all eyes focused on November 2008,
it seems that the reality of the NOW has gotten lost.
The
2008 may not seem so distant, but it is if you’re homeless or facing foreclosure, if you’re uninsured and recently injured, or if you’re a freshman in a failing high school and wondering if its worth even finishing your degree.
Let’s take a recent events that speak directly to the LGBT community: General Pace’s statement that homosexuality is immoral. There has been some response from the big gay rights organizations directed at Gen. Pace specifically, but from what I can tell, the media was not nearly as interested in Gen. Pace’s comments as they were interested in using it as a lead in to press candidates on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and homosexuality in general.
I don’t want to only blame the media. In the Pace brouhaha, on any number of blogs I follow, the main interest was in trashing the Democratic front runners for not being strong enough in their condemnation of Pace or in their affirmation of LGBT rights. While I agree with these bloggers that none of the Democratic frontrunners seems to be whole heartedly committed to LGBT rights, that is hardly the issue that we should be focusing our discourse on. Rather, we need to focus on the role that the personal beliefs of military command should be allowed to influence policy and how we can effectively separate military policy from officer’s beliefs without compromising our basic freedoms, to be and to believe.
Perhaps some believe that as long as the current President is office, change will not be possible. After all, despite a population that demonstrated strong anti-war feelings in the last elections, our military forces there have surged. While the situation is not ideal for progressive and LGBT activists, the situation is far from so-hopeless-we-might-as-well-just-give-up-until-2008. On the purely political level, one effect of that anti-war surge in the last election was a new party in control of both houses of Congress. Climate change and programs to limit it have been slowly working their way into our discourse. Progressive and LGBT activists are in a stronger position than they’re been in years (the last 6 really), and it’s a shame to see them content to waste these next two years. And lets not forget that no matter what a candidate is saying now on the campaign trail, it has yet to be seen how effectively any proposals will be once forced to go through the political process.
Here’s my suggestion: Barring any particularly egregious action coming from the presidential campaigns, lets ignore them in our everyday discourse. We’ll still focus on the same issues, but we’ll focus on how we can address them now. I think that this moratorium should stand until at least Labor Day. After Labor Day, we can slowly start integrating presidential campaigns into our discourse. The longer until your state’s primary or caucuses, the more slowly you can wade in. Until then, focus on solutions NOW. Even if the problems can’t be solved overnight, we might as well get started fixing them sooner, rather than later.
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