Every single election cycle I hear the same message from Gay Inc.: you have to go vote, and you have to vote Democrat. Anything else, apparently, would lead to utter disaster. You simply can't vote for an evil, bad Republican, and voting for a third party… I mean, who even does that? Third parties are totally for hippies, nut jobs, and tin-hat wearers, amiright?
Every. Single. Year. The same exact message.
And you know what? The message is wrong. You should vote for whomever you think will best represent you. Period.
Vote (dem) Or Die
It's funny to me that every time I mention in a group that I want to vote for a Green Party or (god forbid) Socialist candidate the whole group gasps and stares at me with bewilderment. How could I vote for someone other than a Democrat! Everyone knows that if I vote for anyone other than the Democrat, I'll be "wasting" my vote and then the evil, vile, blood-thirsty Republican will eat me in my sleep. Seriously, everyone knows that. Just ask your average LGBT person at the gay bar, they'll tell you all about it.
But here's the thing: your average Democrat doesn't represent my beliefs. Most Democrats don't support full marriage equality, the unequivocal repeal of DADT, the inclusion of LGB and T folks in the civil rights bills, completely universal health care, stronger, larger government enterprises regulating more business and industry, free higher education, publicly subsidized political campaigns, etc. They simply don't support those causes. Occasionally Democrat X or Y might support one or two of these, but never more than that. Why should I accept that my representative only represents a tiny, tiny portion of what I believe in?
It's All Fun And Games Until The Conservative Wins
So then we're told that if I do go and vote for a third party candidate, I'm wasting my vote and hurting the candidate that is at least left-leaning. I've got two questions about that: why does that barely leftist candidate deserve my vote? And, will she really represent me better than the slightly right-leaning candidate? People that make this statement also assume that I would vote for the Democrat in the first place, which at this point is no longer the case. If the Democrat does not support my views, I will find a candidate that does and vote for them. So it follows that ultimately that vote that I cast for my non-mainstream candidate does not harm the mainstream candidate's chances.
It Ain't Easy Being Green
Was I under any delusion that a Green Party candidate or other far left party candidate was going to win this last election? No. But I do believe that me voting for the candidate that I truly support will send a message that Democrats cannot count on my vote any longer until they are willing to support my views.
"But they can't do anything if they aren't in power," some say. To which I reply "Oh really? Look what the Republicans did the last two years!" Not only did they halt the government, but they went back to the drawing board and reassessed their platform. They listened to the far-right in their party and they assimilated that platform. And you know what? It worked for them! For now at least… it'll blow up in their faces in a couple years, but they won in the short term.
If the Democrats want my vote, they need to earn it. Stand up for me, fight for me, pass the legislation you said you would pass. Until then, I'm throwing my weight behind someone who will do those things.
Showing posts with label Partisanship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Partisanship. Show all posts
Monday, November 8, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
What Happened To Getting Real News?
As my morning routine dictates, I watched Good Morning, America this morning. While it's nice to get the news updates of the day, for me it is more important to have idle chatter going on in the background than to actually pick up on any of the news. This particular morning I happened to be actually paying attention to a segment in which they were discussing the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court by President Obama. It's a topical subject, and one that I am actually interested in as I just don't know enough yet about her to understand if I support her or not.
This being a well-respected newscast I was under the assumption that the reporters would provide some real insight into the subject or bring to light some information that may be useful to the audience. I forgot, however, that I was watching an American "journalist" broadcast, which means no actual news can be reported, only partisan rhetoric.
The Good Morning, America team invited a Fox News anchor person on to discuss her opinions on Elena Kagan's nomination. Fox news as a whole, being possibly the most partisan "news" network we have in the States, does not know how to provide true journalistic insight into ANY topic, and this particular anchorwoman clearly was a devotee to the Fox News slant.
Her argument against Kagan? That having military recruiters separated from other organizations on Harvard's campus was equivalent to installing a "Separate But Equal" mentality into Harvard, and that doing so was just so, so wrong. After recovering from the daze of being struck with a 10-ton block of Irony, I had to hold myself back from screaming at the screen (my damn sexy fiancé still being asleep and all). The reason military recruiters were restricted on Harvard's campus? Because of the military's Don’t Ask, Don't Tell policy. That policy conflicts with the Universities non-discrimination and inclusion policies, which are designed specifically to combat "Separate But Equal" situations. So the right wing thinks it can slander a SCOTUS candidate by crying discrimination when it was the right wing that enshrined discrimination into the military? Right... good luck with that...
That whole debacle aside, it got me thinking about the state of journalism in the US. Specifically that we don't have it any more. Journalists are suppose to be impartial and are only suppose to report on the facts so that the partisan masses can make up their own minds. Instead, "journalists" engage partisan hacks at every turn to report their Opinions on a subject, but never really reveal any new facts. We are left to fact find for ourselves.
Look at any of the major news networks. CNBC brings out the Liberal viewpoint almost without contradiction, Fox does the same for the conservative view point, then CNN provides "both sides" of the story, but that just devolves into partisan talking points being barked on air. Have we forgotten that the entire point of journalism is to shed light on news stories, and that the onus of deciding how to feel about said stories is entirely on the audience? Apparently we have.
To me it is sad that I hear and read better Journalistic efforts in the gaming world than I do in the world of "hard news." I can go to any number of gaming news sites to get impartial news about the day's gaming happenings, all from bloggers mind you (who are not Journalists, according to the biased talking heads on Fox, CNN, CNBC, etc.), but I can't find a single source of non-biased Hard News any more.
There is still plenty of value in Opinionated Reporting. I rather enjoy watching Rachel Maddow, and there are those who somehow find Bill O'Reilley bearable. I also enjoy reading some opinionated blogs. But I know I'm only getting one side of a story when I read and hear these things, which makes it very hard for me to form an actual opinion on a topic. I may agree with Keith Olbermann more often than not, but when I know that he is only reporting on things that reflect positively on his opinion, I have a hard time giving him a blank check of credibility.
I want News again. I want Journalism. I want to be able to have enough actual, solid information on any given subject to be able to form real opinions and to have factual, honest debates with those who form opposing opinions. I'm tired of getting party-written talking points fed to me by "journalists." And I am tired of hunting for that information on my own. I have a full-time job already. The reason these "journalists" are employed is to spend their days finding information to report so that people like me who have non-journo jobs can get that information. That's how the job market is suppose to work. Instead, we have a broken system of EntertaiNews that rewards partisan barking over actual information gathering.
Am I likely to give up watching Good Morning, America or Rachel Maddow Show or any of the other programs I normally watch now? Being a creature of habbit, probably not. But if given the opportunity to watch a Real News show for once arises and it happens to be in one of those times slots, I may just abandon my current News programs for something a bit more on par with what I'm looking for. Sadly, I don't see that happening any time soon.
This being a well-respected newscast I was under the assumption that the reporters would provide some real insight into the subject or bring to light some information that may be useful to the audience. I forgot, however, that I was watching an American "journalist" broadcast, which means no actual news can be reported, only partisan rhetoric.
The Good Morning, America team invited a Fox News anchor person on to discuss her opinions on Elena Kagan's nomination. Fox news as a whole, being possibly the most partisan "news" network we have in the States, does not know how to provide true journalistic insight into ANY topic, and this particular anchorwoman clearly was a devotee to the Fox News slant.
Her argument against Kagan? That having military recruiters separated from other organizations on Harvard's campus was equivalent to installing a "Separate But Equal" mentality into Harvard, and that doing so was just so, so wrong. After recovering from the daze of being struck with a 10-ton block of Irony, I had to hold myself back from screaming at the screen (my damn sexy fiancé still being asleep and all). The reason military recruiters were restricted on Harvard's campus? Because of the military's Don’t Ask, Don't Tell policy. That policy conflicts with the Universities non-discrimination and inclusion policies, which are designed specifically to combat "Separate But Equal" situations. So the right wing thinks it can slander a SCOTUS candidate by crying discrimination when it was the right wing that enshrined discrimination into the military? Right... good luck with that...
That whole debacle aside, it got me thinking about the state of journalism in the US. Specifically that we don't have it any more. Journalists are suppose to be impartial and are only suppose to report on the facts so that the partisan masses can make up their own minds. Instead, "journalists" engage partisan hacks at every turn to report their Opinions on a subject, but never really reveal any new facts. We are left to fact find for ourselves.
Look at any of the major news networks. CNBC brings out the Liberal viewpoint almost without contradiction, Fox does the same for the conservative view point, then CNN provides "both sides" of the story, but that just devolves into partisan talking points being barked on air. Have we forgotten that the entire point of journalism is to shed light on news stories, and that the onus of deciding how to feel about said stories is entirely on the audience? Apparently we have.
To me it is sad that I hear and read better Journalistic efforts in the gaming world than I do in the world of "hard news." I can go to any number of gaming news sites to get impartial news about the day's gaming happenings, all from bloggers mind you (who are not Journalists, according to the biased talking heads on Fox, CNN, CNBC, etc.), but I can't find a single source of non-biased Hard News any more.
There is still plenty of value in Opinionated Reporting. I rather enjoy watching Rachel Maddow, and there are those who somehow find Bill O'Reilley bearable. I also enjoy reading some opinionated blogs. But I know I'm only getting one side of a story when I read and hear these things, which makes it very hard for me to form an actual opinion on a topic. I may agree with Keith Olbermann more often than not, but when I know that he is only reporting on things that reflect positively on his opinion, I have a hard time giving him a blank check of credibility.
I want News again. I want Journalism. I want to be able to have enough actual, solid information on any given subject to be able to form real opinions and to have factual, honest debates with those who form opposing opinions. I'm tired of getting party-written talking points fed to me by "journalists." And I am tired of hunting for that information on my own. I have a full-time job already. The reason these "journalists" are employed is to spend their days finding information to report so that people like me who have non-journo jobs can get that information. That's how the job market is suppose to work. Instead, we have a broken system of EntertaiNews that rewards partisan barking over actual information gathering.
Am I likely to give up watching Good Morning, America or Rachel Maddow Show or any of the other programs I normally watch now? Being a creature of habbit, probably not. But if given the opportunity to watch a Real News show for once arises and it happens to be in one of those times slots, I may just abandon my current News programs for something a bit more on par with what I'm looking for. Sadly, I don't see that happening any time soon.
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